Iran builds copy of US spy drone

Iran’s military has started to build a copy of a US surveillance drone captured last year after breaking the software encryption, Iranian media has reported.

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, said engineers were in the final stages of decoding data from the RQ-170 Sentinel aircraft, which came down in December near the Afghan border, Mehr news agency reported.

Iran said the unmanned aircraft was shot down, but Washington disputes that and says the security systems mean Iran is unlikely to get valuable information from the Lockheed Martin drone.

“The Americans should be aware to what extent we have infiltrated the plane,” Gen Hajizadeh said. “Our experts have full understanding of its components and programs.”

Iran’s military regularly announces defence and engineering developments, but some analysts are sceptical as to how reliable those reports are.

US Senator Joe Lieberman, a member of the armed services committee, said: “There’s a history here of Iranian bluster, particulary now when they’re on the defensive because of our economic sanctions against them.”

The RQ-170 Sentinel has been widely used since 2010 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It played a role in the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed last year.