Iran says a new drone it has unveiled has a range of 7,000 kilometers, according to Tasnim News Agency and other reports, making it a challenge to the United States and a clear warning to Israel.
Even if the drone has not achieved such a long range in a real flight (easily far enough to fly from Tehran to Reykjavik), Iran is sending a warning message that it can strike Israel with this weapon.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Maj.-Gen. Hossein Salami has said the new drone has a 7,000-km. range, which means it could fly from Iran or via Yemen or Syria over Israel and back to its base.
Iran recently unveiled a drone called Gaza, a clear reference to the recent 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel. It is unclear if the 7,000-km. range refers to the range of the new Gaza drone or another type.
IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh is one of the key figures behind the drone and missile program.
The “IRGC commander-in-chief, who was enumerating the country’s achievements in technology and science and also developed the field of aerospace, said today we have wide-body drones that go back and forth 7,000 kilometers and land anywhere they want,” Tasnim reported.
The new Gaza drone is called the Shahed 149 and is larger than the Shahed 129, the report said.
Iran may have sent a drone to Yemen that could threaten Israel, Newsweek reported in January. In May, Iran was behind the launch of a drone from Iraq via Syria into Israeli airspace. Israel shot it down.
According to Salami, the new Shahed 149 can carry 13 bombs.
“Until now, the Shahed 171 drone, which was a one-to-one scale [copy] of the American RQ-170, had a range of 4,400 km. and was the longest-range drone in Iran,” Tasnim reported. Iran downed the US RQ-170, a secretive spy drone, in 2011 and claimed to have reverse-engineered it.
The new long-range drone supposedly can take off and land, unlike Iran’s kamikaze drones, which are preprogrammed to fly and hit a specific target, similar to a cruise missile.
In theory, this new drone could be programmed to fly a long distance and then land somewhere else, Iranian media sources have said.
“In recent years, the armed forces of our country, especially the IRGC Air Force, have made extensive investments in the field of UAVs and have achieved significant achievements in this field,” Tasnim reported.
Iran boasted about how pro-Iran militias have been showing off new drone capabilities in Iraq, the report said.
A recent pro-Iran militia parade showed militias now have a variety of drones, including a Mohajer-6, an Iranian-style drone. The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen announced new drone attacks on Saudi Arabia on Saturday as well.