14 Jun 14. Israeli Defence Firm Turns Flying Drones into Precision Missiles. Israel’s state-owned defence firm Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has transformed an advanced unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) into a suicide drone capable of carrying out targeted attacks. The Harop, which is capable of flying for hours, has been transformed into a potential missile, as up to 10kg of explosives can be carried in the nose of the aircraft. The drone, one of the most sophisticated and accurate in the world, has been modified in such a way that it explodes as soon as it hits the target. It can receive instructions from a distance of up to 1,000km. The modification is done at IAI’s facility in central Israel and takes two weeks. A report on Israel’s Ynet News reads: “The IAI factory recently began production of an even more accurate version of Harop along with an accompanying launch vehicle which increases the operational flexibility of the missile masked as an airplane.” The drone has already undergone a trial run by hitting a mock target similar to that of an operational headquarters of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group. Hundreds of units of the unmanned aircraft, which could be launched from any platform, are already believed to have been sold by IAI to several clients. (Source: Google)
17 Jun 14. Eli tests “drone” at Eurosatory. Eli, manufacturer of unmanned reconnaissance platforms and multirotors, participates at Eurosatory 2014 at a joint-stand with other Estonian defence industry companies. For the first time an Estonian company will perform an active demonstration of a new product at the exhibition with Swiss defence industry company RUAG. The demonstrated product is a multirotor that is launched from RUAG’s unmanned ground vehicle in order to perform surveillance of the perimeter. “The new product merges the top tier competences of both companies. The jointly developed platform is composed of RUAG unmanned vehicle Eagle 4 and Eli’s unmanned multirotor ELIX-XL. This platform is designed to work in difficult conditions where the threat to human life is too high and use of human component is not necessary,” said Priit Leomar, head of Eli’s unmanned technologies division. “Testing the Eli and RUAG joint complex will also be visually attractive. The primary functions of our platform is the automatic launch of the unmanned multirotor from the unmanned vehicle Eagle in conflict area, which is able to provide a realistic overview and picture of the surrounding area to the commanders,” added Leomar. The public demo-performance at Eurosatory is also a new stepping stone for Estonian defence industry as a whole.
16 Jun 14. Iran Wants UAS to Patrol Pakistan Border. “We are in the process of signing contracts with the manufacturing companies to use UAS for protecting the country’s borders,” Commander of the Iranian Border
Guards Units General Hossein Zolfaqari told reporters last week.
General Zolfaqari also pointed to the abducted Iranian border guard who is in custody of Pakistan-based Jeish al-Adl terrorist group, and said that although the terrorist group has claimed that it has executed Jamshid Danayeefar, “we have sufficient evident to prove that he is still alive”. Danayeefar was among the five Iranian border guards who were abducted by Jeish Al-Adl terrorist group in Iran’s Southeastern Sistan and Balouchestan province earlier this year. Four of them were released after two months, while the group had claimed a week earlier that it had executed Danayeefar. Iranian officials have repeatedly stressed that they would not accept the allegation until they see corroborative evidence. Jeish Al-Adl has done a number of terrorist operations in the province in the last several months. The group is based in Pakistan and escapes to the country each time it conducts an operations in Iran. To have a better monitoring and control over the borders, Iranian border guard forces have announced that they plan to make use of various tec