Quick thread on the alleged Shahed production site identified by the US in the Special Economic Zone of Alabuga in Tatarstan 55.821215° 52.051971° Back in February, @TheGoodISIS already identified the Russian UAV company Abatros LLC as a potential Shahed manufacturer and there are a few more indications this could indeed be the case. isis-online.org/isis-reports/d…

Iran’s Turbine Engines Manufacturing Industries (TEM) – the entity responsible for the overhaul and production of regular jet engines as well as production of the miniaturized turbojet and turbofan engines powering Iran’s cruise missiles. Geolocation of testing footage of Iran’s Owj (J85) jet engine.

Video should have been take here 35.695590° 51.202895°

https://twitter.com/JasonMBrodsky/status/1412074567804272642

Broad location of the fire

Confidence isn’t 100% but I think I geolocated Iran’s new solid propellant plant inaugurated back in February. Quick thread going through the data points. Footage of the inauguration includes a single, albeit very limited, outside shot showing parts of the facility.

As an analyst you sometimes miss the forest for the trees. Remember this 2014 exhibition on the ‘Achievements of the IRGC-ASF’? Well, it turns out this title is meant to be taken literally, with the systems on display all appearing to be developed by the IRGC itself. Thread. In 2014, the IRGC-ASF organized an exhibition for no other than the Supreme Leader and displayed a mix of well-known and new systems in the field of UAVs, SAMs and surface-to-surface missiles in the process. leader.ir/en/pictures/al…

A quick thread on a pretty unique Iranian weapons system: Iran's HESA Karrar anti-aircraft suicide drone. Now you might remember that in 2010, Iran unveiled a pretty odd system called HESA Karrar. Iran claimed the Karrar could be used as both a target drone and a high-speed UCAV to drop unguided bombs.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Badr 3/Nafea rocket is neither particularly long-range nor that sophisticated. Yet, what is interesting about it is that it offers a rare glimpse into Iran’s role in the domestic production of rockets in Gaza. Thread.



The Badr 3 is an unguided rocket that was first introduced by Islamic Jihad in 2019. What make it stand out is its warhead with a weight of between 300 and 400kg (sources differ) which is much heavier than warheads of regular Palestinian rockets.

Bit of a meta-tweet on identifying Iranian origins of weapons systems:

There's a tendency to compare weapons with existing Iranian systems and then decide it's an "Ababil" or "Fajr 5" based on some similarities. Sometimes this approach works but often it doesn't. What we now have in theatres like Gaza and Yemen is a concerted Iranian effort to enable the local production of rather simple systems which seem to be specially designed with that purpose in mind. Add to that local autonomy and sub-standard manufacturing.

Because they don't realize just how cynical the woke are. For them it's not about vulnerable minorities, it's about using vulnerable minorities as a tool and shield for whatever they want.

https://twitter.com/moveincircles/status/1388776735798407168

Of course that's not a conscious Macchiavellian process. They make themselves genuinely believe that whatever their very online ingroup believes that day is indistinguishable from the interest of vulnerable minorities.

Thread about the riddle that is Abu Zabal Factory 91: Egypt's solid propellant missile factory. If you are interested in missile proliferation, there is a good chance you have heard about the 1980s Condor 2 project. In a nutshell, it was a joint program by Argentina, Iraq and Egypt to build a highly sophisticated solid-propellant ballistic missile.

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So what are the Egyptians working on? It's very difficult to know. One data point is a 2013 statement by retired military intelligence brigadier general Muhsin Saad Metwalli, who claimed Egypt produced a 3000km missile with Russian, Chinese and Korean assistance. However...

https://twitter.com/fab_hinz/status/1375203026965774339

it is entirely unclear where he got his information from. It could be official information gained during his duty or just some military gossip.

Egypt refurbished its missile engine test stands in early 2020. Time for a quick thread on the Jabal Hamza test site, Egypt's liquid propellant missile program, and what (little) we know about its current status. The Jabal Hamza test site goes back to the 1960s, when German engineers tried to develop an ambitious liquid-propellant missile arsenal for Nasser. The program eventually failed with the Germans and Egyptians unable to produce a working missile.

The Houthis are going underground. In 2019, the movement seems to have reactivated a Saleh-era underground facility at Hafa military base in Sanaa, which had been destroyed by coalition airstrikes back in 2015. (15.325075° 44.239581°) Piles of tailings showing up near the Southern entrance to the site also indicate tunelling work and a potential expansion of the old site.

Great high-res video of the Houthi missile exhibition More footage (including testing of the Qasim 1

Joint investigation by @AuroraIntel and me. Last weekend, a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis at Dhahran seems to have impacted in an open field, less than half a mile away from Aramco worker housing. Thread Last Sunday saw an attack on the tri-city area of Dammam, Dhahran and Khobar with the the Houthis claiming to have attacked targets in Ras Tanura and the Khobar region using drones as well as a single Zulfiqar missile.

New Houthi missiles just dropped! Let's take a look at what's new here. via @AuroraIntel First, there is the entirely new Qasim solid-propellant missile.

Thread on Iran's very first missile base and first missile tunnel: the Shahid Montazeri Garrison near Kermanshah. 34.482781° 47.010240° In November 1984, Iran's missile force began to take shape. While Moghadddam and his team were busy training in Syria, he tasked his deputy with finding a facility for Iran's first Scuds. It was the first big task for 22-year old Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

And while we are talking about Syrian CW, here's a short thread about the Syrian air force's decentralized chemical weapons production facilities destroyed by the OPCW. In 2013, the Syrian government declared a large part of its CW program to the OPCW. While its official declaration has remained classified, some UN documents do mention the names of facilities.

So this is quite interesting. If I am correct, the Zoljanah motor test Iran showed us already took place in December 2015. How can we know and what does it mean for Iran's missile and space program? A quick thread. Let's start with the basic location. The footage was recorded at AIO's large horizontal test stand in Khojir ( 35.653232° 51.658307°) which was built between 2005 and 2008.

A quick thread on the Tondar 69, a missile that is often forgotten but played an important role in Iranian missile development. Like so much of Iran's missile program, the history of the Tondar 69 goes back to the Iran-Iraq war when the Iranians were seeking ballistic missiles from a variety of sources. Among them were the Soviet Union and Syria, both of which rebuffed their requests for Scuds.