US-Israeli Drone Terrorism: Iran too Will have Drones soon

-COL DR. ABUDL RUFF

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Apart from nuclear advancements, Iran has also on the verge of developing indigenous drones as the first ever Muslim nation to posses them.  Iran is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program. The US and its allies “believe” the program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying it is entirely peaceful.

Iran has begun building drones modeling on a US surveillance drone RQ-170 Sentinel it captured last year when USA sent it to threaten Islamic Iran.   Iranian version of drone is being made after breaking the encryption codes of US terror drone. Tehran says it was brought down using electronic warfare; But Washington is eager to mislead Iranian scientists and says it malfunctioned. USA dismissed the claim that a copy was being made as "Iranian bluster" saying, “they’re on the defensive because of our economic sanctions against them".

But Gen Hajizadeh said: "Our experts have full understanding of its components and programs." He said that Iran had managed to hack the controls of the drone, thus enabling the Iranians to reverse-engineer the aircraft to make its own. "The Americans should be aware to what extent we have infiltrated the plane," General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, military aerospace chief said. The RQ-170 Sentinel was shown on Iranian state television last December.

On 4 December 2011 Iran's armed forces shot down an unmanned US spy plane in Gulf that violated its eastern borders. Iranian media reports said the drone - identified as a type RQ170 - suffered minimal damage and was now in the hands of the armed forces. "The UAV -unmanned aerial vehicle - a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan earlier. Iran said in July it had shot down a drone over the holy city of Qom, near its Fordu nuclear site. Last January, it said it downed two "Western spy drones" in the Gulf.

Earlier, Iran's Revolutionary Guards shot down two "Western spy drones" in the Gulf.  "Many" other drones have been shot down over an unspecified period of time, the Fars news agency said. The head of the Revolutionary Guards' air force wing, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said this was the first time news of the incidents had been reported.

 The Commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Brig-Gen Amir Ali Hajizadeh said "through precise electronic monitoring it was known that this plane had the objective of penetrating the country's skies for espionage purposes.”After entering the country's eastern space the plane was caught in an electronic ambush by the armed forces and it was brought down on the land with minimum damage."

The Nato-led Isaf force in neighboring Afghanistan says the US drone could be one that was lost over western Afghanistan. Iran earlier said the country's military response to the airspace violation "will not be limited to Iran's borders any more". The RQ170 Sentinel is a stealthy and highly capable unmanned aircraft. It is shaped like a large flying wing similar to the profile of the manned B2 stealth bomber. Its shape and materials give it a low radar signature and it is clearly used for some of the most highly sensitive mission.

Of course, entire Pakistani territory in now is a safe terror sanctuary for the NATO terrorist syndicates. The Shindand terror base in western Afghanistan, a former Soviet airbase from where US-operated drones are used to monitor and attack the movements of Taliban “insurgents” and “smugglers” along the long border with Iran is under US control.  

First spotted in 2007at Kandahar air base with sophisticated sensors in Afghanistan, an RQ170 Sentinel was used by the Americans to provide real-time intelligence over Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, both before and during the raid by US Special Forces earlier this year.

Built by Lockheed Martin, unveiled at Kandahar Airbase in 2009 and capable of flying at an altitude of up to 50,000ft (15.2km), this Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) carries no missiles, unlike the larger, lethal drones, the Predator and the Reaper, that also fly from bases in Afghanistan.

Last August Iran unveiled its first domestically built unmanned - or drone bomber, the Karrar. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the plane could serve as a "messenger of death", but that its key message was one of friendship. Iranian state TV later showed the "Karrar" aircraft in flight. Iran said it had a range of 1,000km (620 miles) and could carry two 250-pound (115kg) bombs, or a precision bomb of 500 pounds. The plane is the latest in a series of new pieces of military hardware unveiled by Iran. "This jet is a messenger of honor and human generosity and a savior of mankind, before being a messenger of death for enemies of mankind," President Ahmadinejad said after unveiling the Karrar at a ceremony with defense officials. "The key message is friendship," he added. "We must make efforts to render all the enemy's weapons useless with our defense potential."

