Making the remarks on Sunday while paying a visit to a drone unit of Army’s Ground Force, he evaluated Iran’s home-grown drones powerful and efficient in fulfilling their missions, Mehr News Agency reported.

Underlining that the strategic significance of drones in the arena of unfair economic and military wars, Mousavi said that Iran’s drones are all domestically grown and the country has no reliance on foreign countries in this sector.

In mid-April, the commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF) announced that Iranian Armed Forces are among the world’s top five powers capable of building combat drones.

“Iran is the first top power in terms of developing combat drones in the region, and is among the top five in the world,” he said.

Referring to the new domestically-manufactured drones delivered to the Air Force, the IRIAF chief said, “The Air Force possesses a well-equipped manned aircraft squadron, however, we need to modernize our UAV fleet as well to in order to keep our deterrence power at high levels.

His comments came a day after Iran’s Defense Ministry made mass delivery of new combat and surveillance drones, including a jet-powered multipurpose UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to Army’s Air force and Air Defense Force.