The Intelligence Blog revealed information on February 6 of this year, according to which the Russian-Iranian project to establish a production and assembly line for Iranian suicide drones on Russian territory was entrusted to Brigadier General Abdullah Mehrabbi (whose photos we first revealed). Mehrabbi is the head of the “Self-Supply Jihad Organization” (SSJO) in the aerospace arm of the Revolutionary Guards, and he manages the project together with Ghasem Damvandian, who heads the “Quds” aviation industry, which is responsible for most of the production lines for Iranian-made suicide drones.
In early January, the two arrived on a direct Mahan Air flight and landed at the airport near the city of Yelabuga to visit the industrial and technological park – “A Plus Yelabuga” and in this context they decided to convert an industrial complex with an area of 75,900 square meters that was originally intended to produce parts for a joint automotive corporation called “Synergy” that uses the outlines of the “Saifa” company logo in order to hide the mass production of drones.
In recent years, Iran’s defense industry has begun to get involved in the automotive industry for the purpose of producing “certain components”, such as airbags and electronic control units, in order to increase production that was affected by the sanctions on the Iranian Automobile Corporation. The joint Russian-Iranian corporation was supposed to supply Iranian automotive parts and airbags to Russia through Synergy Trust and EMAD – an Iranian company established in 1998 with the aim of developing high-tech industries in the fields of electronics and microelectronics. The launch of the project was made possible by the rapid development of Russian-Iranian cooperation in all sectors of the economy, including automotive engineering, agriculture, oil and gas, energy sectors and arms trade.
The investigation found that the industrial structure was built as part of the “Synergy 1+2” project – ostensibly, industrial cooperation between Iran and Russia in the field of automotive industries, with the signing of the project coming about six months after the Iranian car manufacturer “Saifa” participated in the Moscow auto show. Iran will be represented by Alireza Paymanpak, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry. The location was chosen for a number of reasons, including accessibility to complex raw materials such as aluminum, plastics, propellants and carbon fiber, as well as the ability to transport drones between the countries, under the guise of a brand associated with the automotive industry.