Thursday, December 08, 2011

Is this the downed U.S. stealth drone? Iranian TV airs footage of military officials inspecting craft


Iranian television has aired images of military officials inspecting what it claims is the high-tech U.S. stealth drone lost in the country last week.

The RQ-170 Sentinel was on a surveillance mission when it was detected by Iranians over Kashmar and downed by their armed forces, Iran claims.

These images give more credence to Iran’s claims of having the highly-sensitive drone - but the Pentagon has not yet verified this.


 'Drone': Iranian television has aired images of military officials inspecting what it claims is the U.S. stealth drone lost in the country last week

 U.S. officials have admitted the drone was lost on a mission last week, but say it was probably because of a malfunction on board.

They also pointed out it would have probably been badly damaged - and therefore less sensitive - because it fell from a height of up to 50,000ft.

The tour of the drone on Press TV is clearly political manoeuvring by Iran as the U.S. tries to find out more about the country's nuclear programme.

Iran claims the drones are a violation of its sovereignty and feels they are an aggressive act against them, reported Yahoo News.

 Military officials: These images give more credence to Iran's claims of having the Iran highly-sensitive drone, but the Pentagon has not yet verified this


Unhappy: Iran claims the drones are a violation of its sovereignty and feel they are an aggressive act against them by the U.S.


But the U.S. said earlier this week the drone was only supposed to fly over Afghanistan looking for insurgents then flew off course.

U.S. officials are concerned about the Iranians potentially sharing or selling what they could have recovered of the aircraft to China or Russia.

These fears will be heightened following the broadcast, as it shows the cream-coloured drone seemingly intact despite its crash.

Press TV also reported that Iran will now ‘carry out reverse engineering’ on the drone, which was manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

The RQ-170 was used to watch former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden during the Navy SEAL mission that killed him, reported ABC News.

Meanwhile a senior U.S. official claimed any capture shines a light on the U.S. spying mission, but will not tell Iran much it did not already know.

Experts and officials acknowledge that there is no self-destruct mechanism on the Sentinels, which are used both by the military and the CIA.

Iranian state radio reported on Wednesday that the country would soon broadcast video footage of the downed drone. It was shown on Thursday.

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