Iran claims to have successfully recreated an American spy drone

Iran says it has “succeeded” in copying an American drone it captured in 2011 and will soon take the replicated aircraft on a test flight. State television in Iran broadcasted images Sunday apparently showing a replicated US RQ-170 Sentinel drone alongside the original one, according to the AFP. “Our engineers succeeded in breaking the drone’s secrets and copying them,” an officer in the footage reportedly said. “It will soon take a test flight.”

Iran claimed on Sunday that it has successfully recreated an American spy drone allegedly captured in 2011. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard showed off the copy of the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel drone during a ceremony in Tehran, before the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to reports by local news agencies.  In early December of 2011, the Iranian government claimed it had hacked an RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which allowed the country’s cyberwarware unit to land and capture it intact near the city of Kashmar. The U.S. government, after initially denying the claim, confirmed it had lost a CIA drone in Iran. Additionally, last year Iran claimed it had decoded footage from the drone’s camera, releasing a video that purported to show parts of the footage.