Iranians Claim to Capture Drone

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/world/middleeast/iranians-claim-to-capture-drone.html

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TEHRAN (AP) — Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Saturday that they had captured a foreign unmanned aircraft during a military exercise in southern Iran.

Gen. Hamid Sarkheili, a spokesman for the military exercise, said the guards’ electronic warfare unit spotted signals indicating that foreign drones were trying to enter Iranian airspace. General Sarkheili said experts took control of one drone’s navigation system and brought it down near the city of Sirjan, where the military drills began Saturday.

“While probing signals in the area, we spotted foreign and enemy drones which attempted to enter the area of the war game,” the official IRNA news agency quoted the general as saying. “We were able to get one enemy drone to land.”

General Sarkheili did not say whether the drone was American.

In Washington, a C.I.A. spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Iran has claimed to have captured several American drones, including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel C.I.A. spy drone in December 2011 and at least three ScanEagle aircraft.