Iran Downed U.S. Drone: Country Reportedly Delayed Announcement

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran deliberately delayed its announcement that it had captured an American surveillance drone to test U.S. reaction, the country's foreign minister said Saturday.

Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran finally went public with its possession of the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone to disprove contradictory statements from U.S. officials.

Iran, which put the aircraft on display last week, has tried to trumpet the downing of the drone as a feat of Iran's military in a complicated technological and intelligence battle with the U.S. Tehran also has rejected a formal U.S. request to return the plane, calling it's incursion an "invasion" and a "hostile act."

"When our armed forces nicely brought down the stealth American surveillance drone, we didn't announce it for several days to see what the other party (U.S.) says and to test their reaction," Salehi told the official IRNA news agency. "Days after Americans made contradictory statements, our friends at the armed forces put this drone on display."

Salehi said Iran's position is not to return the drone, but he didn't completely rule out the possibility of a deal.

"Any decision-making about this issue rests with the Supreme National Security Council," IRNA quoted Salehi as saying. The council is Iran's highest security decision-making body and handles the country's talks with the West over Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Salehi said Iran won a complicated technological battle with the U.S. by intercepting and taking control of the plane with an electronic ambush.

"Regardless of whether the U.S. believes it or not, the armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran brought down the aircraft largely intact without assistance from any foreign country," he said.

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.

Iranian state media has said the unmanned spy aircraft was detected over the eastern town of Kashmar, some 140 miles (225 kilometers) from the border with Afghanistan.

Comments

[interestsarefree]

09:37 AM on 12/18/2011

This is Pueblo all over again. All that's left is for Iran to make this a tourist attraction.

[keramos]

10:22 AM on 12/18/2011

Sure it is

[Bob Metcalfe]

09:03 PM on 12/18/2011

Well if you want to keep 'em - keep 'em at home :-).

[JTyroler]

12:50 AM on 12/18/2011

I bet someone wishes that they had placed some sort of destruct mechanism in these babies. "Drone's down sir."
"Ok, push the destruct button."
"Yes sir."

(Several thousands of miles away, a US drone suddenly blows up, destroying the drone, its contents, and possibly several people standing around it for propaganda purposes.)

[karim banned]

12:25 PM on 12/17/2011

That was a smart move.

US was relying on the self-destruction mechanism, which was disabled by Iranian engineers.

Iran wanted to show US arrogance by US underestimating Iran's capabilities.

The same arrogance that will lead into a devastating war between the two countries in near future.

[alexis101]

03:55 PM on 12/17/2011

If Iran focused more on giving its citizens more freedom, and vying for peace, they would find the world more sympathetic. Most Arab spring supporters want Iran to let their people have what they want, jobs, rights and self determination. No one will lose sleep if a bunch of autocrats get blown off the land.

[Mystic Cult]

11:26 PM on 12/17/2011

Iran is not the source of the trouble. The US, in overthrowing the democratic government of Iran in 1953, installing and supporting a dictatorial puppet, in not turning over the Shah as per then-existing extradition agreements, in giving material support and chemical weapon precursors to Saddam Hussein, has done much more negative to Iran than they have done to us. There would have been no hostage crisis had we turned over the Shah for trial and there probably would not be such an adversarial relationship between us now.

[Shomali]

11:32 PM on 12/17/2011

The whole US intrusion into middle east is about implementa­tion of Richard Perle's "new break" writeup for Netanyahu in 1996 and PNAC strategies written between 1997 and 2000. The same people are still directing the agenda. Americans need to wake up and smell the coffee before the cabal drives us under and bankrupt.

[bellmotor]

01:42 AM on 12/18/2011

right and may be for the first time Iran military finally figured it out since 2005 of having all the American drone over their sky head and managed to fly its home made drone and fly it over the RQ-170 Sentinel stealth drone and used a fishing net and captured it and brought down with some minor damages to its landing gear and wheels and tha'ts a big step towards the high tech drone war..

[vmax4ya]

12:11 PM on 12/17/2011

Well, there goes all the stealth technology, I cant believe if they knew this plane was going down , that it didnt have the means to self destruct..

[keramos]

10:24 AM on 12/18/2011

Maybe it's a Trojan drone

[vmax4ya]

02:15 PM on 12/18/2011

lol.. good one.. thanks for the laugh ..

[Quinterius]

12:07 PM on 12/17/2011

Iran plans to display in the near future the RQ-170 and several Israeli and other American drones that it has captured in the last few years. The US plan to send additional drones to Iran is utterly stupid and shows the lack of respect for international laws by the US. The violation of airspace of another country is an act of war.

[alexis101]

03:57 PM on 12/17/2011

Very few Americans are capable of seeing anything our government does as wrong. We are spending far too much in tax money on brain washing of the public to question authority.