Iran has developed a diverse arsenal of kamikaze and reusable combat drones to project military
pressure across the Middle East at an acceptable degree of political and military risk.
In fact, Iran has been using surveillance and combat drones for roughly thirty-five
years, starting with Ababil and Mohajer combat and surveillance drones deployed in the mid-1980s
during the Iran-Iraq War.
A drone unit was even the subject of a 1990s-era war movie Mohajer.
Modernized iterations of the Ababil and Mohajer followed in the 1990s and 2000s.
In the early 2010s, Iranian companies began introducing a diverse spectrum of new designs.
All or most of Iran’s modern drones—even those with the range to fly many hundreds
of miles—still lack satellite communication links allowing for remote control over distances
greater than one hundred to two hundred miles.
However, many areas of interest for Iran either lie within or just across its borders and
coastline—or in places where there are allies happy to receive or host Iranian weapons.
These allies consist of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis rebels in Yemen, Shia militias in
Iraq and the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad.
It’s notable that crashed Iranian drones or their components have been recovered in
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, and
Yemen.
Iran’s drones most prominently serve with the air, sea and ground branches of the “expeditionary”
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps but are being introduced into the regular Iranian
military too.
It’s important to note that most military drones are employed for surveillance and reconnaissance
missions—which could include locating targets for, and observing the results of ballistic
missile attacks—or as practice targets for air defense units.
Even combat drones usually engage in far more reconnaissance than strike missions.
Keeping track of Iranian drone projects is complicated by Tehran’s tendency to circulate
fabricated, exaggerated or inconsistent propaganda about its weapons.
Numerous Iranian companies are developing and manufacturing drones, though these draw
to a degree on off-the-shelf drone components, especially engines, acquired from China or
Europe via international middlemen and shell companies.
In fact, the sheer number of different types in development or production may indicate
reflect inefficiency due to competing industrial and bureaucratic interests.
Iran has also recovered many crashed U.S. drones including Boeing ScanEagles, RQ-170
surveillance drones, and Predator and Reaper combat drones, and developed domestic designs
clearly modeled after them—namely the Yasir, Saegheh-2, Shahed-129 and Kaman-122.
The Ababil “Swallow” entered service in the 1980s, possibly serving as a kamikaze
weapon against Iraqi forces.
The following Ababil-2 and Ababil-3 models introduced more general surveillance roles
with modernized sensors, video feeds, and greater use of lightweight composite materials.
Recently, the Ababil-3 and a knockoff called the Atlas have been adapted to serve as a
UCAV armed with Qaem-1 precision-guided bombs.
However, the older twin-tail Ababil-2T variant has achieved greater notoriety due to Tehran’s
transfer of the drones to armed groups in the Middle East.
Hezbollah received at least eight to twelve Ababil-2Ts, which were redesignated the Mirsad-1s
and fitted with up to 110-pounds of explosives.
Several overflew Israeli airspace in a 2006 war with Israel, and at least two were shot
down by IDF F-16s.
Hezbollah claims to have retired the Mirsads in 2018.
Hamas Shebab kamikaze drones used in the May 2021 Gaza War also appear to be derived from
(but not identical to) the Ababil.
The Houthi drones, which still bear Iranian serial numbers, are designated the Qasef-1
and Qasef-2K, with conventional and air-bursting warheads respectively.
The Houthis employ Qasefs to target phased-array radars of Saudi Patriot air defense systems
to improve the penetration chances of their ballistic missile attacks.
Furthermore, an attack by a Qasef drone in 2019 killed a Yemeni intelligence chief at
al-Anad airbase in 2019.
Iran has also developed a container-launched anti-radar drone that can be carried atop
a small car and allegedly attack targets at long distances (more than nine hundred miles).
This type of loitering munition could prove difficult to detect prior to launch, and might
be reasonably accurate by relying on integrated artificial intelligence to home in on the
emissions of active ground- or sea-based air defense radars.
To what extent the Arash’s control/artificial intelligence scheme is more flexible than
that of a radar-homing cruise missile is unclear, however.