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New Details of Hamas' Rockets Emerge

 Hamas used a new rocket in its attack against Jerusalem on Monday called the A-120 and named for a commander killed by the IDF during the Gaza War of 2014.

The "A-120" is said to have a range of about 120 kilometers and was seen in footage shared by Hamas of a long rocket being loaded by masked terrorists into a launcher in the Gaza Strip. Seven rockets were fired toward Jerusalem on Monday, one of which hit a home in a nearby suburb, causing damage but no injuries.The rocket is strikingly similar to the R-160 which Hamas boasted as its longest-range domestically-made rocket, first fired in the 2014 war, at one point hitting as far north as near Haifa. 

The "R" referred to a former top Hamas commander, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, who was killed in an Israeli targeted killing in 2004. 

The A-120 is said to be named for Ra'ed Al-Attar, who was the commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade in southern Gaza and a member of the terror group’s military council. His command was viewed as important due to Rafah’s proximity to the border with Egypt and being the home to smuggling tunnels into Gaza. 

Congressional reports claim that Attar authorized the August 2010 firing of Grad-style rockets from the Sinai Peninsula into Eilat and Aqaba, Jordan.Israel claimed that Attar was also responsible for the murder and abduction of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and that the Rafah brigade under his command was involved in other incidents during the campaign in which IDF soldiers were wounded.

In 1994, Attar was involved in a shooting which killed an Israeli soldier along the Egyptian border. In 2002, he planned a deadly attack on an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom in which four IDF soldiers of the Bedouin desert patrol unit were killed.

China fields J-10 jets powered by homemade engine

Chengdu J-10 jets powered by indigenous engines have entered operational service with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, representing China’s confidence in the local technology to equip the single-engine, multirole aircraft.

Images posted by China National Radio of a PLAAF live-firing exercise at an unspecified location show J-10C Vigorous Dragons with the distinctive exhaust nozzles of the WS-10B Taihang turbofan engine, marking the first time the WS-10 has been officially seen on an operational J-10.

The serial numbers on the tails of the J-10Cs were removed from the images by Chinese censors, making it impossible to identify the PLAAF unit operating the jets.

The confirmation of J-10s powered by an indigenous engine represents a key milestone for China’s aviation industry, and it suggests China is now satisfied by the performance and reliability of the WS-10. China has been testing the engine on the J-10 since at least 2011, with the engine seen on J-10B and J-10C test bed aircraft belonging to the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group, although the engines were not seen on production aircraft until the fourth production batch of J-10Cs in 2019.

It’s unknown when these initial aircraft with WS-10 engines were delivered to the PLAAF. China does not routinely publicize such milestones, although Andreas Rupprecht, who has authored several books on Chinese military aviation, believes a Shantou-based PLAAF brigade was the first to receive the aircraft.

China has had troubles with the design and manufacture of fighter engines over the past decade or so. Despite having used the WS-10 to power the twin-engine Shenyang J-11 and J-16 jets since around 2010, the country has continued to use imported Russian AL-31 engines to power the Shenyang J-15 carrier-borne fighter and earlier batches of J-10s.

China is also continuing work on indigenous engines, with a J-10B test bed version fitted with a stealthy, thrust-vectoring WS-10B performing at the 2018 Zhuhai Airshow. It is also developing the WS-15 engine for its stealthy Chengdu J-20 Mighty Dragon and the WS-10 high-bypass turbofan for its Xi’an Y-20 airlifter.

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