Azerbaijani force destroys Armenian air defense system with precision strike

Azerbaijani ballistic missile system reportedly has precision struck ‘Armenian air defense system’ in the disputed Karabakh region.

Several military reporters’ accounts claim that Azerbaijan used a LORA short-range, road-mobile ballistic missile system to destroy the Armenian Tor air defense system in Khankendi (Stepanakert).

The LORA is an artillery weapon system developed in Israel. This weapon is a short-range “quasi-ballistic” missile system, in that the missile follows a ballistic trajectory to the target, but performs random or programmed evasive maneuvers while in flight to allay tracking and interception.

Footage released by the Azerbaijani military shows a ballistic missile destroying a Tor-series air defense system near Khankendi.

Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan and which has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.