TEHRAN -- Iran has drones with a range of 7,000 km (4,375 miles), chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) General Hussein Salami said Sunday, that can reach well beyond Occupied Palestine.
Drones are a key element in Tehran’s border surveillance, especially the Persian Gulf waters around the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil supply flows.
“We have unmanned aerial vehicles with long range of 7,000 kilometres. They can fly, return home, and make landing wherever they are planned to,” Gen. Salami said at a ceremony to unveil homegrown Noora vaccine against COVID-19.
Salami said Iran has decided to be among the best in all fields, from science to technology and today it is among the pioneer and leading countries in many fields.
“By the grace of God, we launch satellites now; we are a pioneer in nanotechnology.... We are a pioneer not only in military technologies but in many other fields,” he said.
Iranian military experts and technicians have in recent years made great progress in indigenously developing and manufacturing a broad range of equipment, making the armed forces self-sufficient in this regard.
Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to build up its defense capabilities, emphasizing that such abilities are entirely meant for the purpose of defense and will be never subject to negotiations.
The announcement by Gen. Salami came after the United States and the Zionist regime reportedly held talks earlier this month on cooperation against unmanned Iranian drones.
Building on an April agreement between the two regimes, an interagency working group dealing with Iranian drones and precision-guided missiles convened for the first time three weeks ago, the Walla news site reported.
Quoting both senior U.S. and Israeli officials involved in the talks, the report said the American team was led by White House National Security Council Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa Brett McGurk and the Israeli team was headed by deputy security adviser Reuven Ezer.
One idea reportedly raised in the meeting was establishing a “no-fly zone” in the Middle East for Iranian UAVs.
The Zionist regime has waged a nearly decade-long bombing campaign in Syria, claiming they targeted Iranian military advisors and the country’s allies.
Last week Walla reported that the U.S. had increased military coordination with Israel and with a number of Middle Eastern countries in an effort to counter the Islamic Republic.
Iran has had experience using drones since the war with Iraq in the 1980s. While Iranian drones like the Shahed 129 are known to have a ferry range of under 2,000km with an endurance of 24, the existence of a 7,000km-range drone had not been confirmed by Iran before.
In May, the IRGC unveiled its Ghazzeh armed drone, touting a flight time of 2,000km with the ability to carry 13 bombs.
In 2011, a U.S.-made RQ-170 Sentinel was captured by Iranian forces, granting Iran access to sophisticated UAV technology. Iran later displayed seemingly reverse engineering copies with its Shahed 171 Simorgh and Saegheh UAVS.
In January, Iran had unveiled a range of suicide drones it said could hit targets 4,000km away. Last year, the IRGC unveiled fast-attack boats that were equipped with Ababil-2 suicide drones that it deployed to the Sea of Oman and Persian Gulf.