Ibra Naber/Business Insider
- Iran attacked the Kurdish region in northern Iraq over 400 times during its war with the US and Israel.
- Officials displayed weapons recovered from these strikes.
- They included a new drone jet that's twice as fast as the Shahed drones that are Iran's signature.
Three men unloaded the remains of a monstrous weapon from a white van in Erbil, Iraq last week. Here, in the cordoned-off yard of the Asayish — the security forces of the auton›omous Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq — explosive ordnance disposal specialists examined every Iranian projectile used in this war. "Zolfaghar," one of the Kurds said, tapping the pitch-black metal. "This missile struck near a mosque on the outskirts of the city just a few hours ago."
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The Zolfaghar is a large ballistic missile that carries a warhead weighing up to 1,100 pounds. The missile is only one part of the extensive arsenal with which Iran has attacked the Gulf states and the Middle East in recent weeks. In an exclusive presentation for Business Insider, the Asayish unit displayed some of the drones and missiles that have struck Kurdistan since late February, killing 17 people in the region.
These remnants are a gallery of the many weapons Iran has used to kill and terrify people across the region: triangular Shahed long-range drones, hulking ballistic missiles, and a new jet-powered drone that's more difficult to shoot down.
"With the help of Russia, China and North Korea, Iran has succeeded over recent decades in building up an impressive arsenal of effective, technologically sophisticated long-range weapons," the influential Austrian colonel and military analyst Markus Reisner said.
Authorities in the Kurdish region of Iraq have recovered drones and missiles from the many Iranian attacks there during Iran's war with the US and Israel.Ibra Naber/Business Insider
Tehran's ability to continue carrying out 60 to 90 drone attacks a day — combined with missile strikes — even into the sixth week of the war prolonged the conflict and increased pressure on global energy markets. The American-Israeli alliance struck more than 13,000 targets in Iran, including more than 2,000 command and control targets, but was unable to decisively break its military capabilities, before the US and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on April 7. According to US intelligence assessments reported by CNN, around half of Iran's missile launchers are still intact; in addition, the country continues to possess thousands of long-range kamikaze drones.
The destructive power of Iranian weapons has been demonstrated in this war, Reisner said: "Drones are being deployed in a saturating combination with cruise missiles and rockets. When these weapons systems are combined with targeted satellite reconnaissance from Russia and China, they also develop a troubling degree of precision."
In the yard, Kurdish security forces lined up various pieces of debris. In the center: Iran's most frequently used weapon — Shahed long-range drones, with a range of up to 1,200 miles. Russia uses these lumbering weapons, which have a recognizable delta-wing shape, extensively against Ukraine, usually in improved variants. "We identified three kinds of Iranian Shahed drones," said Halmat, a member of the Kurdish bomb-analysis team. The most frequently used Shahed-136 had more of a lead-colored, metallic surface; others were lighter or black. Their components, however, were very similar.
Officials recovered a new jet-powered drone (at left) designed with sharp angles to reduce its radar signature.Ibra Naber/Business Insider
Iran also used other models from its roughly dozen combat drones against Kurdistan, including the Meraj-532, a medium-range attack drone used by the Revolutionary Guards. "And that over there," Halmat said, "is a new Iranian drone, the Hadid-110."
It is a jet-powered attack that can race past many air defenses and slam into targets at over twice the speed of most Shaheds. The drone is launched with a rocket booster that accelerates it before the jet engine takes over for sustained flight. Its design similarly reflects the growing sophistication of Iran's designs: A triangular wing configuration combined with sharply angled surfaces intended to hide it from radar. One of these drone jets slammed into a home in a neighborhood outside Erbil, the EOD specialists said.
Smaller combat drones with a shorter range have also appeared in the Iran war. Videos released in March by Iranian-backed militias show small piloted drones hitting hangars and a helicopter near a US base in Iraq. Even advanced air defenses struggled to defeat threats this small and numerous.
The bulky remains of the Kheibar ballistic missile lay at the back of the yard. "They also used it to strike civilian areas here in the region," said Pishtiwan, who is part of the engineering team of the Asayish security forces. He pointed to the markings left on the 10-meter-long missile. "This happened on March 19 in the Mala Omer area, outside the city. We found it at 12:55 p.m."
Kurdish EOD specialists recovered fragments from an Iranian Kheibar ballistic missile that struck the region.Ibra Naber/Business Insider
In total, Iran attacked the Erbil region alone with more than 400 drones and ballistic missiles, Halmat said: "And we have defused and collected more than 200 bombs."
Pishtiwan explained that after every explosion in the region, one of their specialized units is dispatched to assess the damage and identify the weapon. The risk of being caught in a so-called double-tap attack — a second strike hitting the same target just minutes later — is very real. "But it is our duty to protect our people. We are ready to sacrifice our lives for this country."
According to military expert Reisner, Iran's weapons have also inflicted considerable damage on the United States and Israel. "Iranian strikes in Israel and in the middle of American bases made that abundantly clear in recent weeks."
The past weeks have also delivered a painful lesson in the Kurdistan Region: not even the United States — the most advanced military in the world — can fully protect its bases and diplomatic facilities in a modern drone war.
The Erbil region has been struck over 400 times by Iranian drones and missiles, authorities there said.Ibra Naber/Business Insider
During the attacks on Erbil, Iran and its allied militias targeted both the US military installation at the airport and the US consulate, which opened in late 2025 at a cost of nearly $800 million. Kurdish security forces shared videos with Business Insider showing damage from impacts on the consulate grounds, though the destruction does not appear to have been extensive. The French military was hit harder. A drone strike killed a French soldier in March in a town near Erbil, which President Emmanuel Macron confirmed was the country's first military death in the Middle East war.
Kurdish security forces said they are almost entirely dependent on Western air defenses. A Patriot system fought off Iranian ballistic missiles over the last few weeks. Drone defenses were numerous. The C-RAM gun system fired bursts, including glowing tracer rounds, at incoming drones. And US fighter jets like the F-16 Fighting Falcon regularly took off to hunt drones, as seen in videos from Kurdistan. According to media reports, the Raytheon Coyote drone was also used to destroy several drones in flight.
Kurdish security officials say that, according to their information, no Ukrainian drone specialists were stationed in Kurdistan for air defense. Kyiv had deployed more than 200 drone experts during the conflict with Iran, primarily to Gulf states, to provide support.
According to Reisner, Iran's waves of attacks are also a final warning for Europe. "The range of Iranian missiles extends to the periphery of Europe. The US missile defense system stationed in Europe — the European Phased Adaptive Approach, or EPAA — and national procurement initiatives such as Germany's introduction of the Israeli 'Arrow' system are therefore of great importance."
Ibrahim Naber is a foreign correspondent who has reported from Ukraine since 2022. In October 2025, he and his team were injured in a Russian Lancet drone strike in Dnipro. In 2025, he received the George Weidenfeld Prize for his coverage of global conflicts and crisis zones. He wrote his dissertation at King's College London on the psychology of modern drone warfare.
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