IranIran claims it is nearly finished extracting data from captured drone
On Monday Iran claimed that it had nearly finished recovering data from a captured U.S. surveillance drone; The unmanned aerial vehicle has been identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel, nicknamed “The Beast of Kandahar,” a stealth drone designed by Lockheed Martin covertly to gather intelligence
Iran claims it is nearly finished extracting information from downed drone // Source: elpais.com
On Monday Iran claimed that it had nearly finished recovering data from a captured U.S. surveillance drone.
Since Iran announced that it had “shot down” the U.S. drone last week, it has repeatedly showcased its achievement on state television releasing photos and video of state officials inspecting the sophisticated drone.
The unmanned aerial vehicle has been identified as the RQ-170 Sentinel, nicknamed “The Beast of Kandahar,” a stealth drone designed by Lockheed Martin covertly to gather intelligence. The drone has been reportedly deployed in Afghanistan and possibly Iran and Pakistan. Since Afghanistan lacks any air defenses, experts have questioned why a stealth drone would be needed, fueling rumors that it was being used to spy on neighboring Iran or Pakistan.
According to Parviz Sorouri, an Iranian lawmaker on the parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, the information taken from the U.S. drone will be used to file lawsuits against the United States for the “invasion” of Iran’s borders.
“The extracted information will be used to file a lawsuit against the United States over the invasion,” he said.
Sorouri added that Iran would reverse engineer the drone to create its own unmanned aerial vehicles.
The drone appears largely intact in videos, lending credibility to the Iranian military’s claim that they had launched a cyberattack to gently bring the aircraft down.
So far U.S. military officials have not verified any of these claims and maintain that intelligence reports indicate that Iran did not shoot the drone down or use a cyberattack to force it to land. Officials claim the drone malfunctioned.
Speaking anonymously to the Associated Press, officials said they are particularly concerned that Iranian engineers will discover the chemical composition of the drone’s radar-deflecting paint or the sophisticated optics that allows operators to clearly see individual faces from thousands of feet away.
According to the officials, it is unclear whether any data can be recovered as some drones primarily stream video and store little in their database. In addition, all data is encrypted.
