A video released by a Syrian group fighting regime of Bashar al-Assad appears to show an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) carrying a weapon carrying out strikes in Syria.
According to Jane’s Intelligence website, the remotely piloted aircraft showed in the footage appears to be a Shahed-129 unmanned aerial vehicle.
Shahed-129 which is said to be the most sophisticated UAV the Iranian regime uses has an endurance of 24 hours and a range of 2,000 km.
The group that published the video on February 7 said the footage was filmed north of Aleppo. Currently the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is fighting Syrian opposition forces in that area.
“The UAV appears to be carrying an object under its left wing that appears to be similar in size to the weapons that have been seen in Iranian media coverage of the Shahed-129,” Janes wrote.
Earlier on February 5, Janes wrote: “Iran appears to have conducted strike missions over Syria and Iraq using its Shahed-129 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), according to footage released by national media on 2 February.”
Reports on the Iranian regime using UAVs to carry out missions in Syria had emerged as early as 2014. At the time, the UAV was believed to be conducting surveillance missions near Damascus and was not seen to be armed.