Shahed-129

The Shahed-129 is Iran's most capable indigenous MALE drone, a twin-boom pusher design developed by HESA and comparable in concept — if not performance — to the American MQ-1 Predator. With an 8-meter wingspan, 24-hour endurance, and an operational altitude of approximately 5,500 meters, the Shahed-129 was designed to give the IRGC a persistent strike and surveillance capability for both domestic border monitoring and regional power projection through proxy forces. It can carry four Sadid-1 precision-guided bombs — a 35 kg munition with electro-optical seeker — on underwing hardpoints, allowing standoff strikes on personnel and light vehicles at several kilometers range.

Iran has deployed the Shahed-129 through Hezbollah in Lebanon, IRGC-aligned forces in Syria and Iraq, and directly over Iranian territory for border security. It represents the upper tier of Iran's indigenous drone program — more sophisticated and more expensive than the Shahed-136 one-way attack drone but far below the payload and sensor capabilities of Western MALE platforms. Western intelligence reports indicated Iran offered or supplied Shahed-129s to Russia alongside the Shahed-136, though Russia's primary use of Iranian drones in Ukraine has focused on the one-way attack variants. The Shahed-129 program demonstrates Iran's ambition to field recoverable, reusable MALE capability without access to Western aerospace technology.