Harop

Israel Aerospace Industries' canister-launched, man-in-the-loop loitering munition — an expendable UAV-missile hybrid built to hunt, loiter, and destroy air defenses and high-value targets with electro-optical precision.

Overview

The Harop is an extended-endurance loitering munition that sits at the premium end of the attack-drone spectrum. Launched from sealed canisters aboard trucks or ships, it flies for six to nine hours over an area of interest, transmitting live video to an operator who can search, identify, and strike a target with claimed sub-metre accuracy — or abort and re-attack if the situation changes. While it inherited the airframe and canister footprint of the fully autonomous Harpy anti-radiation drone, the Harop replaced the anti-radar seeker with an electro-optical/infrared turret and full man-in-the-loop control, broadening the target set from emitters alone to anything the operator sees.

Development

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) developed the Harop in the 2000s from its earlier Harpy, a fire-and-forget anti-radiation weapon that homed on emitting radars and self-destructed if they fell silent. The Harpy had been a niche SEAD tool since the 1980s, but its limitation was the very tactic that defeated it: radar operators simply switched off their sets and vanished from the seeker. IAI’s MBT Missiles Division therefore replaced the anti-radiation seeker with an EO/IR sensor and human control link, creating a weapon that could kill non-emitting, relocated, or time-sensitive targets. According to Airforce Technology, the new system was intended to “neutralise enemy air defence systems” and other high-value assets in ways no pure anti-radiation missile could.

Turkey is widely reported as the launch customer with a 2005 order, though details remain opaque. The Harop was publicly unveiled at Aero India in February 2009, and India soon followed with a US$100 million order for the Indian Air Force that same year; Germany, working with Rheinmetall, placed its order a few months later, all before the weapon had seen combat. Notably, North Korea later displayed an unlicensed copy at a military parade — a testament to how quickly the concept spread once the design was understood.

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