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Iran Military Shoots Down US Drone: State TV
TEHRAN -- Iran's military has shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone aircraft in eastern Iran and has threatened to respond to the violation of Iranian airspace, a military source told state television Sunday.
"Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran," Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted the unnamed source as saying.
"The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces."
Iran shot down the drone at a time when it is trying to contain foreign reaction to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran Tuesday, shortly after London announced that it would impose sanctions on Iran's central bank in connection with Iran's controversial nuclear enrichment program.
Britain evacuated its diplomatic staff from Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats in London in retaliation, and several other EU members recalled their ambassadors from Tehran.
The attack dragged Iran's relations with Europe to a long-time low.
"The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders," the military source said, without elaborating.
The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran's nuclear facilities if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.
Iran has dismissed reports of possible U.S. or Israeli plans to strike Iran, warning that it would respond to any such assault by attacking U.S. interests in the Gulf and Israel.
Analysts say Tehran could retaliate by launching hit-and-run strikes in the Gulf and by closing the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of all traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic waterway.
Iran said in July it had shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane over the holy city of Qom, near its Fordu nuclear site.
98 Comments so far
Show AllLet the video games begin!
When I saw the headline for this article this morning my first reaction was, well good for them. I don't support Iran or their policies but I support the cowardly murders perpetrated by the use of US drones even less. You know it's bad enough to use these drones anywhere but it is just a matter of time before they are used on us here in the United States. If in fact they are not already being used now to spy on people. For example, against people who are lawfully and rightfully protesting the injustices and inherent inequities of the capitalist system of material wealth, social and political control. The controllers of these drones need only push a button to murder anyone they deem a threat to their control.
Actually, drones are already in use by law enforcement here in the US http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/22/AR2011012204111.html
They do border surveillance on the Canadian US border.
What's your source for that, please?
(Not that it's doubted, but documentation is wanted)
google: drones canadian border
>>>> I don't support Iran or their policies ....
What do you know about Iran or its policies that hasn't been poisoned by 60 years of corporate / State propaganda?
Rather than improving your "street cred," such phrasing here just makes you look silly.
I can see where you are coming from with that, but I think that some leftists also fail to apply the same scrutiny towards foreign nations as they do toward the US. I think we should call a spade a spade regardless of the political alignment the left is leaning toward. In this case I was uncertain whether the OP disagreed with Iran because he's trying to play himself off as not anti-american or whether he is against Iran for the same reason that he's against the US.
"What do you know about Iran or its policies that hasn't been poisoned by 60 years of corporate / State propaganda"
Would you consider Amnesty International "corporate propaganda"? Or does that help substantiate that it's not magic kingdom there?
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/iran
Does Iran do anything we don't do? Death penalty, torture, arms shipments... the question is is there anything Iran does bad that we don't do MORE of..?
Hear, hear! Remember, there are those who would turn the United States into a theocracy as well--I am more concerned with what goes on in Washington than what goes on in Tehran--and what goes on in Washington these days stinks to high heaven.
Which "attack dragged Iran's relations with Europe to a long time low"?
Was it the constant attacks of misrepresentation by the United States and Europe?
Was it the attack by the IAEA in which they have now lied about the nuclear program in Iran?
Was it the attack on the IAEA by the United States in which they installed a phony mouthpiece as the head of the agency after Mohamed ElBaradei stepped down?
Was it the drone attack?
Was it the attack on the corrupt british embassy?
Reuters used to be legitimate. Now they work to reduce information and spread misrepresentation.
I agree with your analysis of Reuters. They are no longer to be believed.
quite right.....the drone in the pic isn't even correct.. the RQ170 looks like a mini stealth bomber
thanks...
photo and history of the development/use of this drone from wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_RQ-170_Sentinel
...peace...
( "doveryai, no proveryai)....relevant during Ronnie Rayguns admin
One often finds such tendentious sentences dropped into wire service reports. The Associated Press does it too.
In any given report, these could possibly be merely an artifact of careless, sloppy, or hasty writing rather than evidence of editorial bias.
