Late last week, Iran launched hundreds of drone strikes against Arab states in the Persian Gulf. This occurred after US and Israeli strikes on Tehran and other Iranian cities - at the same time, experts note that Iranian forces used Russian tactics of striking Ukrainian cities. This is reported by UNN with reference to The Wall Street Journal.
Details
Iran has a limited supply of ballistic missiles, but is believed to possess an arsenal of thousands of unmanned aerial vehicles and has the ability to produce them. The main advantage of UAVs is that mass production is relatively simple and cost-effective, and they can be launched from both sea and land.
It is noted that before that, the Russians repeatedly used Iranian drones, including the Shahed-136, to strike Ukraine. In Russia, these drones were called "Geran-2" - they fly low and slowly, emitting a loud sound similar to a moped or motorcycle at a distance.
Shahed drones have become a symbol of Iran's global importance to Russia and China. Tehran exported thousands of such aircraft to Russia, and later helped build a factory in southern Russia for their domestic production.
It is also reported that Iran launched 541 drones at the UAE, 283 drones at Kuwait, 136 "Shaheds" and nine other types of drones at Bahrain, 12 drones at Qatar, and dozens of other types of drones at Jordan. These drones were used to attack the American naval base in Bahrain, airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait, high-rise towers in Dubai and Bahrain, and seaports in the Persian Gulf countries.
It took time for Ukraine and Israel to learn how to effectively defend against the drone threat from Iran or Russia. Israel initially struggled to counter UAVs launched by the Lebanese organization Hezbollah, as for years it had built its air defense systems to counter more traditional missile threats. Initially, it used expensive systems such as Iron Dome and F-16 fighters to shoot down cheap drones. At the same time, after four years of full-scale war, Ukraine has learned to detect Russian drones, for example, using cheap drones that can attack Shahed drones after they are detected.
According to experts, the population of the Persian Gulf countries is not accustomed to war with Iran, but will likely learn to defend themselves more effectively over time. The Persian Gulf countries should exchange intelligence on approaching Shahed UAVs and create multi-layered defense systems capable of countering drones - as the Ukrainians did at one time.
Recall
During the strikes on Iran, the US for the first time used inexpensive disposable attack drones in combat. Ukraine first used this tactic during the repulsion of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.