The Iranian military says that it has fully reverse engineered a downed U.S. drone and armed it with missiles “to attack the U.S. warships in any possible battle.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made the announcement on Sunday as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei toured an IRGC military compound to view the new drones, according to reports in Iran’s state-run media.
Iran also revealed over the weekend the existence of new ballistic missiles and an air defense system that can reportedly destroy multiple targets at once.
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Since capturing the U.S. surveillance plane, Iranian engineers have been working on decrypting the drone’s computers and reverse engineering a similar unmanned vehicle.
Iran claims to have now weaponized its own version of the RQ-170 “with bombing capability to attack the U.S. warships in any possible battle,” according to the Fars News Agency.
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“The highly-advanced radar-evading U.S. RQ-170 drone downed by the IRGC more than two years ago and its indigenized model developed by Iranian experts through reverse engineering were among the most important sections of the exhibition,” Fars reported.
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Additionally, the IRGC also displayed new ballistic missile technology reportedly capable of deploying multiple warheads at once.
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The ballistic missile, named Zelzal, reportedly can carry “ thirty 17-kg bombs” and “destroy a wide range of targets” such as airport runways and military installations, according to Fars.
Full article: Iran Arms Stolen U.S. Drone ‘to Attack the U.S. Warships’ (Washington Free Beacon)
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