Iran decodes CIA drone
2012-12-10 19:36
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Tehran - Iran's Revolutionary Guard said on Monday it has
decoded all of the data from an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year.
The Guard's aerospace chief, General Ami Ali Hajizadeh, told
state-run Press TV that that the RQ-170 Sentinel craft had not carried out
missions over nuclear facilities before it went down in December 2011 near the
eastern border with Afghanistan.
Tehran had previously said it recovered information from
the top-secret stealth aircraft, but Monday's announcement suggests technicians
may have broken encryptions.
"All data from the drone have been completely
decoded. We know where it travelled step by step," Hajizadeh was quoted as
saying. "After decoding, our experts discovered that this drone had not
carried out even a single nuclear mission over Iran."
Hajizadeh said Iran had captured the drone and decoded
its data without any assistance, including from its allies China and Russia.
Iran has said it would reverse-engineer the drone and builds its own version.
Last week, the Guard claimed it captured another US drone
after it entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, showing an image of
what it said was a Boeing-designed ScanEagle drone on state TV.
The Islamic Republic has been trumpeting its possession
of the drones in an attempt to embarrass Washington over its alleged
surveillance of Iran's disputed nuclear programme.
Hajizadeh said Iran had previously acquired a ScanEagle
drone and produced a copy of that, but did not provide evidence to back up the
claim.
Last month, Tehran claimed that a US drone violated its
airspace. The Pentagon said an unmanned Predator aircraft came under fire at
least twice while flying over international waters but was not hit.
- AP
