Iran claims it decoded data from captured US drone

By Jeremy Herb - 12/10/12 01:53 PM ET

Iran claims that it has decoded “all the data” from the U.S. drone it captured last year.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Monday that it had extracted all the data and information from the RQ-170 Sentinel CIA drone that was downed last December, including missions the drone flew.

"All the intelligence existing in this drone has been completely decoded and extracted and we know each and every step it has taken,” said Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the Guard’s aerospace chief, according to Iran’s semi-official FARS News Agency.

Hajizadeh said that after decoding, it was revealed that the drone “had not performed even a single nuclear mission over Iran” to monitor Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran last year paraded the drone on state TV, and the Obama administration acknowledged it was a U.S. drone, requesting Iran return it. Tehran, which did not do so, has said it plans to reverse-engineer the drone to create its own version.

Iran’s claim Monday that it had decoded the U.S. drone Monday is the latest in a series of fights between the Washington and Tehran over U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles near Iran.

Iran last week claimed that it had downed another simpler U.S. drone. It showed the ScanEagle drone on state TV, although U.S. officials denied any of the military’s drones were missing.

Iranian fighters also shot at a U.S. Predator drone last month, which Tehran claimed had entered Iranian airspace. The Pentagon said that the drone was flying in international waters, and it was not hit in the attack, returning safely to its base.