Shaheen’s secret…the march that decided the battle of the Syrian rebels | Encyclopedia

With the launch of the Military Operations Department of Operation “Deterrence of Aggression” on November 27, 2024, which led 12 days later to the fall of the Assad regime and the rebels’ control over all of the Syrian governorates, an effective weapon appeared in the battle that played a decisive role in its results: Shaheen drones. .

Since the first days of the battle, the “Military Operations Department” published several video clips targeting military vehicles and gatherings of Syrian regime soldiers with the Shaheen drone, which was showing great effectiveness and accuracy in hitting targets, in addition to what it broadcast of the use of these drones in monitoring and surveillance operations, and dropping warning leaflets and threats to soldiers. order.

It also published an issue about the “Shaheen Brigades,” which specializes in drones, and whose video clips it records before it hits the target are now awaited by supporters of the revolution. What are the most prominent of these marches, how were you able to develop them, and how did they affect the context of the battle?

The first signs

In December 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its military bases at Hmeimim Airport in the Latakia countryside and in Tartous had been subjected to a missile attack, which led to the death of two soldiers and the damage of a number of aircraft. It later became clear that the attack was carried out by drones originating from armed opposition factions. The Ministry indicated that its forces were able to shoot down 7 drones and control 6 others with the help of electronic warfare devices.

Subsequently, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said that combating the threat of terrorist attacks using drones requires the cooperation of all parties concerned at the international level.

The Russian Ministry of Defense also published a photo of one of the aircraft it seized, saying this is the first time that opposition factions have targeted Russian bases with drones, and a winged aircraft carrying 4 bombs on each wing appeared in the photo.

The bases in Hmeimim and Tartous were subjected to several other attacks with drones, and the Russian Ministry of Defense was issuing statements about shooting them down, indicating that they did not cause any damage, until the Military Operations Department announced during the “Deterring Aggression” battle the Shaheen Brigades, which specialized in drones, and the videos it broadcast showed the use of types Various types of aircraft, some of which are launched manually and others from platforms. The aircraft range from four-propeller models to locally-made ones, equipped with ammunition such as bombs or… Shells.

Winged aircraft

Similar to the plane whose photo was published by the Russian Ministry of Defense, with improvements, planes made of cheap materials and guided by a global positioning system (GPS) have appeared, which can carry a maximum of 18 small bombs, or a warhead weighing more than 30 pounds. One kilogram, some of which are designed for long-range flights and are equipped with a fuel tank.

Two types of winged aircraft appeared in the clips published by the Operations Management Room. The first requires a manual push to be launched and has a propeller engine. It is also equipped with cameras that transmit the image directly. According to the videos, the plane resembles Ukrainian FPV drones, which are attack aircraft (suicide) that target military vehicles and installations, and can be loaded with explosive ammunition that may reach 30 kilograms.

As for the second type, they are launched from platforms, which are also attack aircraft, and are equipped with anti-armor RPG missiles. The Military Operations Department published videos of the moment they targeted military vehicles, the regime forces’ operations room in Masyaf, and Colonel Uday Ghasa’s car in the Hama countryside.

Quadcopter

They are like the commercial drones available on the market, and the clips published by the “Military Operations Management” room showed versions of them larger than the known aircraft, which suggests that the rebels made modifications to these aircraft, and they were used for three different missions: the first was photography and reconnaissance, and the second Throwing small bombs at groups and individuals, and the third is throwing leaflets. The Joint Operations Management Room published several video clips showing the moment leaflets were dropped on the locations of regime soldiers, with a message calling on them to defect, and containing instructions that they can follow. To preserve their lives.

The ability of these aircraft to fly vertically, thanks to the presence of four propellers, contributes to the success of their missions by dropping leaflets or small bombs, but their relatively small size makes them unable to carry large weights.

Zoam winged missile

In November 2023, Syrian regime forces published photos that they said were of a missile fired by armed opposition factions at the Jurin area in the Al-Ghab Plain in the western Hama countryside.

