Iran Says It’s Crafting a Copy of Captured U.S. Drone
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iStockphoto/Thinkstoc(NEW YORK) — Iranian officials say that Iran has reverse-engineered a copy of the U.S. surveillance drone it caught last year, the BBC reports.
Iranian state television showed the RQ-170 last December, which appeared undamaged. An Iranian military official said that Iran hacked into the drone to construct its own copy, and had a complete understanding of the aircraft’s programs and components, according to the BBC.
U.S. officials have said that Iran would have a hard time exploiting any data on the drone because the intelligence value of the aircraft is limited when flying in enemy territory, the BBC says. And U.S. analysts believe that Iran does not possess the capability to reverse-engineer the drone, although Iran says otherwise.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio