9M133 Kornet - Combat History

Combat History

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Kornets were used by some groups of Iraqi special forces to attack American armoured vehicles, "disabling at least two Abrams tanks and one Bradley armored troop carrier in the opening week of the war".

The second verified episode of Kornet ATGM in combat use occurred during the 2006 Lebanon War, where the missiles, reportedly supplied by Syria, were successfully used by Hezbollah fighters to destroy up to two Israeli Merkava tanks, and damage a number of others. One of the first detailed accounts of IDF's successful capture of Kornet ATGMs on Hezbollah positions in the village of Ghandouriyeh appeared in the Daily Telegraph article, which also reported that the boxes were marked with "Customer: Ministry of Defense of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia". Several months after the cease-fire, reports have provided sufficient photographic evidence that Kornet ATGMs were indeed both in possession of, and used by, Hezbollah in this area.

Israel claims that Russian weapons were smuggled to Hezbollah by Syria, and Israel has sent a team of officials to Moscow to show Russia the evidence of what they say can only be Syrian weapons transfers. Despite initial public denials by the Russian officials that any proof of actual use of Kornet by Hezbollah has been presented, the Russian government in fact has moved to tighten control over the use of Russian-made weapons by the importing states, suggesting that the visit of the Israeli delegation did bear fruit, although it might have nothing to do with Kornet. On 6 December 2010 a Kornet launched from the Gaza strip penetrated the armour of a Merkava Mark III tank on the Israeli side of the border, but it caused no injuries in this instance. Following this incident, the Israel Defense Forces decided to deploy Merkava tanks fitted with the anti-missile defense system Trophy active protection system near the Gaza strip.