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IDF establishes new ‘multi-dimensional’ combined fighting force

New unit merges ground and air forces that will employ new tactics against a changing enemy.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

As part of the IDF’s long-term plan to adapt its military capabilities to new realities in the field, the military has created a new “multi-dimensional” fighting unit, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.

The move is part of IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi’s new long-term plan according to which military strategists looked at the new threats facing the IDF and came up with changes to existing military doctrine to address the challenges.

Nicknamed “Ghost,” the new fighting force, under the IDF’s “Matkal” central command, will be comprised of groups selected from the IDF’s elite combat and artillery units and grouped with specialized units from the Israel Air Force.

Over the past year, the IDF conducted experiments that proved the new techniques are now ready to be put into practice. The result is a combined, or “multi-dimensional” force that will multiply the strength of the individual ground and air units.

One of the new tactical skills for the force is “expose and destroy.” As opposed to previous wars when the IDF engaged its enemies in the open and both sides used similar equipment, like tanks and armored personnel carriers, today’s enemies – i.e. Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon – employ guerrilla tactics that the military calls “the disappearing enemy.”

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Instead of warfare on open ground, both Hamas and Hezbollah exploit urban warfare according to which terrorists use tunnels and the civilian infrastructure to attack and then hide.

To counter this, the IDF added a special force with the capability to expose and destroy the enemy, the report said.

“The purpose of the exposure-attack company is to increase the lethality of the maneuvering force – whether it is a unit or a combined force – by exposing the enemy with advanced technologies, and then immediately categorizing it and destroying it,” Brig.-Gen. Dan Goldfus, Head of the Infantry and Paratroopers Corps, told the Post.

“This ability will allow the units to step up their ability to carry out more operations, and destroy more enemy forces,” he said.

Goldfus called the change in strategy “a revolution” in the way Israel’s military operates.

“The army is considered a conservative organization when comes to making changes, and here were are changing the way the maneuvering forces are working,” Goldfus said. “We will hear a lot about this change in the future.”