Speculation is rife that this particular aircraft was flying deep inside Iran to gather intelligence and real-time video footage of Iran's nuclear sites. It was carrying an array of sophisticated sensors that will be of great interest to Iran and other countries. If, as was originally thought, the Sentinel had been shot down then there would have been little to put on display but a pile of twisted wreckage. Instead, what was on show on Iranian TV was an immaculate gleaming white drone that looked straight off the production line. This tends to back up the claim by Iran that its forces brought down the drone through electronic warfare, in other words that it electronically hijacked the plane and steered it to the ground.

So probably not the sort of hardware the CIA would ever like to fall into the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards?  On 4 December, around 140 miles inside Iran from its border with Afghanistan, that is exactly what has happened. Opinion is divided on how this hi-tech intelligence-gathering drone fell into "the wrong hands" and, indeed, what it was doing inside Iran.

Iran's capture of US drone will shake CIA. Bat-winged, high-flying and hard to detect, America's RQ-170 Sentinel plane is the perfect stealth drone for peering into another country's secret sites without being caught. One was used in May to feed back live footage of the bogus US Navy Seal raid on Osama Bin Laden's “compound” in Pakistan. Iran displayed its captured trophy on TV, apparently perfectly intact and, according to the Iranian media, Russian and Chinese military intelligence officials are taking a keen interest in it.

 The unveiling by Tehran came amid continuing concerns over Iran's nuclear program. Iran began loading fuel rods at the Bushehr nuclear power station built and operated by Russia. This affair is both a political embarrassment and an intelligence setback for Washington. It is also unlikely to help those countries like Britain that is trying to obstruct and delay what they suspect is an Iranian nuclear weapons program - a program Tehran denies.

Initially, Washington said it had no indication the drone in question had actually been shot down.

The US says simply that its Sentinel had a malfunction, but the plane is supposed to have a failsafe back-up system that automatically steers it back to base if contact is lost with its controller.

An Observation 

The Fifth Fleet of the US navy is based in Bahrain, on the other side of the Gulf from Iran. Iranian commanders have threatened to block shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked. Western states “suspect” Iran is trying to obtain a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its program is designed to boost domestic power supplies.

After illegally sent the drone to Iranian space, US officials have previously asked for the drone to be returned but Iran has refused, saying that the US should instead apologize for invading Iranian air space.

The drones were mainly being used in Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan but "some violations against our soil" had also occurred.  The Revolutionary Guards were set up following the Islamic revolution in 1979, and its commanders have frequently delivered warnings to Israel.

Washington has long said that Iran will find it hard to exploit any data and technology aboard it because of measures taken to limit the intelligence value of drones operating over hostile territory.

Iran has now formally complained about the US intrusion into its airspace and asked for compensation. In the CIA Directorate of Intelligence at Langley, Virginia, eyes will be rolling skywards as analysts work out the long-term damage to US intelligence. Not only must they accept that some of their most successful and useful surveillance technology is now in the hands of the very people they were using it on, they will also have to think very carefully before sending anything else into Iranian airspace. Above all, they must be asking: does Iran really have the capacity to intercept transmissions between US stealth drones and controllers on the ground?  Maybe, yes.

Although analysts believe lessons could certainly be learnt about how the machine was put together, reverse-engineering has generally been seen by experts as beyond Iran's capability. This is because the USA as well as its terror agent in Mideast Israel has not comprehended the progress Iran has achieved so far in science, engineering and technology. Especially, Iran’s reach in missile technology and advanced nuclear applications. 

It is high time NATO terror syndicates led by USA-UK terror twins and their illegally manufactured  fascist regime Israel end their  anti-Islamic Third World War unleashed as terror war on Islam and Muslim world.