SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE REPORTING - The January 28 strike that killed three U.S. service members at a base in Jordan sparked an escalation that has already seen multiple U.S. airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The strike has also highlighted the proliferation of a tool that has become essential for Iran and its various militia groups: the weaponized drone.
Multiple reports suggest that Iran manufactured the drone that slammed into the Tower 22 base in Jordan. U.S. officials have described the weapon used as “a type of Shahed drone,” likely designed by Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, a subsidiary of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The Shahed has gained broad notoriety as a weapon of choice for Russia in its war against Ukraine, but it’s only one example of a burgeoning drone industry that has become an economic boon for Iran. A wide range of Iranian drones can now be found in the arsenals of Iran’s various proxies in the Middle East. In the four months since Hamas’ deadly raid into Southern Israel, these drones have killed Israeli civilians and American soldiers, disrupted international shipping and damaged critical infrastructure across Ukraine.
All the proxies have them
All the militias in the region that enjoy Iranian support have added Iran-made drones to their arsenals – and used them to powerful effect.
As Houthi fighters in Yemen have waged their months-long war against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, they have made regular use of Iranian drones. Since November 19, at least 29 ships have been attacked; 13 the victims of direct strikes from drones.
Reuters recently profiled the Houthis’ arsenal, highlighting the Qasef-1 and Qasef-2K reconnaissance and attack drones, both manufactured in Iran. The Qasef series is described by a defense consultant as “cheap and basic,” with a range of up to 60 miles and the ability to carry a 90-pound warhead. Houthi forces have also employed the notorious Shahed “suicide drone” - which detonates on impact - as well as a series of Sammad drones, which experts say is similar to the Qasef but with a longer range and smaller warhead.
While the Houthis have used other weapons in their Red Sea campaign, it’s no exaggeration to say that the use of drones has significantly hindered international commerce. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last week that container shipping in the Red Sea has been reduced by almost 30 percent. Container shipping rates rose 150 percent from December 31 to January 29 after declining for almost two years.
It’s also no exaggeration to say that Iranian drones helped launch the current war in the Middle East.
Hamas carried out its October 7 attack against Israel with the help of dozens of Zaouari suicide drones (named after a Tunisian engineer, Mohamed Zaouari, who spearheaded Hamas’ own drone program and was assassinated in 2016). The Zaouari drones are reportedly produced locally by Hamas based on Iranian designs - an indication that Iran’s technology and its tactical training of militant groups has allowed some level of self-sufficiency among the militias.
Kerry Chavez and Ori Swed, faculty members of the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Laboratory at Texas Tech University, said that “drones are a key component” of Hamas’ new-found ability to conduct operations as complicated as the October 7 assault. By using drones in joint operations with conventional forces, they said, “Hamas is demonstrating a capacity to field a multi-domain force against a stronger adversary.”
Hezbollah in Lebanon is the oldest and most powerful of the region’s Iran-backed militia groups, and its arsenal of missiles and rockets make drones less critical. But Hezbollah has also launched attacks featuring Iranian-made drones against military and civilian targets in northern Israel since October, including several drone strikes in January.
Joe Truzman, a research analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said the Hezbollah drone operations show the range of threats Israel faces from well-equipped terrorist groups and the need for Israel to go after the supply line that enables “Iran’s efforts to supply its proxies with precision-guided technology.”
Then there are the smaller Iranian-backed groups, including the umbrella organization known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq which carried out the Tower 22 attack. Drones have been the weapon of choice for most of these militias.
Caitlin Lee, director of RAND’s Acquisition and Technology Policy Program, said “unmanned systems are perfect weapons” to grant “plausible deniability” to Tehran in the various strikes, even as the country remains “a top supplier of these weapon systems.”
The Made-in-Iran drone: A Booming Business
According to Iran Watch, a weapons-tracking website produced by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, more than a dozen combat and reconnaissance drones are currently in production in Iran, including multiple generations of the Shahed, Mohajer, and Ababil platforms. The Iran Primer, produced by the U.S. Institute of Peace, reports that the most recent generations of Iranian suicide drones boast several key features: they are cheap and portable, they have detection-defeating low thermal signatures, and use easily smuggled components.
