Iran Aerospace Forces Brigadier General
Amir Ali Hajizadeh speaks
to one of those under his command alongside a captured American
RQ-170 Sentinel drone aircraft, operated by
the CIA, Tehran, Dec. 8.
Iran Reveals Captured U.S. Drone Data to ‘Discourage’ Pentagon (FARS
News Agency, Iran)
Have Iranian scientists been able to back-engineer a sophisticated captured
U.S. spy drone, despite assurances from U.S. military and intelligence
officials that it would be incapable of doing so? According to this news item
from Iran’s FARS News agency, the commander of the Aerospace Forces of the
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has demonstrated that now, the drone’s secrets
have been revealed.
Islamic Republic
of Iran - Fars News Agency - Original Article (English)
TEHRAN: Iranian military officials have announced that the
country's experts have decoded intelligence gathering systems and computer hard
discs of America’s advanced RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft, which was downed
by Iran in December after it violated Iranian
airspace.
Speaking to the Fars News Agency, Commander of the Aerospace
Forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed that data (about the drone's service life) had
been obtained from the craft’s intelligence system in order to discourage his Pentagon
counterparts, who had alleged that Iranians would never succeed in decoding the
spy drone's memory and intelligence devices.
"We regard this plane as a national asset, and our comments
today should not be construed as representing the sum total of information we
have very easily obtained … Yet today I am providing four clues to let the
Americans know how deeply we are able to penetrate into (the intelligence
systems and devices) contained in this drone," he added.
Brigadier General Hajizadeh stated
that elements of the drone had been transferred to a California facility in
October 2010, and that later, in November 2010, the drone was transferred to
Kandahar, Afghanistan, and began operations there.
The commander said that in its November maiden flight in Kandahar,
the drone had experienced technical problems, and that U.S. experts had failed
resolve them.
At that
point, in December 2010, according to Hajizadeh, the RQ-170 was sent back to a Los Angeles airfield for
testing on its censors and operations, and the drone had a
number of test flights.
As a fourth piece of evidence to prove Iran had gained access to the
drone's hard drives, the commander mentioned that the spy drone's memory device
revealed that it had flown over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's hideout in
Pakistan two weeks before his death.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
"Had we not accessed the plane's software and hard
discs, we would not have been able to obtain this information," Hajizadeh said, reiterating that Iran's military experts
are in full command of the intelligence contained in the drone and have a good
working knowledge of how the drone and its programming works.
The unmanned surveillance plane, which was lost by the
United States over Iran, was a CIA stealth aircraft used for secret missions. Among
the most sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA's fleet, it was designed
to evade enemy defenses.
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The drone is the first such loss by the United States.
The RQ-170 has special coating and a batwing shape which help
it to penetrate the air defenses of other nations undetected. The existence of
the aircraft, which is made by Lockheed Martin, has been known since 2009, when
one was photographed at the main U.S. airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
The revelation came to light after Russia and China asked
Tehran to provide them with information on the captured drone.
Ahmad Karimpour, an adviser to
Iran's defense minister, said on Friday that Tehran has received requests from
many countries for information on the RQ-170 Sentinel, but that Moscow and
Beijing have been the most aggressive in their pursuit of details on the drone.
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