Iran to US: Thanks for the CIA drone, we’re going to copy it
A captured US RQ-170 drone is on display next to the Azadi (Freedom) tower during the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Tehran on February 11, 2012. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Iran has broken the ‘idol’ of the Holocaust underpinning the creation of the Israeli state and US hegemony.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard today said a US drone used by the CIA and seized by the Islamic Republic last year has been successfully decoded.
Tehran said it will now build its own versions of the high-tech aircraft, according to the Associated Press.
The news comes a week after Iran claimed to have shot down a different US drone over the Persian Gulf.
More from GlobalPost: Pentagon says drone captured by Iran appears US-made
The RQ-170 Sentinel aircraft went down near the Iran-Afghanistan border in December 2011.
Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh told Iran's Press TV that the CIA drone has been "completely decoded" and officials now know "where it traveled step by step."
"[O]ur experts discovered that this drone had not carried out even a single nuclear mission over Iran," Hajizadeh was quoted as saying.
The general's comments suggest Iran has had a breakthrough in its efforts to break drone encryption, according to AP.
Hajizadeh said Iran had no external help in extracting the data, implying there was no assistance from allies like Russia or China, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The general said Iran intends to reverse-engineer the drone and begin producing its own, reported AP.
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