Iran claims capture of US drone

Revolutionary Guards say ScanEagle drone entered Iranian airspace but US navy says that none of its drones is missing

Iranian TV reports Revolutionary Guards have captured a US drone flying over the country's airspace Link to this video

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have captured a US drone flying over the country's airspace, state media have reported.

The Fars news agency said on Tuesday the Boeing-made ScanEagle drone was gathering information over Gulf waters when it entered Iranian airspace and was subsequently captured by a naval unit of the Revolutionary Guards.

General Ali Fadavi, the Guards' navy chief, was quoted as saying the "intruding" drone was in Iran's possession.

"The US drone, which was conducting a reconnaissance flight and gathering data over the Persian Gulf in the past few days, was captured by the Guards' navy air defence unit as soon as it entered Iranian airspace," Fadavi said. "Such drones usually take off from large warships."

However, the US navy said that none of its drones was missing. "The US navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles (UAV) operating in the Middle East region. Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognised water and air space," a US navy spokesman in Bahrain said.

"We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently."

If true, the seizure of the drone would be the third reported incident involving Iran and US drones in the past year.

Last month, Iran claimed a US drone had violated its airspace. The Pentagon said the unmanned Predator aircraft came under fire at least twice but was not hit and that it was over international waters.

In April this year, Iran claimed it had copied technology from a US drone brought down in December 2011 on its eastern borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Tehran said it recovered data from the RQ-170 Sentinel, a top-secret drone equipped with stealth technology. As proof, Iranian military cited the drone's flight log, saying it had flown over Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout two weeks before he was killed by US special forces.
After acknowledging the loss of the drone, US sources said their software was encrypted and of little intelligence value.
The US blamed the loss of the RQ-170 Sentinel drone on a technical problem, while Iran claimed it brought it down electronically by disrupting its GPS system.

Comments

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specif

Search This Blog