The images show a drone with a 6-meter wingspan, a 4-meter jet rocket engine, carrying 100 kilograms of explosives, and being controlled remotely. Therefore, this drone is the closest thing to a glide bomb launched from the ground, and it works technically in the same way as a cruise missile.

Since 2021, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham had published pictures of large, locally made missiles bearing the name “Zoam”, with a caliber of 240 mm, and which are derived from the Soviet missile “M-24 FUD”, until the regime forces published the pictures from Goren, which show Modifying the missile by adding wings and a jet engine, turning it into a drone with a high explosive payload.

Unlike traditional propeller-powered drones, jet-powered models are able to carry more advanced payloads and achieve higher speeds, making them difficult to intercept by conventional defense systems such as surface-to-air missiles and radar.

On the first day of the “Deterring Aggression” battle, on November 27, the “Military Operations Management” room published a video clip of what it said was the “Zouam” remotely-guided missile as it targeted the headquarters of the 46th Regiment in the western Aleppo countryside before it took control of it, and because of its size. The large missile. Activists initially circulated the clip as a regime forces plane being shot down, before other identifiers published a correction of the information.

It also later published a video clip showing the details of targeting the military academy in the city of Aleppo with a guided missile, starting with the preparation of the missile, its launch, and its direction until the moment it reached its target and exploded.

Russian accusation against Ukraine

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the armed opposition began using drones since mid-2016 for reconnaissance purposes, and the targeting at the end of 2017 was the first military use of drones.

Head of the Drone Development Department of the Russian General Staff, Major General Alexander Novikov, said that analysis of information about the drones used by “terrorists” in Syria showed that “they were developed and used by specialists who underwent special training in the countries that manufacture and use drone systems.” Adding that the explosives carried by drones cannot be manufactured in Syria under temporary conditions, he pointed out that there are several places where this material is manufactured, one of which is Ukraine.

Novikov said that the drones are primitive explosive devices weighing about 400 grams, which produce an explosion with a radius of 50 meters. This was 5 years before the authority revealed the development it had achieved in the field of marches.

Although the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the targeting of the Russian Hmeimim and Tartous airport bases in more than 22 drone attacks since 2018, and despite the Russian accusation that the opposition factions in the Latakia Mountains and the Idlib countryside were behind them, no military party in the Syrian opposition announced its responsibility for the operation. Ukraine did not comment on the accusations.

Ukraine announces

In July 2024, the Kyiv Post newspaper published that it had obtained video recordings showing the Khimik group – a force affiliated with the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate – carrying out military strikes on Russian forces near the Kuweres military airport east of Aleppo. Analysts at the time suggested that Ukrainian forces are cooperating with the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control areas of northeastern Syria.

A report prepared by “Clash Report” quoted the leader of the Shaheen Abu Bakr Brigades, saying that the Ukrainians provided them with 3D printing files for key components, such as bomb carriers, tails, and warheads, which allowed them to produce, assemble and adapt the marches independently. One of them said that the Ukrainians “taught us about aircraft mechanics, bomb carriers and 3D printing.” While the other leader in the brigades, Abu Mazen, said that the role of Ukrainian training played an important role in developing systems for transmitting and targeting drone signals, in a way that enhanced the range of the aircraft and operational efficiency by solving energy and signals problems.

The Shaheen Brigades, with the various types of drones they used, contributed to the battle of “deterring aggression” by achieving a kind of balance in the air force, in addition to the important role of the Russians withdrawing the largest number of their air arsenal from Syria because it was busy with the war in Ukraine. The drones decided a number of battles. Others may have been stopped. For example, the city of Hama fell into the hands of opposition militants without resistance from the regime forces, and a suicide march affiliated with the Phalange targeted the regime forces’ operations room in the city of Masyaf. Just days before the “Operations Room Administration” took control of the city. Today, when the regime has fallen in Syria, and the capital, Damascus, is in the hands of the opposition, a file with more details about the drone file and the mechanism for its development may appear soon.