Israel's IWI arms Thai soldiers with anti-drone rifles

Israel Weapon Industries has delivered its ARBEL anti-drone system to Thailand’s Ministry of Defence, where the computerized fire-control kit is now fitted into rifles already in Thai service and is in operational use by day and by night. Thai military officials are already discussing a follow-on order with the company, after IWI finished the integration work and trained Thai soldiers on site. IWI sells ARBEL either built into a complete IWI rifle or installed in a customer’s existing weapon, and Thailand chose the second option, with the company’s team carrying out the conversion in the country by replacing each rifle’s lower receiver with the ARBEL unit. Thai troops therefore keep the rifles, ammunition and optics they already know, while gaining the ability to engage small drones with them. ARBEL does not detect drones or point the rifle for the soldier, but instead controls the exact moment each shot is released. The first round fires mechanically, as with any standard rifle, and while the soldier keeps the trigger pulled, the system releases follow-up rounds at the cadence that gives the best chance of a hit, leaving the shooter free to concentrate on tracking a small drone that flies fast and erratically at a distance. The rifle still fires normally if the battery runs flat, and the kit uses standard 5.56 mm ammunition and works with any optic, from red dots and low-power variable scopes to thermal and night vision sights. “Small tactical drones have become a direct and growing threat to soldiers on the battlefield. We developed the ARBEL ADS to give soldiers an effective means of defending themselves against this evolving threat, while providing armed forces with a critical tactical advantage in an increasingly complex battlespace,” said Ronen Hamudot, vice chairman of SK Group, IWI’s parent company. The system weighs about 400 grams (14 ounces), and IWI quotes an engagement range against aerial targets of up to 450 m (490 yards) in daylight and about 250 m (270 yards) at night. The current generation was unveiled in February 2025, when IWI introduced ARBEL versions for its ARAD rifle, any 5.56 mm AR-15-pattern rifle and the NEGEV light machine gun ahead of the IDEX exhibition in Abu Dhabi. Speaking to The Defence Blog in July, IWI chief product manager Adam Fraser described ARBEL as a soldier’s last line of defense against small tactical drones, mainly first-person-view (FPV) attack drones, and said it is meant to work as one layer alongside detection systems and electronic warfare. IWI said its demonstrations had shown attacking drones brought down within 10 seconds with only a few rounds, against targets flying at up to 60 km/h (37 mph) at ranges beyond 100 m (330 feet), and the company estimated at the time that the system was fielded or in procurement in 10 to 15 European countries. Thailand gives ARBEL its first announced operational customer in Asia, and IWI said several other Southeast Asian countries are at different stages of buying the system, with more deployments in the region expected within months. “As Southeast Asian militaries place greater emphasis on counter-drone capabilities, Thailand’s adoption of ARBEL ADS reflects this growing operational priority. We see rising demand across the region for solutions that can help soldiers meet this challenge,” said Doron Korol, SK Group vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. IWI, based in Kiryat Gat and best known for the Uzi submachine gun, the Tavor bullpup rifle and the Negev light machine gun, is the main small arms supplier to the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police, and its weapons serve with military, police and special forces units in more than 60 countries.