Commander: Capturing US Drones Proves US Inability to Confront Iran

The US failure in spying operations against Iran signifies that Washington is not able to confront Iran, a senior Iranian military commander stressed on Tuesday.

“The new US failure in the drone spying operation demonstrated that despite its military power, high economic strength and domination over the world’s political system, the US administration lacks the necessary power to confront the Islamic Iran and Iran can easily defuse all its plots,” Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami said in Iran’s Central city of Arak today.

Iran announced today that it has hunted a new US drone over the country’s airspace.

Commander of the IRGC Navy Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi announced that his forces captured a US ScanEagle Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) over the Persian Gulf after the drone violated the country’s airspace.

The UAV which had conducted several reconnaissance flights over the Persian Gulf general zone in the past few days was caught and brought under control by air defense units and control systems of the IRGC Navy.

ScanEagle is a small, low-cost, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing.

As standard payload ScanEagle carries either an inertially stabilized electro-optical or an infrared camera. The gimbaled camera allows the operator to easily track both stationary and moving targets, providing real-time intelligence.

Capable of flying above 16,000 feet, the UAV has also demonstrated the ability to provide persistent low-altitude reconnaissance.

The development came exactly a year after Iran announced on December 4, 2011 that its defense forces had downed a US RQ-170 drone through a sophisticated cyber attack.