Iran is training Hezbollah fighters to carry out drone attacks on northern Israel at a rapidly-expanding top secret base, The Telegraph can reveal.
The drone facility in Iran has tripled in size since it was set up in 2006, in spite of US sanctions, according to leaked classified Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) documents.
Located just five miles from Iran’s holy city of Qom, the centre, under the command of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has expanded from a runway of 500 metres to 1,500 metres today.
Intelligence reveals the country’s dictator ordered the concentration, strengthening and rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturing activities by the regime’s main drone manufacturer, Qods Aviation Industry Company in 2004.
In spite of being on the US Treasury sanctions list since Dec 12 2013, the drone HQ which belongs to Qods, has continued to expand.
Once a small airport for small crop-spraying planes, it has gone from a runway of 500 metres in 2007 to expanding to 1,000 metres in 2014 and, in 2020, to 1,500 metres, allowing for bigger, more long-range drones to take flight, such as those used in Iran’s aerial assault on Israel last month.A new hangar was added to the complex next to the runway in 2021.