Breaking news
Iran to supply Iraqi armed forces with Ababil drones and military equipment to fight jihadist rebels.
| 2014
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Defence & Security News - Iran |
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| Tuesday, July 1, 2014 09:21 AM | |||
| Iran to supply Iraqi armed forces with Ababil drones and military equipment to fight jihadist rebels. | |||
According
The New York Times website, Iran uses Ababil drones over Iraq from an
airfield in Baghdad and is supplying Iraqi forces with tons of military
equipment and other supplies. Tehran has massed 10 divisions of its army
and its Quds Force troops along the border, ready to act if the Iraqi
capital or Shiite shrines are threatened, The New York Times added. |
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 Iranian-made Ababil drone during flying test. |
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The
Ababil is an Iranian-made UAV. Iran has developed a number of variants,
including the tactical Ababil-5 for medium-range reconnaissance and surveillance.
Depending on the variant, the Ababil can carry a range of day or night-time
surveillance equipment, mounted either in the nose or in an under-fuselage
mount. In the attack role, they can carry 40 kg of explosives. Both the United States and Iran have small numbers of military advisers in Iraq. As many as 300 American advisers are being deployed to assess Iraqi forces and the deteriorating security situation, while about a dozen officers from Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force have been sent to advise Iraqi commanders and to help mobilize more than 2,000 Shiites from southern Iraq, American officials say. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force, has paid at least two visits to Iraq to help Iraqi military advisers plot strategy. And Iranian transport planes have been making twice-daily flights to Baghdad with military equipment and supplies, 70 tons per flight, for the Iraqi forces. |
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