Iran Shoots Down U.S. Drone: Al-Alam TV

[Ry]

imagine if it were the other way around what would happen

[dicktater]

imagine if it were the other way around what would happen

Uhmm, more of this?

'US used nukes on Iraq, Afghanistan'


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-bG79BpmB0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/212827.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The United States has used tactical nuclear weapons in its military campaign against Iraq and Afghanistan, a Middle East expert tells Press TV.

“Tactical nuclear weapons were used, at least one in Iraq and several were used in Afghanistan --in the Tora Bora mountains,” Peter Eyre, a Middle East consultant, said.

Eyre pointed out that the atomic bomb dropped on Afghanistan's Tora Bora region was so powerful that it actually created an earthquake there.

The analyst went on to say that the use of such lethal weapons by US military, which is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention, has been sanctioned by the US presidents; thus they should be prosecuted for war crimes.

"In America, the ultimate commander in chief is the president," Eyre said, adding that the President has the final say in using such weapons.

The US is the first country in the world to develop nuclear weapons and the only one to use them.

Thousands of people were killed in August 1945, when the US bombers dropped atomic bombs on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 under the pretext of toppling the Taliban regime, claiming that the militants have refused to hand over Osama bin Laden.

The US also invaded Iraq in 2003 under the excuse of destroying alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) belonging to former dictator Saddam Hussein.

Many civilians, including women and children, have been killed as a result of these wars.

The US-led war in Afghanistan, with civilian and military casualties at record highs, has become the longest war in the US history.

[dicktater]

Drone? What drone?

U.S. official says no sign Iran shot down drone
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/ ... CQ20111204" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iranian media reported on Sunday that their country's military had shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran, but a U.S. official said there was no indication the aircraft had been shot down.

NATO's U.S.-led mission in neighbouring Afghanistan said the Iranian report could refer to an unarmed U.S. spy drone that went missing there last week.

[Policenaut]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-16098562" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Doronjo]

It seems they have indeed captured the drone. They released images of it.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/iran- ... 44210.html

[Doronjo]

And more info here, or more like lack of info:

Pentagon on the Iranian RQ-170 Drone Capture
http://cryptome.org/0005/pentagon-rq170.htm

[Dissent]

It seems they have indeed captured the drone. They released images of it.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/iran- ... 44210.html

yea with the wings bonded and the landing gears covered?

[dicktater]

Iran says it will not return US drone
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ ... 1-15-06-32" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran will not return a U.S. surveillance drone captured by its armed forces, a senior commander of the country's elite Revolutionary Guard said Sunday.

Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Guard, said in remarks broadcast on state television that the violation of Iran's airspace by the U.S. drone was a "hostile act" and warned of a "bigger" response. He did not elaborate on what Tehran might do.

"No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country," Salami said.

Iranian television broadcast video Thursday of Iranian military officials inspecting what it identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

Iranian state media have said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the border with Afghanistan. U.S. officials have acknowledged losing the drone.

Salami called its capture a victory for Iran and a defeat for the U.S. in a complicated intelligence and technological battle.

"Iran is among the few countries that possesses the most modern technology in the field of pilotless drones. The technology gap between Iran and the U.S. is not much," he said.

Officers in the Guard, Iran's most powerful military force, had previously claimed that the country's armed forces brought down the surveillance aircraft with an electronic ambush, causing minimum damage to the drone.

American officials have said that U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran neither shot the drone down, nor used electronic or cybertechnology to force it from the sky. They contend the drone malfunctioned. The officials had spoken anonymously in order to discuss the classified program.

But Salami refused to provide more details of Iran's claim to have captured the CIA-operated aircraft.

"A party that wins in an intelligence battle doesn't reveal its methods. We can't elaborate on the methods we employed to intercept, control, discover and bring down the pilotless plane," he said.

[dicktater]

Iran ready to clone US drone
December 12, 2011
http://rt.com/news/iran-reproduce-us-drone-621/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Iran is set to produce its own drones modeled on a US spy craft intercepted over its territory. Experts are at the final stages of decoding the US RQ-170 Sentinel drone and are to copy it using reverse engineering technology.

Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri, a member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said the country has the capability to reproduce the drone, Iranian TV reports.

If Iran successfully reverse-engineers the drone it will get access to high-tech secrets such as the chemical composition of the device’s radar-deflecting paint or its sophisticated optics.

Read more:
http://rt.com/news/iran-reproduce-us-drone-621/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Video of the US RQ-170 Sentinel Spy Plane Landing in Iran


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFS0vzxhfR4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Dec 10, 2011

the loss to Iran of the CIA's surveillance drone bristling with advanced spy technology is more than a propaganda coup and intelligence windfall for the Tehran government. The plane's capture has peeled back another layer of secrecy from expanding U.S. operations against Iran's nuclear and military programs.
Just as the Soviet Union's downing of the American U-2 spy plane revealed a hidden aspect of the Cold War, Iran's recovery of the drone has shed light on the espionage that is part of U.S.-Iran hostilities.

Iran has charged the U.S. or its allies with waging a campaign of cyberwarfare and sabotage, and of assassinating some Iranian scientists. The U.S. has accused the Iranian government of helping kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan and plotting to murder the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

"It's beginning to look like there's a thinly-veiled, increasingly violent, global cloak-and-dagger game afoot," Thomas Donnelly, a former government official and military expert with the American Enterprise Institute, said at a Washington conference.

The covert operations in play are "much bigger than people appreciate," said Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under President George W. Bush. "But the U.S. needs to be using everything it can."

Hadley said that if Iran continues to defy U.N. resolutions and doesn't curb its nuclear ambitions, the quiet conflict "will only get nastier."

Some historians and foreign policy experts compared the drone incident to the Soviet Union's 1960 downing of the U-2 spy plane and pilot Francis Gary Powers. While those two countries sparred publicly on many issues, the world only occasionally glimpsed each side's secret operations.

"When I first heard about the drone, my first thought was thank goodness there wasn't a pilot in it," said Francis Gary Powers Jr., the son of the U-2 pilot and founder of the Cold War Museum.

"They were both on intelligence-gathering missions. They were both doing photo reconnaissance. They were both supporting the U.S. government's intelligence-gathering to find out intelligence about our adversaries," Powers said. The difference this time, Powers said, was that "there are no family members that have to be notified, there's no prisoner in a foreign country."

The U-2 downing shocked U.S. military planners, who thought the advanced aircraft flew too high to be hit by a Soviet missile. Likewise, Iran says it used advanced electronic warfare measures to detect, hack and bring down an RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

Iran aired TV footage Thursday of what current and former U.S. officials confirm is the missing Sentinel. The robotic aircraft suffered what appeared to be only minimal damage.

Iran protested Friday to the United Nations about what it described as "provocative and covert operations" by the U.S. The Tehran government called the flight by the drone a "blatant and unprovoked air violation" that was "tantamount to an act of hostility."

American officials said Friday that U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Iran played no role in the downing, either by shooting it down or using electronic or cybertechnology to force it from the sky. They contended the drone malfunctioned. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the classified program.

Some U.S. experts expressed skepticism that Iran would be capable of such hacking. But others said Iran's capacity to counter drones may have been bolstered by Russia's decision, announced in October, to sell Tehran an advanced truck-mounted electronic intelligence system.

The RQ-170 is stealthy but not infallible, said robotics expert Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.
Singer, who has written extensively about drones, noted Russia's announcement about the sale of an undisclosed number of truck-mounted electronic intelligence systems, called the IL-222 Avtobaza, to Tehran.
http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/lo ... 56128.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Apricot]