Drone havoc in Ukraine puts Iran’s asymmetric warfare advantage into sharp relief

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Firefighters struggle to halt a blaze after a Russian attack using Iranian drones destroyed a Kyiv residential building. (AFP)
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Updated 22 January 2023
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Drone havoc in Ukraine puts Iran’s asymmetric warfare advantage into sharp relief

  • Russia’s use of UAVs shows folly of ignoring warnings about Iranian conventional weapons threat
  • Strategic utility of Shahed-136 lies in the fact it can be mass produced at a relatively low cost

WASHINGTON, D.C.: The distinctive sound of an approaching wave of loitering munitions, commonly known as kamikaze drones, has become all too familiar over the cities of Ukraine since Iran began supplying the Russian military with its domestically designed and manufactured Shahed-136.

With its roughly 2,000 km range and 30 kg explosive payload, these destructive, swarming drones have become an almost daily terror for civilians in the capital Kyiv since September, routinely striking apartment buildings and energy infrastructure.

“The Russian purchase and deployment of Iranian drones has allowed Russia to attack the broad range of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine,” David DesRoches, a military expert at the US National Defense University, told Arab News.

Designed and built by an Iranian defense manufacturer closely linked to the regime’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Shahed is low-tech compared with the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems developed by other nations.

However, their strategic utility lies in the fact that they can be mass produced at a relatively low cost. According to Ukrainian officials, the Russian military has ordered more than 2,000 of these drones and has been in talks to establish a joint manufacturing facility on Russian soil.

A recent report by the Washington Institute also claims the Kremlin has expressed interest in purchasing more advanced Iranian drones, such as the Arash, which has a longer range and can carry a larger explosive payload than the Shahed.




A drone flies over Kyiv during an attack on October 17, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP file)

But before Iran’s drones made their debut in the largest and most significant conflict on the European continent since the Second World War, they were battle-tested across multiple fronts in the Middle East where the IRGC and its proxies are active.

Iran has been able to trial its drone technology against US-built air defenses stationed in Iraq and the Arabian Gulf, including the Patriot surface-to-air missile system. Now that know-how is proving invaluable to the Russian military against the Western-backed Ukrainians.

Battle-testing of Iranian drones in Ukraine against Western and Soviet-era air defense systems will undoubtedly also enhance their strategic use in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and beyond, creating new security headaches for Israel and the wider Arab region.




Wreckage of an Iranian kamikaze drone, which was shot down in Odessa on September 25, 2022, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)

Kamikaze drones pose a unique problem for modern militaries. Although advanced air defense systems are able to shoot down most Shaheds before they reach their intended target, a sufficient number will inevitably break through, raining down on Ukrainian apartment buildings and civilian infrastructure.

“The drones, which fly below the radar level of conventional air defense radar, are able to penetrate into Ukraine and cause more damage than the Russians would be able to do on their own,” DesRoches said.




Firefighters struggle to halt a blaze after a Russian attack using Iranian drones destroyed a Kyiv residential building. (AFP)

“A distributed drone attack against civilian infrastructure across a large country means that you will never have enough assets to ‘kill’ all the drones. It is far more expensive to defeat a drone than to launch one, and no one has enough equipment to protect every electrical substation in their country.”

He added: “By targeting them at civilian infrastructure, Russia is able to force Ukraine to dissipate its air defense assets and may be able, at some future point, to mass missiles and drones against a significant military target. So their impact has been significant.”

According to some analysts, as a result of prior Western inaction on the proliferation of Iran’s “conventional” weapons, as opposed to its nuclear ambitions, the regime’s kamikaze drones have now been exported to Europe, potentially posing a long-term security threat to the wider continent.

These analysts say that warnings to Western officials about the threat posed by Iran’s burgeoning drone program long went unheeded, allowing the regime to develop a large manufacturing base and trade network relatively unimpeded.

According to a UK defense intelligence report, published before the outbreak of war in Ukraine, various versions of the Shahed have been covertly deployed by the regime, including in an attack on the British-flagged oil tanker MT Mercer Street in 2021, which killed two, including a British civilian.

