Filenews 26 May 2022
By Paul Iddon
On May 17, Iran inaugurated a military drone production plant in Tajikistan and was added to the list of countries that are co-producing war drones with other states.
At the inauguration ceremony held in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, the chief of the Iranian Army General Staff, General Mohammad Bagheri, said that Tehran is now in a position "to export military equipment to allied and friendly countries, contributing to the strengthening of security and lasting peace".
The facility will produce the Iranian HESA Ababil-2, which acts either as a supervisory tool or a drone-"kamikaze". Variants of Ababil-2, such as Qasef-1 and Qasef-2K, manufactured by Houthi rebels in Yemen, have been used many times in attacks against Saudi Arabia. The know-how and infrastructure for the production and maintenance of this drone on the territory of Tajikistan will provide Dushanbe with a cheaper alternative to manned aircraft (the country's Air Force is antiquated and almost non-existent) or the advanced and more expensive drones on the market.
In addition, the diffusion of military drones in central Asian states will be enhanced.
The inauguration of the Ababil-2 production plant in Dusanbe came less than a year after the order made by neighbouring Kyrgyzstan (with an equally weak Air Force) in Turkey, asking to buy Bayraktar TB2. It is not clear whether these drone supplies signal an armament rally between the two countries, which in early 2021 were involved in a brief warfare.
A week before the unveiling of the Iranian factory in Tajikistan, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) announced that it had signed an agreement with Kazakhstan to co-produce TAI's Anka drones in Kazakhstan. The agreement provides for the provision of know-how as well as maintenance and repair services by TAI. Kazakhstan is the first country outside Turkey to produce anka, but not the first country with which Ankara sought to cooperate for this purpose.
Already Turkey had sold Bayraktar TB2 to its close ally in the southern Caucasus – Azerbaijan – which Baku used in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war against Armenian forces. Subsequently, Turkey and Azerbaijan tried to expand their defence ties by signing the "Sousa Declaration" in June 2021. In fact, it was planned to build a factory producing Turkish drones – possibly TB2 – on Azerbaijani territory. Today, the evolution of this project is unclear.
Another country with which Turkey planned to build its drones was Ukraine. Kiev had procured a significant number of Bayraktar TB2 in 2019. The successes of the TB2 on the battlefield against the Russian invading forces have left the Ukrainians satisfied.
Last October, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba announced that Kiev would build a Turkish drone production plant on Ukrainian soil. "The piece of land where the unit will be built has already been selected," he said at a news conference.
The Russian invasion that followed may certainly not have cancelled this plan, but it has certainly affected it. Turkey continued to send TB2 to Ukraine even after the outbreak of the recent war, arguing that these deliveries are not sales of military equipment from state to state, since Bayraktar are manufactured by the private company Baykar. Ankara is claiming a role in the reconstruction of the Ukrainian defence industry after the war, and Kiev would certainly like to procure more military hardware from Turkey, given the successes achieved by the TB2 in this war.
Before Ukraine, TB2 attracted the interest of foreign buyers thanks to their business performance in Azerbaijan in autumn 2020. In the same war, the Harop drone built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) stood out. Harop is a drone that is mostly designed to hit opposing air defences. The Azeris used the Harop against Armenia's S-300 missile systems in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Last autumn, there were reports that Israel and Morocco were very close to agreeing to co-produce drones-"kamikazes" -- possibly Harops -- in the north African country. Reports in the Israeli press have indicated that the IAI has received 22 million dollars from Morocco in 2021, sparking rumours that this amount was paid under the drone deal. Morocco has also ordered TB2 from Turkey. The combination of Harops and TB2 in an army's arsenal could prove deadly, as Azerbaijan showed about two years ago.
The above developments clearly show that the proliferation of military drones is in full swing worldwide.
Source: Forbes
