Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, the spokesman of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said on Monday that it is “unbearable” for the United States, which claims to possess the highest drone technology, that Iran has been successful in controlling a US unmanned aerial vehicle and “even directing it.”
On December 5, the Islamic Republic captured a US spy drone over the Persian Gulf upon its intrusion into Iranian airspace. A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the data on the spy drone had been “fully extracted.”
The Iranian lawmaker also stated that the capture of the US drone conveyed a message to the world that the US technologies cannot remain unchallenged.
Iran has released footage of the captured drone, which is a long-endurance ScanEagle aircraft manufactured by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing.
On Friday, Pentagon spokesman George Little acknowledged that the unmanned aerial vehicle is a US-made ScanEagle.
Naqavi Hosseini further stated that intrusion into Iran’s airspace is blatant violation of international law by the US, and the Islamic Republic reserves the right to take legal action against the move.
Last year, the Iranian military also grounded a US RQ-170 spy drone while it was flying over the Iranian city of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (about 140 miles) from the Afghan border.
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