Prior to that attack, in September 2019, a volley of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones slammed into the Abqaiq and Khurais oil fields in Saudi Arabia. US Central Command believes the attack originated from Iran, crossing Iraqi airspace.




Wreckage of Iranian weapons used to attack Saudi Arabia's Khurais oil field and Aramco facilities in Abqaiq in 2019 are displayed at a Defense Ministry press conference. (AN file photo)

Following that attack, the American Enterprise Institute urged the US government to retaliate directly against IRGC drone facilities.

“Increasing American economic pressure has not deterred Iranian military or nuclear deal-violation escalation, and American military actions have only changed the precise shape of Iranian military escalation,” it said at the time.

The 2019 attack was also the first known instance of the combined use of cruise missiles and kamikaze drones to target a major energy facility, setting a dangerous precedent that foreshadowed the same tactic’s use in Europe against Ukraine’s power grid.

Western intelligence officials believe the Russian military is growing increasingly reliant on Shaheds as a substitute for more expensive and difficult-to-manufacture long-range precision guided intermediate range missiles, in part due to Western sanctions on Russia’s purchase of crucial electronic components.




This handout picture provided by the Iranian Army on May 28, 2022, shows Iranian military commanders visiting an underground drone base in an unknown location in Iran. (AFP)

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, a New York-based bipartisan think tank, tweeted that the US and its allies had been “behind the curve” in tackling Iranian drone proliferation.

Although the Biden administration has announced fresh sanctions targeting Iranian arms manufacturers responsible for building Shaheds, Brodsky said the West squandered precious time that could have been spent nipping the Iranian drone threat in the bud.

“Washington and allies should have been laser focused on this a decade ago with respect to Iran. But the nuclear file dominated all,” he said, referring to the now largely defunct 2015 Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Omri Ceren, foreign policy adviser to US Senator Ted Cruz, was even more direct in his criticism of the Biden White House — for allowing Iran’s drone proliferation to reach this point and relying on Russia as the go-between with Iran on nuclear negotiations.

He tweeted: “Team Biden has made it a day 1 priority to weaken arms restrictions between Iran and Russia. They rushed to the UN to rescind the arms embargo vs Iran.”




European Union delegates attend talks to revive the Iranian nuclear deal. (AFP file)

Jake Sullivan, the administration’s national security adviser, recently acknowledges that Iran was likely “contributing to widespread war crimes” in Ukraine by actively providing a large number of combat drones and other weapons to the Russian military.

Nevertheless, serious questions remain over whether new sanctions on Iran’s drone manufacturing industry will come too little too late following years of a singular policy focus on reaching a nuclear agreement with Tehran.

Lessons provided by Israel, which has perhaps the most experience of neutralizing the Iranian drone threat, could offer US and European policymakers greater clarity, encouraging a more rapid response.

According to the Israeli defense think tank Alma, Iran’s extraterritorial Quds Force has established joint drone production facilities with a secretive division of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, known as Unit 127.




Military drones are displayed at a Hezbollah memorial landmark in the hilltop bastion of Mleeta, near the Lebanese southern village of Jarjouaa. (AFP file)

Satellite imagery provided by Alma shows what appear to be sprawling bases, which reportedly belong to Hezbollah, established in Al-Qusayr, Syria, near the Lebanese border, and in the far eastern Syrian desert city of Palmyra.

A number of airstrikes late last year attributed to Israel (although never officially claimed) directly targeted these bases and suspected joint drone manufacturing centers. Some analysts would like to see the West similarly target Iran’s drone technology at its source.

In the meantime, DesRoches said Ukraine’s Western allies must continue to provide air defense systems, while also helping to reinforce the structural integrity of critical infrastructure to withstand air attacks.

“Instead of starting with the threat and trying to defeat it, a state needs to start with its vulnerabilities and look to protect them, assuming that a drone will get through,” he said.

