Illustrative image. (IAI)
Israel has been attacking targets in Iran with Harop loitering munitions, photos shared by Iranian media on June 15 revealed.
At least two of the loitering munitions were reportedly shot down by Iranian air defenses over the western province of Zanjan, which is located more than 1,600 kilometers away from Israel.
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The Harop is a loitering munition developed by Israel Aerospace Industries. Loitering munitions are designed to hover or loiter above the battlefield, waiting for targets to be exposed, and attack upon the operator’s command.
The loitering munition is equipped with an electro-optical system that allows the operator to track and engage moving targets via a two-way data-link. In addition, it can be equipped with a passive radar seeker to locate and attack radar sites. The munition can be also equipped with both guidance types, allowing a radar site to be targeted even if it stops emitting after being detected.
The Harop is armed with a 16 kg high-explosive warhead. However, if the loitering munition doesn’t find a target, it is designed to return to the launch point, meaning it can be recovered and reused.
While the Harop has an impressive endurance of six hours, its range, said to be 1,000 kilometers tops, is not enough to reach Zanjan from Israeli territories.
Iranian media speculated that the loitering munitions were being launched from neighboring Azerbaijan, a close ally of Israel. It is also possible that they were launched from Iraq’s northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, where the Mossad spy agency is known to be very active.
Another possibility is that the Harops are being launched from Syria. The country saw intensive Israeli military activists in recent days, with refueling, transportation and command aircraft spotted in its airspace. Still, there is no evidence supporting any of these theories.
Mossad played a key role in the opening strikes of Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli attack aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear program that began on June 13.
According to The Times of Israel, the spy agency set up a covert drone base near the Iranian capital, Tehran, and smuggled precision weapons systems into the Islamic Republic in preparation for the large-scale operation.
In the first hours of the attack, Mossad commandos deployed drones to take out ballistic missile launchers and used guided missiles to hit air defenses in central Iran, degrading the country’s offensive capabilities and ganting Israeli warplanes air supremacy.
It is very possible that Mossad was able to smuggle Harop loitering munitions into Iran, although this requires very complex and lengthy procedures.
In any case, there is no doubt that Mossad is involved in the operations of Harop loitering munitions, as the data-link of the system is reported to have a range of just 200 kilometers. This means that even if the loitering munitions were being launched from Azerbaijan, Iraq or Syria, they are very likely being controlled from within Iran.
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