-- the 'most aggressive' electronic warfare environment on Earth

• The commander of US Special Operations Command said that Syria has become “the most aggressive electronic warfare environment on the planet from our adversaries.”
• General Raymond Thomas stated that US communications are brought down and that aircraft, specifically the EC-130, have been disabled.
• The revelations come after a report from NBC News showed that Russian military jamming is affecting smaller US drones operating in Syria.

General Raymond Thomas, the commander of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), revealed that Syria has become the frontline of electronic warfare and US planes are being disabled.

“Right now in Syria we are operating in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet from our adversaries,” Thomas told a crowd of some 2,000 “intelligence professionals” at the GEOINT Symposium on Tuesday, according to Breaking Defence.

“They are testing us everyday, knocking our communications down, disabling our EC-130s, etcetera,” he added.

While Thomas did not say which country is responsible for the attacks, Russian jamming and electronic warfare capabilities in Syria have long been noticed. Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Russian jamming was affecting small US surveillance drones.

Those efforts were, according to NBC News, not affecting larger armed drones like the MQ-1 Predator or the MQ-9 Reaper. A Defence Department official told NBC News that the jamming was having an operational impact on operations in Syria.

It’s not clear what exactly Thomas meant by “disabling,” but Lori Moe Buckhout, a former Army colonel and expert on electronic warfare, told Breaking Defence that the attacks could possibly have targeted a EC-130’s Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) or communications.

That would force the pilots to use traditional methods of navigation like maps and line of sight, which could make flying the aircraft more difficult.

Iran, Russia’s ally in Syria, claimed that it hacked into a US RQ-170 Sentinel and forced it to land after it gained access to its GPS in 2011.

The EC-130 is designed for electronic warfare and is intended to disrupt enemy communications, radars, and command and control communications, as well as suppress air defences.

Buckhout said that Russia invested heavily in electronic warfare capabilities after its five-day long war with Georgia in 200.

“The Russians put in millions on upgrades after Georgia. They have ended up with killer capabilities, jamming in a multitude of frequencies for hundreds of kilometers,” she said, adding that the Russians “know all of our vulnerabilities.”