Hardening key energy facilities and developing a multilayered defensive plan based on this assumption was more realistic in meeting immediate needs in blunting the impact of Iranian drones, he said.

“Soldiers don’t like to think in these ways, and the profit a defense firm will make on sandbags is much less than will be made on a surface to air missile. But national security interests are best served by a vulnerability-based assessment of drone threats.”

It does appear the Biden administration is coming to the realization — belatedly — that Iran’s asymmetric drone capabilities and proliferation have become a global security threat.

 


Israeli strikes kill 2 in south Lebanon

Updated 5 sec ago
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Israeli strikes kill 2 in south Lebanon

Lebanon’s health ministry said a man wounded “in an Israeli enemy drone strike targeting his bulldozer” and another injured in a strike on a motorcycle both died in hospital
Israeli military said they “eliminated... a commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force“

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes in south Lebanon on Thursday killed two people, the Lebanese health ministry said, with the Israeli army saying its raids targeted Hezbollah operatives.

In statements carried by the official National News Agency, Lebanon’s health ministry said a man wounded “in an Israeli enemy drone strike targeting his bulldozer” and another injured in a strike on a motorcycle both died in hospital.

The Israeli military said in a statement that its forces “eliminated... a commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force” in the Baraasheet area, referring to the Iran-backed group’s elite unit, and an operative from “Hezbollah’s observation force” in Beit Lif.

Israel has kept up regular strikes on Lebanon, particularly in the south, since a November 27 ceasefire meant to end over a year of hostilities that left Hezbollah severely weakened.

Under the ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani river, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.

Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops but has kept them in five locations in south
Lebanon that it deems strategic.

On Tuesday, the health ministry said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on a vehicle in south Lebanon’s Nabatiyeh district.

The Israeli military said it killed the head of a currency exchange firm who worked with Hezbollah to transfer funds for the Iran-backed group’s “terrorist activities.”

WHO delivers its first medical aid to Gaza since March 2

Updated 56 sec ago
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WHO delivers its first medical aid to Gaza since March 2

  • WHO chief says nine truckloads are 'a drop in the ocean' of Gaza's needs
  • Shipment of supplies, plasma and blood will be distributed among hospitals in the Palestinian territory

GENEVA: The World Health Organization said Thursday that it had delivered its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, adding though that the nine truckloads were “a drop in the ocean.”
Wednesday’s shipment of supplies, plasma and blood will be distributed among hospitals in the Palestinian territory in the coming days, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
Israel imposed a total blockade on the Gaza Strip on March 2. More than two months later, it began allowing some food in, but no other aid items until now.
Tedros said nine trucks carrying essential medical supplies, 2,000 units of blood and 1,500 units of plasma were delivered via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel, “without any looting incident, despite the high-risk conditions along the route.”
“These supplies will be distributed to priority hospitals in the coming days,” Tedros said.
“The blood and plasma were delivered to Nasser Medical Complex’s cold storage facility for onward distribution to hospitals facing critical shortages, amid a growing influx of injuries, many linked to incidents at food distribution sites.”
Last week the WHO said only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were minimally to partially functional, with the rest unable to function at all.
Tedros said four WHO trucks were still at Kerem Shalom and more were on their way toward Gaza.
“However, these medical supplies are only a drop in the ocean. Aid at scale is essential to save lives,” he said.
“WHO calls for the immediate, unimpeded and sustained delivery of health aid into Gaza through all possible routes.”
Israel began allowing supplies to trickle in at the end of May following its more than two-month total blockade, but distribution has been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people waiting to collect rations.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a new US- and Israel-backed food distribution system, began handing out food in Gaza on May 26.
But the UN and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF — an officially private effort with opaque funding — over concerns it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.
Israel is pressing its bombardment of the territory in a military offensive it says is aimed at defeating the militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the war.


