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Forums - Politics Discussion - US asks Iran to return captured drone

MDMAniac said:
Player1x3 said:

This reminds when yugoslav army took down the ''invisible'' Stealth F117A in 1999 and Clinton (or was it NATO?) said we should return it to them. We all laughed our asses off :p


And I hope you've had so much fun since then, sealed and delivered right into your doors, that now you understand how you should had complied with orders given to you back then. Iran will learn this, too.


We showed multiple times we were not afraid of cowards that are NATO. In times of bombing raids, we all got out to the bridges and stayed there, so NATO couldn't bomb them. We did same for hospitals, train stations and other ''military targets'' NATO bombed bravely from 20 000 m high above.

And who the fuck are you to give us orders? Who the hell made you Gods of this planet? We don't have to listen to shit you say



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Branko2166 said:
MDMAniac said:
Player1x3 said:

This reminds when yugoslav army took down the ''invisible'' Stealth F117A in 1999 and Clinton (or was it NATO?) said we should return it to them. We all laughed our asses off :p


And I hope you've had so much fun since then, sealed and delivered right into your doors, that now you understand how you should had complied with orders given to you back then. Iran will learn this, too.


I'm sure in your way of thinking everyone that doesn't bow down to the mighty empire will learn their lesson. The world is a big place and no empires are eternal. Wishing for war is a dangerous way to think and the path to war can always lead to unforseen consequences.

@OP

Military aircraft which have not been authorised to enter a sovereign country's airspace should be shot down. While I am no fan of Iran I am glad to see that they are showing a lot of restraint. There appears to be significant covert pressure on them including assasinations of high ranking officers and nuclear scientists but so far the situation is still relatively quiet.

I hope calmer heads continue to prevail but sadly I think certain interest groups are determined to force the US and Iran into a disastrous war.

Iran losing a few of it's scientists and military officials and not retaliating against a superpower who probably wants an excuse to bomb it back to the stone age is a sacrifice it's willing to make in pursuit of self sufficiency in nuclear technology (weapons or otherwise).



ArnoldRimmer said:
For those of you who are interested in how the iranians did it, here's an article from an israeli newspaper:

Iran official: We tricked the U.S. surveillance drone to land intact

Speaking with the Christian Science Monitor, Iranian electronic warfare specialist says Iranian forces tampered with the RQ-170's GPS to make it think it was landing in its Afghanistan base.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to "trick" the recently downed U.S. surveillance drone to land on Iran soil intact, Iranian engineers said in an exclusive interview with the Christian Science Monitor on Thursday.

On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama indicated that the United States had officially requested that Iran return the secret RQ-170 Sentinel drone, after Iranian TV displayed the craft in what they considered to be a great victory.

Speaking with the Christian Science Monitor on Thursday, Iranian military officials said that they were able to cut off communication between the U.S. drone and its operators, and reconfigured the drone's GPS to make it land where it thought was its home base in Afghanistan.

"The GPS navigation is the weakest point," the Iranian military official told the Monitor, calling the downing an "electronic ambush" of secret drone.

"By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain," he added.

The engineer added that the Iranians were able to make the drone land "on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center."

Last week, Iranian state television displayed what it said was a downed U.S. surveillance drone, days after U.S. officials expressed concern that Tehran would be able to glean information about a classified military program.

According to the semi-official Fars news agency, in the televised segment, commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Aerospace Forces Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iranian forces uncovered the aircraft as it was about "to infiltrate our country's airspace for spying missions."

"[A]fter it entered the Eastern parts of the country, this aircraft fell into the trap of our armed forces and was downed in Iran with minimum damage," Hajizadeh told Fars.

According to the Iranian military official, the drone was "equipped with highly advanced surveillance, data gathering, electronic communication and radar systems," saying that "this kind of plane has been designed to evade radar systems and from the view point of technology it is amongst the most recent types of advanced aircraft used by the U.S."

"The technology used in this aircraft had already been used in B2 and F35 planes," Hajizadeh added, saying the "aircraft is controlled and guided through satellite link and land stations in Afghanistan and the United States."

"Military experts are well aware how precious the technological information of this drone is," Fars quoted Hajizadeh as saying.


Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iran-official-we-tricked-the-u-s-surveillance-drone-to-land-intact-1.401641

Sounds very plausible in my opinion and it's very similar to what many experts have already speculated. I guess it also explains why the self-destruct mechanism didn't work - the drone's autopilot believed it was properly landing in it's american base, so it believed there was no reason to self-destruct.

The newspaper the above article is from has proven to be one of the best resources about this incident btw. They were almost the first to report on it, and even in the very first article they already pointed out that Iran claimed to have "downed" it using electronic warfare. A fact that most other media initially didn't even mention, most newspaper actually even lied by saying that Iran claimed to have shot down the drone.

Too early to tell which side is telling the truth.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/1215/Exclusive-Iran-hijacked-US-drone-says-Iranian-engineer-Video

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/1216/Did-Iran-hijack-the-beast-US-experts-cautious-about-bold-claims.-Video