Iran has unveiled new home-made programmable drone named Basir.

Noting that the drone's development and construction lasted four months, he said that the aircraft has been built for gathering samples from areas contaminated with chemical materials and for monitoring and gathering information in areas afflicted with natural disasters.

Yet, he said, the drone can also be armed with different weapons to be used for other missions such as street wars, reconnaissance and surveillance missions.

Senior Iranian military officials announced in March that the country's armed forces were creating a growing number of drone units, adding that the number of drone flights had grown 800 times more than just a year ago.

"In the structure of the Armed Forces, separate drone missions have been defined for each force; the Air Force has been entrusted with special missions and drone units have been formed in Air Force bases to this end," commander of the Air Force's drone units said.

He announced plans to increase the number of home-made drones in the next 5 years, and said the Air Force would also operate long-range drones, specially for very distant missions.

"We are also after increasing the flight duration of drones and their armaments and electronic war systems for possible asymmetric wars," the commander said.

Noting that the Air Force had made major progress in training drone operators and preparing drone bases, he said the flights of the Iranian drones had become 800-folded this year compared with the pervious year.