イラン軍の無人機基地公開、地下に１００機以上　国営テレビ

【テヘランＡＦＰ＝時事】イラン国営テレビは２８日、西部ザグロス山脈の地下にある空軍の無人機基地の映像を報じた。（写真はイラン軍が公開した地下の無人機基地の様子）
　モハンマド・バゲリ参謀総長とアブドルラヒム・ムサビ司令官が基地を視察する様子も放映された。
　国営テレビによると、基地はザグロス山脈の中心部に位置し、１００機以上の無人戦闘機、無人偵察機、無人攻撃機が保管されている。特に注目すべきはミサイルを搭載可能な無人機「カマン２２」で、航続距離は２０００キロを超えるという。
　ムサビ氏は放送の中で、基地は「地下数百メートル」にあると述べたが、正確な位置は明らかにしなかった。取材班は西部ケルマンシャーからヘリコプターで４０分近く移動したとしている。
　イランが無人機の開発を始めたのは１９８０年代。８年続いたイラン・イラク戦争のさなかだった。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/05/31-14:53）

Iranian state television on Saturday broadcast footage of an air force base for drones under the Zagros mountain range in the west of the country.
The exact location of the base was not revealed, although the TV reporter said he travelled on a helicopter for nearly 40 minutes from the city of Kermanshah to reach it.
Iran started developing drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), in the 1980s during its eight-year war with Iraq.
The US and Israel accuse Iran of dispatching fleets of drones to its proxies in the Middle East, including Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Yemen's Huthi rebels.
Video aired on state television showed Iran's armed forces chief of staff General Mohammad Bagheri and army commander Abdolrahim Mousavi visiting the underground site.
More than 100 combat, reconnaissance and attack drones belonging to the army are kept for operations in this base located in the heart of the Zagros mountains, the report said.
Bagheri, quoted by the official news agency IRNA, described the site as a safe operational base for strategic drones.
We never underestimate threats, we never assume the enemy is asleep, and we are constantly alert and vigilant, he added.
Mousavi told state television the base was located several hundred metres (yards) underground, without giving further details.
State TV said the flagship of the fleet was the Kaman-22, a drone equipped with missiles and able to fly at least 2,000 kilometres (1,245 miles).
The US Treasury slapped sanctions on the drone programme of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in October last year.
It accused the Guards of being behind a September 2019 drone strike on a Saudi oil refinery, as well as a July 2021 drone attack on a commercial ship off the coast of Oman that killed two crewmen.
Iran denied the charges.