Tehran intends to build military unmanned aircraft in Washington’s backyard for the Venezuelan military led by Hugo Chavez, U.S. Southern Command chief General Douglas Fraser told reporters last week during a breakfast meeting in Washington.
Pressed about the unmanned aircrafts’ capabilities, Fraser dubbed it “a fairly limited-capacity UAS.””I would put it in the Scan Eagle class,” Fraser said. “It’s not up into the Predator class.”
Fraser said it’s unclear what kinds of missions Venezuelan officials will send the Iranian aircraft. His best guess? “I assume it’s for internal defense.”
In, 2006, Israeli officials said they shot down at least three Iran-backed Hezbollah UAS during a war in Lebanon.
U.S. officials do know production of the Iranian aircraft has been delayed due a recent fire at the manufacturing plant, Fraser said.
Teal Group analyst Phillip Finnegan says the deal “is one of these intangible signs of the relationship between Iran and Venezuela.”
“If they can get a UAV that appears to be a cutting-edge symbol of that relationship,” they can frame it as a loss for the United States, Finnegan says. “Although it’s likely the end result might not be cutting-edge—generally Iran is not mentioned as being in the forefront of countries developing this capability.”
Source: US News