Threatening gesture at parade

Automatically stored design

The new drones were spotted at a military parade in Tehran.

(Bild: AFP/AFP or licensors)

A threatening gesture towards Israel: Amid increasing regional tensions, Iran's leadership has shown off a new ballistic missile and a state-of-the-art attack drone, according to the media.

"Today, our defense and deterrence capabilities have grown so much that no demon even thinks of aggression against our dear Iran," President Masoud Pezeshkian said at a military parade in Tehran on Saturday, where the weapons were presented, according to the IRNA news agency.

Thanks to the unity and cohesion of Muslim countries, "we can put the bloodthirsty and genocidal usurper Israel in its place, which has no mercy on anyone, neither women nor children, neither young nor old," the Iranian president added.

The spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, made similar remarks to a delegation of Muslim clerics at the Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran: "This inner strength can remove the Zionist regime, this malignant cancer, from the heart of the Islamic community in Palestine and eliminate US domination and interference in the region," he said. Khamenei called on Islamic countries to completely sever their economic ties with Israel and weaken political relations.

The new Iranian drones from above

(Bild: AP ( via APA) Austria Presse Agentur/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

New solid-fuel missile has been christened "Jihad"
According to IRNA, the new weapons presented are the Jihad solid-fuel missile, which was developed and manufactured by the aerospace department of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. According to IRNA, it has a range of one thousand kilometers. The Shahed-136B drone is an upgraded version of the Shahed 136 drone, with additional functions and a range of more than 4,000 kilometers.

Western governments accuse Iran of supplying both drones and ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the war with Ukraine. The UK, France, Germany and the USA therefore imposed new sanctions against Tehran at the beginning of September.

Iran is also providing financial and military support to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. This also applies to the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the USA, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Region has been a powder keg since Hamas attack on Israel
Since the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the resulting war in the Gaza Strip, regional tensions have increased dramatically. According to Israeli figures, Hamas fighters killed at least 1,205 people in their large-scale attack and took 251 others hostage in the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas, which cannot be independently verified, more than 41,300 people have been killed in the course of the Israeli offensive in response to the attack.

Since October 8, Israel's north has also been under constant fire from pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which is allied with Hamas. Israel is responding to the attacks with counter-attacks in Lebanon.

Following the targeted killing of high-ranking Hezbollah commanders by the Israeli army in Lebanon and explosions of Hezbollah militia communications equipment attributed to Israel, the situation has escalated significantly. On Saturday, Hezbollah reported the death of a total of 16 members of an elite unit in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day. According to Israeli sources, they had planned an attack on northern Israel in which they wanted to "infiltrate Israeli communities and murder innocent civilians".

On Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to the Hezbollah militia exploded simultaneously. According to the latest information, 39 people were killed and around 3,000 injured in the explosions, which took place in two waves and were attributed to Israel. Iran condemned the attacks.