Their more sophisticated siblings – heavy payload and reconnaissance drones – include more than a dozen variants that can attack ground, sea or air targets and return to base. Larger models have ranges of more than 1,000 miles, and can carry munitions payloads exceeding 1,000 pounds. Put differently, these aren’t your off-the shelf drone weapons.
The Iran Watch report described Iran’s domestic drone industry as an “ecosystem” including R&D, manufacturing and logistics divisions, overseen by government, military, and private sector partners.
The IRGC Aerospace Force and its Shahed Aviation Industries produce the Shahed-series drones that are infamous for the damage they have inflicted on Ukraine in Russia's war there.
Getting Around the Sanctions: A Covert Web
Previous reports have indicated that most technology components used in the Iranian drone program were initially manufactured in the U.S., Europe, and other Western-aligned countries. A clandestine supply chain to obtain these components has operated successfully, sources say, despite the West’s imposition of one of the most comprehensive sanction regimes in modern history.
Iran sustains and expands its military drone program through a web of murky, back-alley connections among widely scattered tech component intermediaries and brokers. The U.S. Commerce Department recently announced a $15 million bounty for information leading to the arrest of Hossein Hatefi Ardakani, CEO of an Iranian electronics company suspected of providing dual-use components to the IRGC drone program.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Ardakani had obtained servomotors and inertial navigation devices – key components for Iran’s weaponized drones - through a covert transnational procurement network.
The bounty announcement followed the unsealing of an indictment in December charging Ardakani and several others with operating “intermediary companies, front companies, and logistics businesses” in Iran, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Technology from these sources, according to the Treasury Department, flowed directly into the drone production of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force Self-Sufficiency Jihad Organization, an R&D enterprise for drones and other weapons.
Ukraine – a Showcase for Iran’s arsenal
Nowhere has the power and impact of Iranian drones been clearer that in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Iran first shipped its Shahed drones to Russia in August 2022, and since then they have helped Russia carry out thousands of aerial assaults on Ukrainian military and civilian targets. The word alone – Shahed – has become a familiar term and source of dread for millions of Ukrainians.
The workhorse of Russia’s campaign is the Shahed-136, a loitering munition that has been used in thousands of missions in Ukraine. The Russians have been impressed enough with the Shahed-136 to start a joint manufacturing base for the drone on its own soil; Russia now collaborates with Iran at a Shahed-producing factory in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. Their goal is to produce 6,000 drones by summer 2025.
Reports in January indicated that Iran has delivered yet another Shahed variant to Russia. Experts believe the new drone, the Shahed-107, may be equipped with sensors capable of picking out high-value battlefield targets, and - unlike the Shahed one-way suicide drones – it can fly round-trip missions, with a range of almost 1,000 miles.
Beyond the technology, there is the damage these weapons are inflicting. Russia has upped the tempo of its drone campaign in the last few months, and the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reports that intensified drone and missile attacks since December have “violently interrupted” the 2023 trend toward fewer civilian casualties.
How to Strike Back
Experts say that as the sheer number of Iranian drones grows, so does the vulnerability of all those on the Iranian proxies’ target lists.
Lee argues that Iran’s unchecked proliferation of drones throughout the Middle East must be met with a preemptive “left of launch” strategy - as in, striking launch and logistics sites before they are used for offensive operations. Lee notes that “the U.S. has tried to do some of this in response to the Houthi attacks…but that is too little, too late. What is needed is a systematic, prolonged U.S.-led campaign to go after drone and missile proliferation networks before they result in attacks.”
Mohammed Soliman, director of the Middle East Institute’s Strategic Technologies and Cybersecurity Program, said the U.S.’ decades-long superiority in drone weaponry has been eroded by the rapid evolution of technology. “Drones epitomize this shift. Cheap, lightweight, targeted, and easily replaced, they pose a significant and often invisible threat,” he said in an interview with Defensescoop. “This harsh reality exposes a critical failing: the U.S. military has been, and continues to be, underprepared for the contemporary threat landscape.”
Patrick Killingsworth, a former Air Force fighter pilot and director of autonomy product at the EpiSci software company, echoed that concern and said the U.S. must “invest in the resources to prepare for the future fight.”
The January 28 attack on the Tower 22 base, Killingsworth told Defensescoop, should not be seen as a “one-off” incident. “The capability for similar attacks in the region almost certainly exists — it’s a threat we must respect.”
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