The Iranian military launched a two-day campaign of aerial drills on Tuesday involving unmanned combat and surveillance aircraft, as well as “suicide drones” designed to obliterate targets from above, state media reported.
Hundreds of combat drones are taking part in the “first major drone exercise” being held by the Iranian military in central Semnan province, state-controlled IRNA news agency reported.
“The exercise will include the detection and destruction of air targets by means of air-to-air missiles and will also include the destruction of targets on the ground by means of bombs and precision missiles,” the news service reported, citing Rear Admiral. Mahmoud Mousavi, Deputy Commander of the Army.
Iran has previously conducted exercises with military drones, according to the Associated Press, but these exercises were launched days after the one-year anniversary of the US assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who died in a US drone airstrike at Baghdad International Airport.
As part of the two-day exercises, Mousavi said suicide drones will be extensively tested. A US official told Reuters last year that the unmanned aerial vehicle could conduct a “kamikaze” mission if full of explosives and flown directly at a target.
The exercises will also include unmanned aerial vehicles sent into the country’s southern waters by the Iranian navy, as well as “long-range flights of detecting suicide drones” designed to destroy foreign enemies, Mousavi said.
Since Soleimani’s murder, US officials have feared a retaliatory attack.
President Trump reportedly ordered the warship USS Nimitz to remain in the Persian Gulf on Monday after being told to return to Washington state.
“Due to recent threats by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other government officials, I have ordered the USS Nimitz to stop the routine realignment,” Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said in a statement Sunday.
“No one should question the determination of the United States of America.”