Iranian Drones: A New Menace From the Ayatollah

By Mehran Riazaty

In September 2007, the former Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Aziz Ali Jafari (2007-2019), said, “We must be flexible in confronting any threat. The IRGC’s goal is to increase its resilience against enemies of Iran and the Islamic Revolution and strengthen the country’s power and ability to deal with threats to prevent the enemy from acting against the country and the regime.” Jafari stated that he would try to strengthen the IRGC’s power in three ways: first, prepare the IRGC forces for asymmetric warfare; second, improve the country’s intelligence collection power to have better information on enemy’s activities in the region; third, improve country’s missiles capabilities. Aziz Jafari did not mention strengthening and enhancing the use of drones or unmanned aircraft systems. It seems that the IRGC has been working and improving its drone technology covertly since the Iran/Iraq War. The IRGC has around 90 drones for commercial, surveillance, tactical, and suicide missions. The IRGC not only shipped its suicide drones to Russia to be used against Ukraine but also equipped its proxies such as Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis, the Syrian army, and Iraqi Shia Militia groups with all kinds of armed drones. The IRGC also has sold armed drones to Venezuela, Ethiopia, and soon Armenia to use in case of war again with the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Iranian drones look primitive and unsophisticated but are still very lethal. A small and innovative drone, made of wood and foam with a small engine carrying about 5 kg of explosives, may seem unimportant and impractical at first glance. But effectively using such a simple and primitive drone can impose a high cost on the enemy. Iran has decided to enter a drone market focusing on more accurate, longer-range drones. The use of technologically capable Iranian drones as Iranians advance their drone technology, with a more extended range and improved precision, can be devastating to ground forces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369401781

Mehran Riazaty

Mehran Riazaty is a native of Iran. He completed his undergraduate work in political science concentrated in the fields of comparative politics and political philosophy in the United States. In 2003, Mehran was employed by Multi-National Forces Iraq as a Farsi linguist and Iran analyst. He works well beyond his required output every day to ensure that what was coming from the Iranian leadership in Farsi was presented to the U.S. leadership in English within hours of being reported in the Iranian media. His analysis of events, as they occur, was to the point and deadly accurate. He has the in-depth knowledge and understanding of present-day Iranian government and leadership required to compile meaningful biographies and various detailed written imagery of Iranian leaders. His work has been recognized by many different influential people in the United States.

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Copyright © 2023 by Mehran Riazaty. 848886

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911639

Rev. date: 06/30/2023

Contents

Acknowledgment

Introduction

PART 1

History of Drones

History of the Iranian Drones

How and When the First Iranian Drone Was Made?

The Round Table of the First Commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Drone Unit

Iranian Drone Industries

Advantages of Drones Over Warplanes for Iran

US Drones Captured by IRGC

Statistics of Iranian Drones According to Israeli Security Sources

IRGC Ground Force’s Drone Division

First IRGC’s Overseas Drone Operation

IRGC Secretive Drone Base in Kashan

IRGC Drone Bases in the South of Iran

Drone Swarm Base Near City of Shiraz

PART 2

Types of Iranian Drones

Saegheh (Thunderbolt) Drone

Shahed-161 Drone

Shahed-171 Drone

Shahed-191 Drone

Fotros Drone

Simorgh Drone (Shahed-129)

Pelican Drone

MERAJ-504 Suicide Drone

Eris Drone

Sineh Sorkh (Red Chest) Drone

Homa Drone

Delta Drone

Kliak Drone

Kaman-22 Drone

Hamaseh (Epic) Drone

Shahin Drone

Gaza Drone (Shahed-149)

Mohajem (Invader) 92 Drone

Karrar Drone

Kaman-12 Drone

Ra’ad-85 suicide Drone

H-110 Sarir Drone

Arash- 2 Suicide Drone

Shahed-136 Suicide Drone

Kian-1 and Kian-2 Drones

Naseh jet Drone

Sofreh Mahi (Eagle Ray Fish) Drone

Taregh Drone

Kalagh (Crow) Drone

American RQ-11 Raven Drone

Sejjil Jet Drone

Talash-1 and Talash-2

(Hadaf-3000) Drones

Talash-2 (Hadaf-3000) Drone

Farpad Drone

Mobin Drone

Yasir Drone

Tofan (Storm) Drone

Faraz-2 Drone

Faraz-3 Drone

Faraz-20 Drone

Faraz-102 Drone

Faraz-220 Drone

Hazem drone (Ambassador of

death for Iran’s enemies)

