Very concerning!
"A deadly attack on an oil tanker by explosive-laden drones. Unmanned aircraft launched from the Gaza Strip hitting Israeli neighborhoods. Strikes on Saudi Arabian refineries and pipelines and on bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.
Behind this wave of attacks, U.S., European and Israeli defense officials say: Iran and its allies across the Middle East. They say Tehran’s rapidly developing ability to build and deploy drones is changing the security equation in a region already on edge. ..."
"... Iran has based drones at T-4 base in Syria and used them to target Israel in February 2018 and this past May. It has provided drone-making technology to the Houthis in Yemen and has downed US drones and copied Israeli drones.
This allows Iran to traffic the technology and have plausible deniability about the use of the drones. This is because they can pretend the drones being used to attack the US in Iraq – or tankers off the coast of Yemen, or to attack Israel from Syria and Iraq – may be drones flown by proxies, such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis or Hashd al-Shaabi. ...
Although this gives Iran leverage in the region, it doesn’t give it a strategic win; rather, it’s a way to tactically harass its enemies and then hide behind a smoke screen. This is the Iranian way of war these days, and the drones are simply a symptom and a tactic they have adopted, which extends their long arm.
Iran already perfected the use of terrorism, extending its long arm to kill dissidents in Europe and attack US, Israeli, Jewish and other targets around the world. The drones are a new technology Iran is using in a specifically Iranian way: No other country uses drones like this. ...The drones come in family groups, such as the Ababil, Mohajer and Shahed classes. These range in capabilities from surveillance drones to those that can fly thousands of kilometers. Some of them are kamikaze drones, while others return to base.
Iran has now sent large numbers of drones to its allies in the region, including the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It also seeks to export some abroad, including to Venezuela, for example. It is also now basing them at sea, putting them on its Navy ships and IRGC fast boats.
The drones sometimes behave more like cruise missiles, slamming into a target and self-destructing. That gives them plausible deniability and a kind of ability to strike through air defenses and radar by using potential swarm attacks of large numbers of drones.
Iran has shown proficiency in getting around Saudi and US air defenses in some cases. Israel has used Iron Dome and missiles fired from aircraft and helicopters to shoot down the relatively slow drones. ..."The world is waking up to Iran’s drone threat Iran’s drone program, unlike its nuclear weapons program, is not secretive. The Islamic Republic openly brags about its drone capabilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment