Last week, after a suicide bomber attacked a Turkish town near the Syrian border, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan allowed the U.S. to launch aerial attacks on Islamic State (IS) from Turkish bases. Although this tactical aid is important, writes Michael Rubin, it does not mean that Turkey has suddenly gone back to being an American ally:

Has Erdogan finally recognized that his passive, if not active, support for IS has endangered all Turks with a jihadist backlash?

[Although] those directing the U.S. fight against IS . . . might applaud Turkey’s sudden cooperation, . . . they don’t recognize that Turkey might be pursuing very different goals. While Turkish planes have launched some attacks on IS targets in Syria, they have directed far more sorties bombing the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgents and fighters in northern Iraq. . . .

Another way to look at this is that Turkey is bombing the same Kurdish Peshmerga [fighters] who have been most successful at rolling back IS in Syria and around Mount Sinjar in Iraq. By such a flagrant violation of the peace process with the PKK, Erdogan also is preparing the groundwork for dissolving the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the Kurdish party whose members generally sympathize with the PKK and whose election success in June denied Erdogan’s followers a majority for the first time since they came to power in 2002.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.