IThere is no longer any doubt about the importance of syrian laboratory in Russia’s all-out offensive against Ukraine. It is in Syria that the Kremlin tested, then trivialized techniques of terror targeting the civilian population to better weaken the armed opposition: systematic destruction of bridges, schools and hospitals; simulacra of ” humanitarian corridors » to better trap civilians who believe they are escaping hell; the invader’s steamroller aimed at leaving the population only the alternative between submission and exodus, all against a background of paralysis of the UN by the Russian veto.
In addition, General Sergei Surovikin, whom Vladimir Putin appointed as head of ” special military operation “, last October, has long led the Russian troops in Syria. And it was as soon as he took office that the integration of Iranian drones into the waves of Russian bombardments proved to be devastating for energy infrastructures, with the stated objective of breaking Ukrainian resistance through the freezing winter.
Iran’s ‘martyr’ drones
The Assad regime very early acquired Iranian observation drones, of the Mohajer-4 or Ababil-3 type, with a range of around a hundred kilometres. They are produced by the Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industries, a company referred to by its Persian acronym of HESA. These armaments bear names with strong Islamic resonance, Mohajer meaning “emigrated”, in reference to the Meccans converted to Islam who, in 622, accompanied the Prophet Muhammad in his hegira to Medina. As to Ababilthey designate in the Koran the birds which would have protected, around 570, Mecca against invaders from Yemen.
The Assad regime’s setbacks to the revolutionary insurgency forced Iran, from 2012-13, to increasingly engage in Syria, either directly through the Revolutionary Guards or indirectly through the through the Lebanese Hezbollah, then pro-Iranian militias from Iraq. This Iranian commitment was accompanied by a rise in the number of drones employed, this time with the entry into play of Shahed (“Martyr”) 123, then 129 type combat drones.
The Syrian campaign launched by the Kremlin in September 2015 to save the Assad regime threatened with collapse, led to operational collaboration of unprecedented intensity between Russian and Iranian forces. This is particularly true at the air base of Tiyas, known as T-4, near Palmyra, where the contingents of the two countries coexist. It is on this basis that Iranian engineers assemble and operate the Shahed-129, testing and perfecting their combat capabilities, by boarding an anti-tank missile.
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