Mohajer-1 Drone

Mohajer-2 Drone

Mohajer-2 Drone (New version of Mahajer-2)

Mohajer-3 Drone

Mohajer-4 Drone

Mohajer-4 Drone armed with Hydra-70 rocket

Mohajer-6 Drone

Ababil-1 Drone

Ababil-2 Drone

Ababil-3 Drone

Ababil-5 Drone

Sayeh (Shadow) Drone

Sadegh Drone

Touba-500 Drone

Touba-800 (Gen-X5) Drone

Touba-350 Drone

Touba-400 Drone

Touba-270 Drone

Touba-600 Drone

Ofogh Drone

Oghab (Eagle) hand-launched Drone

Nasim Drone

Safir Reconnaissance Drone

Bena Drone

Saher Drone

Qaher-313 Drone

Kodkar (Automatic) Drone

Shand Drone

Omid (Hope) Drone

Shahab Drone

Shahed-123 Drone

Twin-Engine Drone

Hud Hud-3 Drone

Saqib Suicide Drone

Nazer Drone

Haider-2 Strategic Drone

Payloads of Iranian Drones

Almas 1 and 2 Missiles

Haider 1 cruise missile

Sadid guided bomb

Akhgar missile

Shahab Saqib missile

Ghaem air guided bomb

Ghaem 1 and Ghaem 5 bombs under the wing of Kaman-12

Iran’s first Anti-Drone Missile

PART 3

Exporting Iranian Drones

Iranian Drones: From Latin America to Central Asia

The Iranian Drones in Hands of the Terrorists Groups (Axis of Resistance)

The Jenin drone of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement

Samad UAV of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement

Qasif drone of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement

Rased Surveillance drone of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement

Lebanon’s Hezbollah drone is very similar to Iran’s Ababil-2

Lebanon’s Hezbollah drone is similar to Iran’s Mohajer-2 drone

PART 4

Iran’s Effort to Employ Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Combination of Artificial Intelligence and Suicide Drones by IRGC

Demonstration of the Operation of Swarming UAVs Shahed-161 and 141 in the IRGC Exercise

Iran Ground Forces (NEZAJA) joined the club of Swarming suicide drone attacks and Artificial Intelligence

Conclusion

Source & Links

The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. government. The author enjoys full academic freedom to offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on Iran’s issues.

Prepare Every Force that Can Create Fear in the Hearts of the Enemies

2.jpg

Quran, Verse 60 of Surah Al-Mubarakah

Acknowledgment

I want to thank my friends Amir Tavakoli, Arya Khalesi, and several others who wish their names to stay anonymous for their review and countless constructive comments, which I incorporated herein. I also thank my wife Leyla for having the patience and love to tolerate the many long hours spent researching and writing this work.

Introduction

"It does not matter if the cat is black or white;

As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat."

Former Leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Deng Xiaoping

These days armed drones are engaged in military and intelligence activities in many parts of the world, especially in West Asia and North Africa. In the past several years, armed drones have been one of the main pillars of conflicts in these regions and worldwide.

The Iranian drones look primitive and unsophisticated, but they are lethal. Extensive sanctions and limited financial resources forced Iran to design and build its weapons indigenously. To meet its needs, Tehran produces efficient and low-cost battle-ready drones.

The intensified sanctions program aimed to hinder Iran’s weapons manufacturing process; however, it has helped the country to produce low-cost weapons through simple designs and available parts indigenously. Iran must make various industrial parts and import many components like many countries. Due to sanctions against Iran, especially in the military sector, Tehran buys parts from black markets for manufacturing weapons, circumventing sanctions, and making their manufacturing more resilient.

A small and innovative drone, made of wood and foam with a small engine carrying about 5 kg of explosives, may seem like it could be unimportant and impractical at first glance. But using such a simple and primitive drone can impose a high cost on the enemy. To counter these low-cost drones, Iran’s adversaries must use expensive missiles to shoot them down. For example, a single unit of the Shahed-136 drone recently deployed by Russian forces in Ukraine costs roughly $20,000. To defend itself from these attacks, Ukraine uses the U.S. Patriot system which cost $4 million apiece, and PAC-3 missiles that accompany the Patriot which cost 4.1 million apiece.

