Commander: Hezbollah’s Ayub Drone “An Old Product of Iran”

A senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) rejected the western claims that the drone Hezbollah recently used for penetrating the Israeli airspace had been made of the US RQ-170 stealth aircraft that Iran captured last year, and stressed that the drone was an old product manufactured around 10 years ago by Iran.

In October, a Lebanese Hezbollah drone could penetrate Israel’s missile shields and reached the regime’s sensitive nuclear center in the Negev desert.

The operation codenamed Hussein Ayub saw Hezbollah’s drone fly hundreds of kilometers into the Israeli airspace and getting very close to Dimona nuclear plant without being detected by advanced Israeli and US radars.

Later, Secretary-General of Hezbollah Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said the drone used Iranian technology, but had been assembled by his resistance movement in Lebanon. But some western media reports alleged that the drone had been made of the parts of a hi-tech American stealth aircraft which was downed by Iran last year.

In response, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh denied such allegations as “untrue”, and said Ayub is an old production of Iran manufactured in the country around 10 years ago.

“Some sides say that RQ-170 parts have been used in Ayub drone. It is not true,” Hajizadeh told reporters in Tehran on Monday.

“We had the technology (needed for the production of Ayub) since 1381 (March 2002 – March 2003),” the commander underscored.

In similar remarks in October, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that the Hezbollah drone, whose technology belonged to Iran, was not the most advanced UAV that Iran has made.

“Definitely, the drone which recently flew over the occupied lands (Israel) and astonished the world was not the product of Iran’s latest technology.”