But I agree with you; over time, experience teaches that Reuters (and AP, et al) aren't entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
It was the attack on the British embassy corrupt or not.
"John Shade"
The point I was trying to make was that the "attack" on the british embassy was nothing compared to the repeated attacks and fraudulent claims by the U.S. and its allies. The things I listed are just the most recent examples of the devious manipulations which the U.S. and its allies have employed for over five decades.
Look up Mohammad Mosaddegh, 1953, for the key to the truth. Of course, what the U.S. did in 1953 was merely following in the footsteps of the corrupt british example from earlier in the 20th Century.
It is all about corporate greed.
Good for them! I do support the right of the Iranian people to keep their airspace free of America's favorite new murdering toy. Hopefully they'll reverse engineer the technology they can from that drone for use in their own defense industry (kind of like how the Russians and Chinese did with the Blackhawk that was brought down in Iraq back in the earlier days of 'Desert Storm').
Actually, considering that Iran and China seem to continue to have pretty good relations, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the remains handed to China for the purposes of reverse engineering.
We would be naive to think that other countries haven't been working on means of counteracting the threat of drones by means of tapping into the signals that control them, and should a country such as China be successful we might never know until it was "too late".
Good comment. That was exactly my first thought, too. Some more military technology transfers to China. Apparently China has been able to hack and take control of US military satellites.
Likely so. The Chinese and Iranians have had some issues recently over Chinese delays in building infrastructure that they had promised to do. The Chinese up until this point have been somewhat cooler towards supporting Iran publicly than the Russians have been. Perhaps this is a chance for the Iranians to force the Chinese into more public support of Iran in exchange for access to the drone that they have shot down for reverse engineering purposes.
inanaturallight,
"I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the remains handed to China for the purposes of reverse engineering."
i agree w/ walden pond, this was the first thought that came to my mind as well. if i was Ahmadinejad or the supreme ruler of iran, i would undoubtedly be looking for an insurance policy of sorts. sharing tech w/ the chinese seems prudent, when the evil emipre has been pounding on your door for 30 years.
and those good relations are greased w/ petroleum. it's going to be interesting watching US and israel attack iran, as iran is one of china's leading suppliers of oil.
Iran-China oil trade runs smoothly - Beijing sources
By Aizhu Chen and Judy Hua - BEIJING | Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:45pm IST
http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/07/25/idINIndia-58440720110725
iran has already shared drone tech w/ russia, from the al jazeera article today.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/2011124185143288993.html
{In June, Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Guards' aerospace unit, said Iran had shown Russian experts the US drones in its possession.
"Russian experts requested to see these drones and they looked at both the downed drones and the models made by the Guards through reverse engineering," he said.
Hajizadeh did not specify how many US drones were shown nor gave any details of the copies Iran was said to have made of the aircraft.}
russia is super freaked out about the proposed missile shield in europe and probably would be psyched to examine america's latest stealth drone technology.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Why Moscow does not Trust Washington on Missile Defense. Towards a Pre-emptive Nuclear War?
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27987
...peace...
LOL, don't have to read any articles to understand why Russia doesn't like the shield, all you have to do is look at the map of the planned sites, most far beyond the reach of any missile the Iranians possess, however strangely enough surrounding the entire border between Europe and Russia.
"map of the planned sites, most far beyond the reach of any missile the Iranians possess, however strangely enough surrounding the entire border between Europe and Russia. "
Strange indeed since you don't put interceptors in the path of the missiles, you put them at 30-60* off their intended flight path. Putting interceptors on the border with Russia is USELESS to stop Russian missiles going to Europe and ABSOLUTELY USELESS to target Russian missiles going to the US. They are however, in exactly the right spot to stop missiles from the ME heading to Europe. I might also add that until the missile explosion last month, Iran was on track to build a missile with range to hit Paris. No one knows how much of their research was damaged although we do know the commander of the development unit was killed.
"I might also add that until the missile explosion last month, Iran was on track to build a missile with range to hit Paris"
Source please? I've found a lot of information on the Iranian missile program but I've yet to see it in a publication that doesn't appear slanted, and in fact most of the scaremongering I can find on Iranian missiles is based on conjecture that even the intelligence agencies disagree with, or cites unnamed sources high in the military of countries with an axe to grind.
