The Iranian Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard reported that they commandeered and crashed several US drones flying over Iraq and Syria according to a report:
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh revealed on Thursday that several American unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) flying above Syria and Iraq were remotely commandeered by the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Seven to eight drones that had constant flights over Syria and Iraq were brought under our control and their intel was monitored by us and we could gain their first-hand intel,” General Hajizadeh said in the Western Iranian city of Hamedan on Thursday.
Fars News Agency published a three-minute video taken on several different occasions by UAVs. Half of the content shows a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper hacked by IRGC electronic warfare forces, then flown into the ground. The last segment of the video shows an American air strike targeting the crashed UAV.
The footage below shows IRGC’s penetration into United States Central Command, could be seen as evidence that supports General Hajizadeh’s claims.
Iran has a long history of pioneering UAV technology. The country has manufactured UAVs since the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s.
Fars News Agency explains that drone technology in the country soared when it downed a US army RQ-170 Sentinel in Eastern Iran in 2011. One quarter later, Iran started production of its RQ-170 stealth aircraft after it reverse engineered the downed UAV. The Iranian RQ-170 conducted its official flight in late 2014.
The original RQ-170 was a stealth UAV manufactured for surveillance operations, while the Iranian version of the RQ-170 is armed with missiles.
In 2013, General Hajizadeh said Iran jumped three decades ahead in UAV technology after it reverse engineered American UAVs.
Fars News Agency said Iran has acquired a vast collection of downed American UAVs, including Scan Eagle, Raptor, M-Q9 surveillance. All drones have since been reverse engineered into new advance drones that are currently being deployed in Iran and in Syria.
The statement from General Hajizadeh and the video published by Fars News Agency came amid reports that the US had accelerated a top-secret program to destroy Iran’s missile program. (source, source)
This story sounds especially funny, considering that a recent report from Veterans Today said that, not surprisingly, Jared Kushner and Trump have been attempting to justify a reason to enter into a war against Iran on behalf of US and Israeli interests:
The list includes a dirty bombing in the US or a massive explosion, to be blamed on a mine in the Straits of Hormuz, that cripples one of America’s defective aircraft carriers.
The US is already pre-positioning forces for an air assault, Qatar, Diego Garcia, massive supplies of munitions to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Iran is aware of the timetable, though they won’t admit why. We suspect they have spies in the Pentagon, like every other nation. (source, source)
There are several things that could have happened.
The plane really could have been hacked (i.e. genuinely hacked) and really crashed. This is possible, and sometimes people do surprising things. However, the US and Israel have a very close relationship, and it is known that that Israel has been known to steal and sell sensitive US intelligence and technology to other nations including US enemies (here, here, here), and that Israel has repeatedly sold military goods to Iran (here, here, here). If such as case were true, one cannot help but wonder if the crash was hacked using the US’ own software or goods brought about by a possible Israeli collusion. This scenario, however, seems to be the least likely (although not impossible).
However, it seems quite odd that such a number of UAVs were brought down so quickly in succession. While mistakes do happen, seven to eight mistakes in a row seems very odd. Given that American culture is vicious to fellow employees in the event of a “failure”, be it at work or in another context, it would seem that such a major failure would result in serious action being taken against the person deemed to have “allowed this to happen.”
That is, unless, it was intended to happen.
Consider the story from Veterans Today, and the US open support of communist revolutionaries in Iran to overthrow the Iranian government. If the US government is so brazenly open as to have major political figures support anti-government terrorists, it is manifestly clear that the US wants not only a war with Iran, but is looking for a reason to cause a war or another series of reasons to build up upon other reasons to create a future cause for war.
It seems more likely that said UAVs were allowed to fly over Iran and were intentionally left in a state prone to be able to be hacked. Iran, naturally seeing these, intercepted them and realizing it could hack them, took control over them, scanned them, and crashed them, which while thinking they were serving their interests actually served the interests of the US because this is what the US wants as she now has either a causus belli or another reason to say at a future point why she “needs” to attack Iran.
While many people will say that “Americans are stupid,” and there is a lot of truth among the vulgar masses to this, an empire is not created by fools. The Russians make a similar statement about their own people saying “Двух проблем России- дороги и дураки” (“Russia’s problems are twofold- roads and idiots”). Likewise, the Russians also have an empire, and it did not come into existence by foolishness.
Government computers can and have been hacked- such is nothing new. However, the government also employs a full-time army of people looking to identify such problems and stop them. While it is not surprising if one or two issues happen, as errors are expected in even the most efficient of processes, the fact that seven to eight drones over two areas where the US is claiming “Iranian interference” in a push for war were brought down is more than suspicious, and seems beyond a case of government incompetence.
The Iranians may brag about their ability to hack US technology. Whether or not it is true, it does not bode well for them to speak about such because it will simply be used as additional fuel to “incriminate” Iran and justify military action against her. In that sense, the US and the current war hawks do not have to say “It’s Iran’s fault” as they have done so for years, because Iran will say it for them without even realizing it.