The families of hostages held in Gaza hope for their own ceasefire after truce in Israel-Iran war

Updated 28 min 56 sec ago
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The families of hostages held in Gaza hope for their own ceasefire after truce in Israel-Iran war

  • “Now it’s the time to pressure them and tell them, look, you are on your own. No one is coming to your help. This is it,” Berman said
  • “The achievements in Iran are important and welcome, enabling us to end the war from a position of strength with Israel holding the upper hand,” said the Hostages Families Forum

OR AKIVA, Israel: Liran Berman hasn’t had much to keep hopeful over the 629 days of his twin brothers’ captivity in Gaza. Ceasefire deals have collapsed, the war has dragged on, and his siblings remain hostages in the Palestinian enclave.

But the war between Israel and Iran, and the US-brokered ceasefire that halted 12 days of fighting, have sparked fresh hope that his brothers, Gali and Ziv, may finally return home.

With Iran dealt a serious blow over nearly two weeks of fierce Israeli strikes, Berman believes Hamas, armed and financed by Iran, is at its most isolated since the war in Gaza began, and that might prompt the militant group to soften its negotiating positions.

“Now it’s the time to pressure them and tell them, look, you are on your own. No one is coming to your help. This is it,” Berman said. “I think the dominoes fell into place, and it’s time for diplomacy to reign now.”

A long nightmare for the families of hostages

During their Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Most have been freed in ceasefire deals, but 50 remain captive, less than half of them believed to still be alive.

The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were civilians or combatants. It says more than half of the dead were women and children.

The families of hostages have faced a 20-month-long nightmare, trying to advocate for their loved ones’ fates while confronted with the whims of Israeli and Hamas leaders and the other crises that have engulfed the Middle East.

Israel’s war with Iran, the first between the two countries, pushed the hostage crisis and the plight of Palestinian civilians in Gaza to the sidelines. Hostage families again found themselves forced to fight for the spotlight with another regional conflagration.

But as the conflict eases, the families are hoping mediators seize the momentum to push for a new ceasefire deal.

“The achievements in Iran are important and welcome, enabling us to end the war from a position of strength with Israel holding the upper hand,” said the Hostages Families Forum, a grassroots organization representing many of the hostage families.

“To conclude this decisive operation against Iran without leveraging our success to bring home all the hostages would be a grave failure.”

Netanyahu may have more room to maneuver

It’s not just a diminished Iran and its impact on Hamas that gives hostage families hope. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, riding a wave of public support for the Iran war and its achievements, could feel he has more space to move toward ending the war in Gaza, something his far-right governing partners oppose.

Hamas has repeatedly said it is prepared to free all the hostages in exchange for an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu says he will only end the war once Hamas is disarmed and exiled, something the group has rejected.

Berman said the ceasefire between Israel and Iran has left him the most optimistic since a truce between Israel and Hamas freed 33 Israeli hostages earlier this year. Israel shattered that ceasefire after eight weeks, and little progress has been made toward a new deal.

The Israeli government team coordinating hostage negotiations has told the families it now sees a window of opportunity that could force Hamas to be “more flexible in their demands,” Berman said.

Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’ is in disarray

Over the past four decades, Iran built up a network of militant proxy groups it called the ” Axis of Resistance ” that wielded significant power across the region, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

Hamas may have envisioned the Oct. 7, 2023, attack as a catalyst that would see other Iranian-sponsored militants attack Israel. While Hezbollah and the Houthis launched projectiles toward Israel, the support Hamas had counted on never fully materialized. In the past two years, many of those Iranian proxies have been decimated, changing the face of the Middle East.

US President Donald Trump’s involvement in securing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran has also given many hostage families hope that he might exert more pressure for a deal in Gaza.

“We probably need Trump to tell us to end the war in Gaza,” Berman said.

Inseparable twins who remain in captivity

Gali and Ziv Berman, 27, were taken from their homes in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, on the border with Gaza, during the Oct. 7 attack. Seventeen others were also abducted there; of those, only the Berman twins remain captive.

The family has heard from hostages who returned in the previous deal that, as of February, the brothers were alive but being held separately.