Yep, that missile shield might be difficult to use against Russian missiles, I don't know, but if you can prove it won't ever be used to launch offensive weapons I'll take your word for that 30-60 degree thing. The Russians don't seem convinced by the argument though, and I still can't figure how a missile from Poland is going to do much good for the stated purpose, and we've yet to have a successful anti-missile missile test in this country, and the Russians (as well as most everybody else) knows they can be easily defeated with balloons so I'm afraid it won't ever make sense to me.
Russia probably know as much about missiles and intercepting them as does John Shade. So, if anti-ballistic missiles along the border do not threaten Russia, why are they so concerned? There is a further matter that anti-missile systems have yet to be proven effective. They can sometimes hit their target if the target's trajectory is known in advance, if there are no decoys, and if the target broadcasts a homing beacon. If they were sure to to be effective, then they can be over-whelmed by building more missiles. If the US missile shield can shoot down 100 missiles, then the opponent can build and shoot 1,000 missiles. In the economic warfare side of war, an anti-missile is more expensive than a missile. I would guess that our American anti-missile system a) is merely another costly weapons boondoggle, or b) is a kind of high-tech scare-crow that looks scary and might actually scare opponents but cannot do anything, or c) is a reason to put advanced radar on the Russian border. On the downside, 1) our anti-missile system is being built with money we borrow from China and will eventually pay for via inflation inside the USA, 2) Russia will re-introduce short-range, low-altitude missiles into Europe to blast those anti-missile sites, 3) we promote international belligerence and hostility at a period in history when we need for our own security to be promoting international cooperation. Someone needs to tell the USA that 19th century geopolitics are finished, that WWII is over, that we do not need to keep fighting Hitlers and Communists anymore.
Some days, some news is just plain good.
Yes, three cheers for Iran!
And so it begins. The games of war are games for people that have never really grown up and love their joy sticks.
Fly a drone over US airspace and see what happens.
Is Tony Blair still prime minister?
As long as we're helping the Saudis gain nuclear power I think we should back off criticising Iran's nuclear development. Afterall it was 16 Saudis on those plenes on 09/11. Not Iranian, Iraqis or Afghans..Not even Palestianians.
http://www.democracynow.org/appearances/harvey_wasserman
As far as I know we are not at war with Iran why are we flying drones over their air space, who authorized it? They need to answer for their orders. I want names.
No one in Washington has expressed any anger at all. Losing a drone here and there is par for the course.
Seymour Hersh questions the growing consensus on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program
" The attack dragged Iran's relations with Europe to an all time low".
Who was attacked? Must be a misprint. I guess they got it wrong, because according to the article, the U.S. drone attacked Iranian airspace, not the other way around ! Maybe they will print a retraction.
That puzzled me at first, but they were referring to the storming and sacking of the embassy.
Mea Culpa; Thanks. Paul
i fear the merkin lord of the flies has a brand new early gift from santa, a megaton bunker-bomb, and he just can't wait to try out this new toy!
Wait until the drones enter your living room.
If you have a TV, they have already entered your living room.
Is Iran is a worthy opponent? Western foreign policy has created this alleged Iranian Frankenstein monster. Western foreign policy has isolated Iran and forced Iran "to relying on home grown know-how and technology". Is Iran a threat to the west? Western capital is exposed all over the world and indefensible. According to Sun Tzu, it takes ten men to defend against one. In western dollar terms the ratio would increase geometrically.
Who but Iran could shoot down a drone? Iran was able to down a drone due to said 'home grown know-how and technology'. Until a few months ago, US made Turkish jets would not fire on Israeli jets. Turkey rewrote programs in the US made F-16's firmware to override the programed lock out redefining the configuration for ‘friend’ and ‘foe’. In Pinochet's Chile, a group of rebels planned to attack Pinochet in his armored limo. The rebels fired a shoulder launched missile and hit Pinochet's armored limo but the missile did not detonate. (The US may experience costly buyer's remorse someday and wish that military hardware and components were 'Made in USA'.)
