It was previously reported Israeli army The Iranian attacks included 170 drones and 30 cruise missiles, none of which entered Israel, along with 110 ballistic missiles, a very limited number of which arrived during the strike that lasted 5 hours, and several countries participated in dealing with them using air defense systems, including Israel and the United States. The United States, Britain and France, as well as Jordan’s response to the drones that entered its airspace by shooting them down immediately.
US President Joe Biden said that Washington helped Israel shoot down all the drones and missiles launched by Iran, and raised global fears about the expansion of the conflict in the Middle East.
Speaking to Sky News Arabia, military analysts and observers reviewed the repercussions of the failure Iranian attack In achieving its military goals, the reputation of Iranian drones and their markets is affected, especially in the midst of its development of a number of “drones” over the past years, and selling them to other countries or giving them to its agents in the Middle East.
Attack drones against Israel
According to Iranian media, including Tasnim News Agency, Iran used a number of drones in the April 13 attack, which were Iranian-made “Shahed 136” and “Shahed 131,” which is the first time the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has used them. These suicide drones, in such a large number, were a direct attack.
According to Western experts, the Iranian “kamikaze” aircraft are cheap but effective, as they were developed with ready-made components, fly at low altitude, and maneuver to collide with their target.
The operational range of the Shahed 136 drones varies, but Iran says they are capable of flying a distance of up to 2,500 kilometers, which was confirmed by the American newspaper The New York Times, citing American and Israeli officials. The newspaper said that Iran possesses a huge stock of drones, It can fly low to avoid radar.
but Israel Which is more than a thousand kilometers away from Iran, which is a close distance in terms of the capabilities of these types of “kamikaze”, it succeeded in completely intercepting 170 Iranian drones.
On the contrary, Russia used Iran's drones effectively during its war in Ukraine, as the British Ministry of Defense suggested that Moscow had resorted to purchasing hundreds of them for use in its battles since the beginning of September 2022.
The Russian army intensified the use of the Iranian “Shahed 136” drone against many vital Ukrainian targets, such as electricity and water power plants and public utilities. Ukrainian officials estimated that Russian attacks by suicide drones and missiles in October 2022 damaged about 40 percent of Kiev’s ability to produce electricity. .
According to the American newspaper “The Washington Post”, Ukraine was not a suitable environment for innovation DronesHowever, the exigencies of war turned the country into a super laboratory for developing these aircraft.
Iran produces many models of unmanned aerial vehicles, varying in their efficiency and power to carry out reconnaissance and attack operations, while relying largely on the local production of their components.
These models include “Shahed 126,” “Shahed 136,” “Shahed 149,” “Shahed 191 Sayegh 2,” “Kaman 22,” “Kian 2” or “Arash 2,” and “Muhajir 6.” , and “Karrar.”
Operation “planned to fail”
Ali Fayez, director of Iran affairs at the International Crisis Group, believes that “Iran’s operation against Israel was planned to fail, as Tehran sent clear messages about its attack so that the United States and Israel would be well prepared, and potential losses could be reduced.”
Fayez explained, in an interview with Sky News Arabia, that “if the goal of the Iranian strike was the maximum amount of destruction and death, Iran would have launched the drones from Syria to reduce the time they reached the target inside Israel, but it chose to respond directly from its territory to the attack.” “The Israeli attack gave time to the Israeli defenses to shoot down the drones and missiles.”
He added: “Iranian drones have become very powerful in terms of the range and payload they can carry, and this is why Russia resorted to using them and moving away from its drones,” stressing that Iran wanted to restore a degree of deterrence against Israel without igniting a wider war. Or a direct conflict against it or against the United States.
A researcher involved in the Wisconsin Reduction Project agreed nuclear weapons John Krzyzaniak.
Krzyzaniak told Sky News Arabia that Iranian drones, such as the Shahed 136, could “wreak havoc if launched in large numbers.”
Why did Iran's marches fail?
The military and strategic expert, Mahmoud Mohieddin, considered that those planning the Iranian attack failed to use the real capabilities of the drones in that operation, given the distance of the targeted battlefield from the launch site, as the distance between Iran and Israel exceeds a thousand kilometers, while the maximum speed of “ The Shahed 136 kamikaze had a speed of 185 kilometers per hour, and therefore it took a long time to reach the Israeli border, in addition to the slowness of its projectile, and this led to it being shot down in the air by Israeli Air Force planes and air defenses with the help of the United States and Britain.
Speaking to Sky News Arabia, Mohieddin believes that the Iranian planner wanted to launch the drones and hypersonic missiles to send a message to the Israeli side that he is not about to escalate, but that he has specific goals.
The military expert pointed out that “there are estimates that some of the drones fell as a result of technical defects.” However, he explained that “the fault is not in the aircraft themselves, but in the Iranian planning to target a country a thousand kilometers away from its closest border.”
He stated, “There are many types of drones that are produced for the nature of specific tasks. The aircraft that were launched from… Iran It was a kamikaze suicide bomber, but there are other long-range types that can cause surprise and destruction on battlefields, and serve the purpose of their use to a large extent, such as the American MQ8 aircraft that the United States uses in special operations such as targeting militants in Afghanistan.”
Mohieddin pointed out that Tehran will continue the process of developing its drones during the coming period, as it is “a promising field at the global level, low in cost and strong in impact.”
