Al-Qaeda branch in Syria has shot down an Assad regime’s made-in-Iran drone

Al Jazeera has posted exclusive footage of a drone shot down by Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s local branch in Syria, while it was flying over Aleppo.

The drone seems to be a Yasir drone, a small Iranian drone (that can be quickly disassembled to be carried in a suitcase) based on the American Boeing ScanEagle (captured by the Iranians in 2012).

The Yasir (or the Sayeh – the version operated by the IRGC, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) has been operating in Syria since November.

Yasir has quite a distinctive shape: it’s almost identical to a ScanEagle but it features a twin-tailboom empennage and an inverted v-tail elerudder similar to that of the RQ-7 Shadow.

Another drone of the same type was reportedly downed in the Qalamoun Mountains on Dec. 7. In this case the UAV is almost intact and easy to ID.

 H/T to @ShamiWitness and @massdall for the links

Related articles

• New Iranian UAV based on captured U.S. drone filmed today over Damascus, Syria
• German Heron Drone Hacked and Crashed by Taliban in Afghanistan
• Iran unveiled its new strategic UAV. The biggest domestic drone to date.
• Iranian F-14s vs UFOs: urban legend or weird drones in action over Iranian nuclear plants?
• New image of nEUROn European stealth killer drone’s flight trials emerges
• U.S. Navy successfully launched a surveillance drone from a submerged submarine
• New Chinese joined-wing UAV emerges

About David Cenciotti

WebsiteFacebookTwitterLinkedIn instagram

David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.