Iran is not a militarily defeated people like Iraq was. The Iraqi army was eliminated on "The Highway of Death" as it withdrew from Kuwait in 1991. For ten years Iraq had been under an arms embargo, no-fly zone and not allowed to sell their oil to raise cash to buy weapons. Afghanistan's freedom fighters have seen our Star Wars technology first hand from the backs of their horses and during night raids. With all the 'politburo' media coverage of Iran the nuclear menace, here is an interesting article that tells a small part of the other side of the story. (http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007276179)
Western capital interests need to neutralize Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Libya (done) to gain complete control of the globe - all the peoples of the world and resources. The peoples of the Middle East are rising up against western hegemony. Will the peoples of the Middle East view Iran as a champion or adversary? The governments of the Middle East will certainly see Iran as adversary. The people may have another view. Governments are falling. Time will tell. We are living the birth of empire, the dawn of a new dark age or the second coming of enlightenment.
A couple of notes on this: Iran has been obtaining military hardware from China over the years, we know they have Silkworm anti-ship missiles, I'm sure others paying more attention to such specifics know of other hardware, the point being that it isn't all "homegrown".
Your impression of how the Middle East views Iran may be somewhat mistaken, although some view it as "adversary" in a poll of Middle East people done a year or three ago around 70% supported Iran having a nuclear weapon. You generally don't vote to give real adversaries a nuclear weapon, so from the broad view of the population I don't think they take the adversarial aspect too much to heart.
That was my suspicion, that Iran could become a champion in this "Arab Spring". You won't hear that in our media.
Unlike Iraq, Iran has been able to buy weapons technology from Russia and China. In my opinion, what makes Iran so dangerous is their home grown weapons. We don't 'know' them until engagement on the battle field. I'm sure the US has purchased the technical specs of any weapons purchased from China or Russia and has developed counter measures. Iran is truly a wildcard.
I do not think Iran is a champion of popular democracy or street demonstrations forcing government resignations. Iran has been facing its own "green" movement for several years, now. That is why starting a new war, at this point, is strange. Just wait a bit more and the Iranian regime will change. Everyone knows that a new war, to bomb nuclear reactors and cast the contents into the atmosphere, in the very place from where comes half of the world's oil, is economic suicide for the USA, UK, and Europe. Thus, the real issue, that requires some investigative reporting and deep analysis, is who wants the US to commit economic suicide? And why?
Hmmm...China? or Israel?
Wait a minute...didn't we already?
"do not think Iran is a champion of popular democracy or street demonstrations forcing government resignations. Iran has been facing its own "green" movement for several years, now. That is why starting a new war, at this point, is strange. Just wait a bit more and the Iranian regime will change. Everyone "
You're oversimplying things. Whatever you might want to call Iran's form of government, theocracy / partial democracy or theocracy + partial democracy, there is a big difference that of Iran, and say, Bahrain, or Saudi.
There are elections, regardless of whether there is some cheating.The president will change obviously, but there is no chance that whomever gets elected after Ahmadinejad leaves is going to be a neoliberal western stooge / puppet. Ahmadinejad's opponents in the last election were hardly pro-American / British. Probably the one thing that unites many Iranians of various stripes, is suspicion of American intentions. Without some kind of forced regime change imposed by military invasion, there is little chance that a neoliberal pro western regime is going to end up in power anytime soon.
"economic suicide for the USA, UK, and Europe. Thus, the real issue, that requires some investigative reporting and deep analysis, is who wants the US to commit economic suicide? And why? "
It isn't suicide for the military suppliers. The generals. The intelligence agencies. The militaries.
"Iran is not a militarily defeated people like Iraq was."
Not really true. They were not defeated, but they never recovered from the Iran Iraq war and they are generally disarmed with no air force to speak of and little air defense.
The constant drumbeat demonizing Iran has as more to do with keeping us in line than them.
just like Iraq...just
Hard to know the stratigy of this event, The US may have sent a gutted drone over Iran’s air space to be shot down.
This just keeps stoking the fire or war polarizing those for or against Iran.
At any rate, where are the photos of the shot down plane?