A viral image has been shared by the Syrian Arab Army that shows two Assad soldiers holding a pocket-size drone claimed to be FLIR Systems Black Hornet 3 drone that costs almost $200,000.
The photograph of the tiny drone first emerged on July 19 with pro-Assad social media accounts claiming that the Black Hornet was captured by the SAA soldiers near the town of Tal Tamr in the country's northeastern Al Hasakah Governorate, which borders Turkey to the north and Iraq to the south.
The conflicted region was under the control of the US forces. The US soldiers along with their local Kurdish forces were operating in the region till Turkey launched an attack in October 2019 following which Assad forces along with Russian operators moved into the region.
It is understood that the drone may belong to the US forces, however, there is no clarity on that yet. US forces have been active in the region and there have been reports of secret weapons that have been deployed to take out ISIS and Al Qaeda operatives in the region.
Last month, photos and videos weres shared on social media that confirmed that US drones armed with the secretive ninja bomb or the ninja missile were used in a series of attacks to neutralize Al Qaeda and ISIS operatives in Syria.
The Black Hornet is a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that was manufactured by Norwegian defense company - Prox Dynamics and is individually handmade. The manufacturing cost of Black Hornet makes it too expensive for large-scale deployment and a unit of Black Hornet drones costs as much as US$190,000.
The company till now has supplied close to 3,000 micro UAVs several armed forces. United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Norway, the Netherlands, and India are among the 19 countries that have been supplied the tiny drone by Prox Dynamics.
The Syrian region of Al Hasakah Governorate was in news back in May after a report claimed that the US soldiers burned down hectares of food crops in the region. The locals had alleged that thermal balloons were dropped on the fields by US Apache helicopters on orders from President Donald Trump.