In contrast with Turkey’s TB2 drone, used by the Ukrainian side, which comes with a price tag of $1-2 million per unit, the Shahed-136 drone carries a warhead of 30-50 pounds designed to explode on impact. Despite its low cost, the Shahed-136 retains critical capabilities, including the ability to evade radar detection and to operate at a range between 970-1,500km (600-900 mi) to 2000-25,00 km (1,200-1,600mi). Iranian drones usually fly in pairs and then dive toward targets. Although the Iranian drones’ quality and reliability are lower than their Western counterparts, they will likely become the world’s next round of fighting machines.

The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates that a low-cost single-use drone could do much of what a costly cruise missile can do. Russia’s Kalibr cruise missiles, used widely by Russia in Ukraine, cost $1 million each. The Ukrainian military claims they have intercepted 65% to 85% of the Iranian Shahed-136 drones. Russians claim that the Iranian drones are low-cost and good enough as long as they do the job. A spokesman for the Odesa region administration said the Shahed-136 drones are slow. Still, they carry a powerful charge, so a hit from them is equivalent to a missile. In November 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that if Iran were not supplying Russia with arms, the world would now be closer to peace."

At the same time, using low-cost drones in large numbers during the war makes it easy to launch a swarming attack with high casualties, forcing the enemy’s defenses to remain busy until the primary weapon arrives and delivers the main blow. This ability can also significantly reduce the cost of combat operations.

Tehran can quickly put Iranian drones into mass production due to their simplicity, design, and low cost. As a result, Iran has stockpiled many of them in its warehouses, ready for its customers. Iran has consistently demonstrated that it can deliver weapons to its customers and allies in the most challenging situations. This issue is especially evident in Venezuela, where Iran has armed a country in the United States’ backyard with various weapons, including Mohajer-2 and Mohajer-6 drones.

The goal of the Iranian engineers is to mass produce drones similar to missiles so that if the enemy attacks them, so many missiles and drones will be launched and will destroy the entire attack systems of the enemy. Iranian officials claim that Western countries are trying to produce very modern and advanced weapons, but they have realized that mass production of low-cost drones benefits them in wars.

According to Ukrainian President Zelenskiy, Iranian drones damaged more than 30% of Ukraine’s energy sector. U.S. Marine Corps General Kenneth McKenzie, the former Commander of CENTCOM, which oversees the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia, raised concerns over the Iranian drones by saying, The US superiority in air power has ended for the first time after the Second World War because Americans are not able to project aerial power where there are Iranian drones.

While the media are reporting that NATO will soon send hundreds of signal-jammers to try to help Ukraine cope with Russia’s Iranian kamikaze drones, it is not clear these jammers can succeed for two reasons. First, there is a need for a considerable number of jammers to help Ukraine protect sensitive sites. Second, while the jammers usually make it difficult for drones to strike a target precisely, they do not make them unusable.

Recent events demonstrate Iran experimenting with drones armed with explosives in different environments. Iran’s allies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis, the Syrian army, and Iraqi Shias, are equipped with Iranian armed drones. Since 2015, Iran has conducted a slow and steady experiment in Yemen. These experiments provide Iran with instrumentally valuable lessons about overcoming foreign-supplied defensive apparatus, such as the U.S. Patriot and Russian Pantsir systems. Yemen’s war was the best place for Iran to test its drones. For example, in March 2022, Houthis fired about 70 drones, and in other months 25 to 30 drones, whereas, in Ukraine, the amount has been as high as nearly 200 Iranian drones used each month.

On July 2022, an Israeli-linked ship, Mercer Street, was attacked by Waid drones near the Omani port of Duqm, killing the captain in a precision strike. The Yemeni Houthis operate the Shahed-136 under the name Waid. In Iraq, Shia militias use the Shahed-136 drone, known as Murad-6. On May 14, 2019, Iranian and Iraqi Shia fighters launched a Shahed-136 drone from Iraq to strike the Aramco east-west oil pipeline in central Saudi Arabia. The Iranian navy has war-gamed speedboats manned by martyrdom-seeking combatants against the U.S. Navy in case of naval warfare in the Persian Gulf. The Islamic Revolution Guards Crops (IRGC) described the speedboats as a miracle that would enhance Iran’s deterrence power against the United States and other maritime enemies. Iran can also use its kamikaze drones against US troops in the Middle East. The interesting difference is that drone pilots do not risk their life like those driving speed boats full of explosives. The individual piloting the drone in combat can use another drone as soon as his/her drone is eliminated.

The images published by Sutton in December 2022, a previous Iranian-flagged containership was converted into a warship to carry helicopter and fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles at the Iran Shipbuilding and Offshore Industries Complex Company (ISOICO) at Bandar Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz.