Liran Berman said that’s the longest the two have ever spent apart. Until their abduction, they were inseparable, though they are very different, the 38-year-old said.

In Kfar Aza, the twins lived in apartments across from each other. Gali is more outgoing, while Ziv is more reserved and shy with a sharp sense of humor, their brother said. Gali is the handyman who would drive four hours to help a friend hang a shelf, while Ziv would go along and point to where the shelf needed to go.

The war with Iran, during which Iranian missiles pounded Israeli cities for 12 days, gave Liran Berman a sense of what his brothers have endured as bombs rained down on Gaza, he said.

“The uncertainty and the fear for your life for any moment, they are feeling it for 20 months,” he said. “Every moment can be your last.”


Netanyahu asks court to postpone corruption trial summons: lawyer

Updated 49 min 3 sec ago
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Netanyahu asks court to postpone corruption trial summons: lawyer

  • US President Donald Trump called for the case against the Israeli prime minister to be canceled altogether
  • Israel’s opposition leader warned Trump against interfering in Israel’s internal affairs

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked a court on Thursday to postpone his testimony in his long-running corruption trial, after US President Donald Trump called for the case to be canceled altogether.
In a filing to the tribunal, Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Hadad said the premier’s testimony should be delayed in light of “regional and global developments.”
“The court is respectfully requested to order the cancelation of the hearings in which the prime minister was scheduled to testify in the coming two weeks,” the filing said.
It said Netanyahu was “compelled to devote all his time and energy to managing national, diplomatic and security issues of the utmost importance” following a brief conflict with Iran and during ongoing fighting in Gaza where Israeli hostages are held.
Trump on Wednesday described the case against Netanyahu as a “witch hunt.”
In a message on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Netanyahu trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,” after the end of a 12-day war with Iran.
Netanyahu on Thursday thanked Trump for his “heartfelt support for me and your incredible support for Israel and the Jewish people.”
“I look forward to continue working with you to defeat our common enemies, liberate our hostages and quickly expand the circle of peace,” Netanyahu wrote on X, sharing a copy of Trump’s Truth Social post.
Israel’s opposition leader warned Trump against interfering in Israel’s internal affairs.
“We are thankful to President Trump, but... the president should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country,” Yair Lapid said in an interview with news website Ynet.
Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
In the trial that has been delayed many times since it began in May 2020, Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.
In a first case, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors.
In two other cases, Netanyahu is accused of attempting to negotiate more favorable coverage in two Israeli media outlets.


Jordan condemns Israeli settlers’ ‘terror attacks’ on Palestinian villages in West Bank

Updated 26 June 2025
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Jordan condemns Israeli settlers’ ‘terror attacks’ on Palestinian villages in West Bank

  • Foreign ministry spokesman says Jordan ‘rejects these attacks and the escalation of settler terrorism against the Palestinian people’

LONDON: Jordan on Thursday condemned “terror attacks” by Israeli settlers that resulted in the killing of four Palestinians in two towns in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

 The Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs blamed the Israeli forces for the settlers’ “terrorist attacks” in the village of Kafr Malik, where three Palestinians were killed by soldiers and several others injured during clashes between residents and settlers.

Sufian Qudah, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Jordan “rejects these attacks and the escalation of settler terrorism against the Palestinian people.”

He said that Israeli government policies incite violence against Palestinians and give settlers “the impunity” to carry out “more crimes against the Palestinian people.”

He reaffirmed Jordan’s call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to the ongoing Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave since late 2023.

On Wednesday, four Palestinians were killed in two separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, including three in the village of Kafr Malik and a 15-year-old boy, Rayan Tamer Houshiyeh, who was shot by Israeli troops in Al-Yamoun, northwest of Jenin.

In a separate incident, 13-year-old Ammar Mutaz Hamayel succumbed to his injuries on Monday after being shot by Israeli forces. Hamayel was from Kafr Malik, which has a population of about 2,500 Palestinians. The village is 17 kilometers northeast of Ramallah and is surrounded by the Israeli settlement of Kokhav HaShahar.