Aerospace Chief Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh
speaks to
one of those under his command near a captured U.S. RQ-170
Sentinel drone aircraft operated by the CIA, Dec. 2011. Days
ago, Iran announced that it has decrypted all the drone's data.
American RQ-170 Drone
Data 'Thoroughly Decoded' (Kayhan, Islamic Republic
of Iran)
How far has
Iran gotten in back-engineering some of America's most sophisticated drone
aircraft? On Monday, according to this news item from
Iran's state-controlled Kayhan, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh,
aerospace chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps., claimed, among other
things, that it has cracked the encryption of an RQ-170 Sentinel drone captured
last year, and that it is now aware of its flight path, which revealed that the
craft had 'not carried out missions' over Iranian nuclear facilities.
One of America's most prized pieces of high-technology on display in Iran: How serious is the loss of a CIA RQ-170 unmanned drone? According to American and Israeli sources - extremely serious, particularly if the unit failed to erase its programming and the data it had collected, as Tehran asserts.
TEHRAN: The
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on Monday said it had decoded all of the data
from an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year.
Aerospace chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps., General
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that the RQ-170 Sentinel aircraft
had not carried out missions over nuclear facilities before it went down in
December 2011 near the eastern border with Afghanistan.
Tehran said previously that it had recovered information
from the top-secret stealth aircraft, but Monday's announcement suggests
technicians may have broken its encryption technology.
"All data from the drone have been completely decoded.
We know where it traveled, step by step," Hajizadeh
is quoted as saying.
"After decoding, our experts discovered that the drone
had not carried out even a single nuclear mission over Iran," he said,
adding, "This shows the nuclear issue is just a pretext for the United
States to pressure Iran."
Hajizadeh said that without any
assistance, including from its allies China and Russia, Iran had captured the
drone and decoded its data. Iran has said it would reverse-engineer the drone
and build its own.
The aircraft, designed and developed by the American company
Lockheed Martin, crossed into Iran's airspace across the border with
Afghanistan when the country "captured it in its electronic net."
Last week, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said it had captured
another U.S. drone, after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, and
showed an image of a Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone
on national TV.
Hajizadeh said Iran had already
acquired a ScanEagle drone and has produced a copy.
Last month, Tehran said that a U.S. had drone violated its
airspace. The Pentagon said an unmanned Predator aircraft came under fire at
least twice while flying over Persian Gulf waters - but that it was not hit.
Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces Brigadier-General MasoudJazayeri said that the
Islamic Republic's defensive power has embarrassed America.
"One year after IRGC captured
a highly advanced U.S. RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft, it has become evident
that Iran is strong enough to defend the country thanks to the progress it has
made in science and technology," Jazayeri said.
Iran, he said, is capable of detecting and tracing any aircraft
over its territory, adding that Iranian scientists are more than able to apply various
technologies to safeguard the country's territorial integrity.
The commander warned the U.S. to stop violation of the
Iranian airspace, adding the Islamic Republic is capable of capturing the most
sophisticated U.S. aircraft.
And on Sunday, Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said that the U.S. reaction demonstrates that the
captured ScanEagle drone belongs to it.
Vahidi told reporters that despite
Washington's refusal to confirm that the aircraft belongs to the United States,
“the country has behaved in a manner that suggests that the drone belongs to
them.”
The ScanEagle drone, which has a
10-foot wingspan, is a long-distance, high-endurance aircraft built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing.
“The violation of Iran's borders by any country is
problematic, and in response, the Islamic Republic of Iran has given fair
warning. And if necessary, it will issue such warnings in writing,” Vahidi said.
Vahidi was alluding to letters
Iran's U.N. Ambassador Muhammad Khazaei handed to
the U.N. Security Council and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
in protest of the U.S. Navy's "illegal and provocative acts" in the
Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.
The letters urged the U.N. chief to warn the United States
“against the continuation of acts in violation of international law and of the
adverse consequences of any provocative and dangerous acts for which the United
States government would be held responsible.”
Vahidi said that, “Iran must be
sensitive to the activity of trans-regional forces in the region, and must
issue warnings when necessary.”
Meanwhile, Hajizadeh rejected Western
claims that a drone recently used by Hezbullah to penetrate Israeli airspace
had been an Iranian version of the RQ-170, saying that in fact, the aircraft
had been manufactured about 10 years ago.
In October, a Hezbullah drone called Ayyub
flew hundreds of miles without being detected by advanced Zionist and U.S.
radar.
Cyber Defense
Meanwhile, the head of Iran's Passive Defense Organization, Brigadier
General Gholam-Reza Jalali,
said that the Islamic Republic must make fundamental changes in its cyber
infrastructure to raise the country's passive defense capabilities.
Jalali said that the Islamic
Republic is “under threat” from its enemies in three important areas of “military,
economy and cyberspace.”
Iran's passive defenses have an important role to play in
the face of these threats, Jalali added.
The Iranian general also pointed to the all-out economic and
cyber war launched by the United States against the Islamic Republic,
highlighting the importance of fundamental changes in Iran's cyber
infrastructure.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Iran has been the target of several cyber attacks over the
past few years.
In June, The New York
Times reported that U.S. President Barack Obama had ordered a covert cyber
attack against Iran with the Stuxnet computer virus to
sabotage the country's nuclear energy program.
A report published by The Washington Post also in June said
that the United States and the occupying regime of Israel had created
the computer virus Flame - a Stuxnet-like espionage
malware - to spy on Iran.
In response to such attacks, Iran launched a cyber defense
headquarters tasked with preventing computer worms from breaking into or
stealing data from the country's maximum security networks, including nuclear
facilities, power plants, data centers, and banks.