In January 2021, the Fars news agency, linked to the IRGC, reported that they deployed 70 Ababil-2 kamikaze drones to the country’s elite Navy force, which controls its territorial waters in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. Iran’s drone attacks at sea are difficult to prevent because of the ambiguity of their point of origin. They launch from Iraq, Yemen, or Iran; after they are detected, it is hard to shoot them down or jam them.

Using low-cost and effective drones has left an impression on Western armies unsatisfied with their current drone programs. The British authorities have announced that building a low-cost and effective drone is an objective they will implement for their armed forces between 2021 and 2025. This change of direction is due to the high cost of the Turkish Batraktar-TB2 drone (between $1 and $2 million) and a drone like the MQ9 Reaper, which England bought for $20 million each.

Iran has decided to enter a market focusing on more accurate and longer-range flying munitions than artillery shells. The use of drones can have devastating effects on the battlefield, especially against ground forces. Such instruments can enable smaller countries to create a simple deterrent against their larger rivals. According to Nicholas Heras, director of strategy and innovation at New Lines Institute: "Iran is building a solid market for all kinds of kamikaze drones.

Iran is estimated to have a hundred thousand missiles and drones. The Iranian army leaders think that in any war, no force has the strength to deal with this number of missiles and drones, not even NATO and the United States.

This book covers Iran’s Drones in five parts:

• The first part explains the history of drones in Iran

• The second part provides biographical information and photos of Iranian drones

• The third part discusses the munitions used by Iranian drones

• The fourth part explains Iranian drones in the hands of Iran’s allies in the region and worldwide.

• The fifth part investigates the IRGC’s use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on its suicide drones in Swarming Attack

PART 1

History of Drones

The history behind unmanned aircraft goes back to the First World War, and some historians believe their emergence came shortly after the Wright brothers invented the first airplanes. The Ryan Aeronautical Company built the first unmanned aircraft in 1948 under the name XQ2.

XQ2’s introduction to the world sparked a realization in governments worldwide regarding the value and need for producing and advancing this highly profitable technological development. This advancement led to heavy investments in researching and building new models and subtypes of drones.

The nomenclature behind these vehicles evolved to identify the subtype of drones, the most common being those operating in the sky. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or unmanned aircraft for short) provide numerous advantages over conventional manned operational aircraft. Their lack of a need for a cockpit to house a pilot allows significantly smaller dimensions relative to traditional aircraft. They can be developed at significantly cheaper resource and monetary costs and usually stay airborne over extended periods. Due to their small size, the enemy radars need help tracking them and struggle further to destroy them.

These UAVs also carry an essential feature in today’s tech-heavy warfare climate. Intelligence is a government’s most valuable asset, and capturing a shot-down pilot provides enemies a direct pipeline into priceless classified information. The drone’s ability to operate without this pilot eliminates a central weakness in military intelligence operations.

One of the goals of making these small and fast-flying birds is to reduce the number of human casualties. There are many other advantages, such as more excellent maneuverability, lack of physiological pressure due to altitude or G acceleration to the pilot, etc.

It should be noted that what is called UAV today is an evolved type of unmanned aircraft that was used as a flying target in ground-to-air or air-to-air shooting exercises, and these flying targets were often known as drones. After Ryan Aeronautical Company built the first target UAV, governments hardly looked at other unmanned aerial vehicles until 1962, when relations between the United States and Cuba were in crisis.

The United States needed accurate photography of the enemy’s strategic areas to attack. Even the famous American spy plane U-2 (nicknamed Dragon Lady) was destroyed by Cuban anti-aircraft fire, causing a wide-ranging political upheaval.

This event led America to think about using unmanned aerial vehicles that could take over the tasks of American spy planes, meaning: photographing, filming, and generally gathering the necessary information from the enemy’s vital positions.

At that time, the United States used the BQM-34A drone model and equipped them with video cameras and other necessary accessories. Although the idea of using drones for spying purposes was formed during the Cuban Missile Crisis, American UAVs never flew over Cuba because the crisis ended quickly.

Of course, the Americans caused a great scandal only a few years later. For the first time in 1965 in Beijing, the People’s Republic of China displayed three reconnaissance UAVs, which, according to experts, belonged to the United States and had entered China’s airspace for espionage.

In December 2011, Iran also showed a captured and intact US stealth drone on a spying mission 140 miles inside Iran on TV. This episode was not the first time an unmanned aircraft became the subject of tension between Iran and the United States. Before the news, Iran announced the destruction of another American drone, this time in the Fordow nuclear facility in the city of Qom.

Since