File image.
Hezbollah on April 1 shared video footage showing its fighters launching a new type of jet-powered suicide drones that was unveiled by Iran only last year, in the first sign that the group may be still receiving weapons from the Islamic Republic despite losing its main supply routes in neighboring Syria with the fall of the regime of former president Bashar al-Assad.
The group said that the attack, which took place two days earlier, targeted Filon Base to the east of the city of Safad in northern Israel.
Located just 16 kilometers away from the border with Lebanon, the base serves as the headquarters of the Israeli Defense Forces’ 210th Division.
On the day of the attack, sirens warning of drone infiltration sounded over northern Israel. However, Hebrew media didn’t report any interceptions or impacts.
The drone used in the attack on Filon Base is identical to a type first unveiled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the sideline of the Great Prophet 19 drills held in January of last year, that’s around a month after the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
The guards didn’t reveal the name of the drone, or provide any details about its specifications. It features a very basic design, with two rare-mounted micro jet engines and a t-tail.
The drone likely features a basic satellite-aided inertial navigation system, and is launched with the assistance of a rocket booster.
Click to see full-size image. (Tasnim News Agency)
Click to see full-size image. (Tasnim News Agency)
Click to see full-size image. (Tasnim News Agency)
Hezbollah may have received drones of this type before the fall of the Assad regime, which facilitated Iranian weapons shipments to Lebanon. However, this is not very likely as the group was not documenting using such drones during the previous confrontation with Israel which was sparked by the war in the Gaza Strip and ended before the collapse of the regime in Syria.
Over the past year, several Hebrew media reports said that weapons were still being smuggled by Iran to Lebanon via Syria.
Some Lebanese and Iranian analysts close to Hezbollah even claimed that the flow of weapons was increasing, with the group buying the weapons of the former Syrian military in blocks from smugglers and even officials from Syria’s new government.
Syrian government forces ramped up efforts to seal the border with Lebanon following the start of the war in Iran, which reignited the battle between Hezbollah and Israel, and have since announced the discovery of two smuggling tunnels, one of which turned out to be linked to a covert missile launch site.
More evidence will be needed to assess that Iranian weapons are still finding their way to Hezbollah, but fierce resistance and its use of new equipment suggest that it is not completely cut off.
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pathetic. once we cut the head of the lranian snake, we’ll slowly hang and squeeze the life out of every fighter of the so called, useless axis of resistance.