Mohajer-10
Iran's would-be answer to the MQ-9 Reaper — a large reconnaissance-strike drone unveiled in 2023 with bold claims of 2,000 km range, 24-hour endurance and a 300 kg payload. The catch: almost none of it has been independently verified, and a piston engine caps the ambition.
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Iran's would-be answer to the MQ-9 Reaper — the large reconnaissance-strike top of the long-running Mohajer family, unveiled in 2023 with bold claims of a 2,000 km range, 24-hour endurance and a 300 kg weapons load. The catch, which defines this entry: almost none of those figures has been independently verified, and a propeller-driven piston engine caps how far the ambition can actually reach.
Overview
The Mohajer-10 (مهاجر-۱۰) is the heavy top of Iran's decades-old Mohajer drone family — a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) reconnaissance-strike UAV that visually mimics the American MQ-9 Reaper. It was unveiled with maximal fanfare on Iran's Defense Industry Day, 22 August 2023, in Tehran with President Raisi present (a prototype reportedly first flew on 10 July 2023 near Isfahan). For BattlePolicy it sits in the under-covered Iran watch and matters as both a capability claim and a proliferation question — Iran's drones have reshaped the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The essential caveat up front, and it is the whole story here: every performance figure for the Mohajer-10 traces to Iranian state media, and Western analysts stress the claims are untested. Treat the specs below as Iranian claims, not established facts.
Development
The Mohajer-10 is built by Qods Aviation Industries, with the IAIO and the Iranian Army cited as co-builders — and an important correction: it is a product of the Qods/MODAFL line, not HESA, which builds the Shahed and Ababil families (the two are frequently confused). It is the largest evolution of a family that stretches back to the 1980s, scaled up from the combat-proven but much smaller Mohajer-6. Open sources suggest at least five had been built by early 2025. Crucially, it is powered by a Rotax-914 piston engine driving a propeller — not the Reaper's turboprop — which both exposes it to sanctions (the engine is a Western commercial component) and inherently limits the speed, altitude and payload it can achieve.
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