Saifullah Sani
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The Iranian media has for the first time identified the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that has been exported to Sudan and used extensively in Syria as the Ababil-3.
The Ababil-3 was rarely seen in Iranian media coverage until December 2013, when it featured in several photographs of an air force exercise. (IRNA)
The Fars News Agency (FNA) published a story on 1 July saying that the Ababil-3 has a top speed of 200 km/h, a range of 100 km, a flight endurance of four hours, and a ceiling of 5,000 m.
The story was accompanied by a photograph of a UAV from an exposition held in February showing the same type of UAV that has crashed in southern Sudan in March 2012 and on at least two occasions in Syria since then.
A Sudanese rebel group recovered the first UAV and allowed photographs to be taken that showed it had an Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company badge that listed its model as 'AB-3'.
The Fars News Agency used this photograph from an exposition in February 2014 in its story about the Ababil-3. (Tasnim News Agency)
One of the two UAVs recovered by Syrian rebels had a similar serial number (3-2-R0120105) to the one that crashed in Sudan (3-1-R031) and the one that featured in the exposition (3-2-R126). The second digit in the Sudanese serial number could indicate it was an earlier variant.
The wheeled UAV with fixed undercarriage only made a fleeting appearance in Iranian media coverage before December 2013, when it appeared in Iranian news agency photographs of an air force exercise.
The New York Times published a story on 25 June that cited unidentified US officials as saying Iran has deployed Ababil UAVs to Baghdad's Rashid Airbase to carry out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions in support of Iraqi forces battling an offensive by the Sunni militant group that calls itself the Islamic State. The officials did not identify the specific type of Ababil being used.
Although no sign of this activity could be seen at Rashid Airbase on 22 June in an Airbus Defence and Space satellite image obtained by IHS Jane's , General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed Iran was flying UAVs in Iraq during a 3 July press briefing.
Gen Dempsey said the US was not co-ordinating directly with the Iranians operating in Iraq, adding: "The de-confliction of our ISR and their [Iranian] ISR and our flights and their flights, that's an Iraqi responsibility which they are capable of fulfilling."
A group affiliated to the Islamic State released an image of what it claimed was an Iranian UAV that had been shot down near the city Samarra on 4 July. The UAV in the photograph had Iraqi flags on it, but was similar to Iran's Mohajer-4.
Iranian media identifies Ababil-3 UAV - IHS Jane's 360
