US spy drone given to prove Iran’s forces have mass produced the drone they claim to have captured a year ago.<\/i><\/p>\n
Iran<\/a> has given Russia<\/a> a copy of a US spy drone as proof that its elite forces have reverse-engineered and mass produced the American unmanned aerial vehicle they claim to have captured a year ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n Iranian media reported yesterday that the copy of the ScanEagle drone was provided to Russia on the sidelines of a meeting in Tehran between Farzad Esmayeeli, the air defence commander of Khatam al-Anbia, the Revolutionary Guards’ military and industrial base, and Viktor Bondarev, head of the Russian air force.<\/p>\n In December 2012, a guards’ commander said his forces had got their hands on a ScanEagle, promising Tehran would mass produce it. The US authorities denied those claims at the time, saying all its drones<\/a> were fully accounted for.<\/p>\n “The drone built by the Islamic republic’s Revolutionary Guards is a symbol of the technical capabilities of the Islamic Iran and today we presented a real model of it as a gift to Russian air force \u2026 and the Russian people,” Esmayeeli said after meeting with Bondarev, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.<\/p>\n Iran’s state English-language newspaper, Tehran Times, said the two met on Sunday and spoke on a range of air defence issues but it did not give further details.<\/p>\n Iran first claimed to have captured a US drone two years ago when the Guards displayed a drone,<\/a> believed to be an RQ-170 Sentinel. They claimed to have brought it down electronically but the US said the aircraft had merely malfunctioned.<\/p>\n Since then, Iranian officials have claimed advances in drone technology and have put on show a number of US and Israeli drones their elite forces alleged to have shot down. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said last October that a drone shot down by Israel was assembled in Lebanon but designed in Iran.<\/p>\n It is unclear how reliable the Iranian claims about its drone capabilities are. In September 2012, the Guards unveiled Shahed-129<\/a>, an “indigenous” reconnaissance drone, alleged to have a range of up to 1,200 miles \u2013 capable of reaching Israel \u2013 and with 24 hours’ fly time.<\/p>\n In February, Iranian television broadcast a programme showing video footage and still images <\/a>the authorities claimed were extracted from the RQ-170 drone captured in 2011. The programme also showed pictures of what was described as a ScanEagle drone production line in Iran. Fars described ScanEagle as a small, long-endurance unmanned aircraft.<\/p>\n “As standard payload ScanEagle carries either an inertially stabilised electro-optical or an infrared camera,” Fars said<\/a>. “The gimbaled camera allows the operator to easily track both stationary and moving targets, providing real-time intelligence.”<\/p>\n Russia has infuriated the Iranian military in recent years for its failure to deliver Tehran with S-300 air defence systems it had agreed in a 2007 contract to supply but abandoned in 2010 owing to international sanctions against the Islamic republic. In response, Iran filed a lawsuit against Russia with the International Chamber of Commerce’s court of arbitration but said in June that will drop the case if Russia changed its decision.<\/p>\n This month, Iran’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Marzieh Afkham, said talks were underway between Tehran and Moscow<\/a> with regards to the S-300 systems. In September, a spokesman for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, denied<\/a> the Kremlin had ordered the delivery of the air defence systems.<\/p>\n