Iran Claims It Shot Down US Spy Plane

[American Patriot]

July 20, 2011
Iran Claims It Shot Down US Spy Plane

VOA News


An Iranian lawmaker says Iran's Revolutionary Guard has shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that was attempting to collect information about an underground uranium enrichment site.

Iran's state TV-run Youth Journalists Club on Wednesday quotes MP Ali Aghazedah Dafsari as saying the elite military group shot down the aircraft as it was flying near the Fordu site around the holy city of Qom. The report did not say when the Revolutionary Guards shot down the plane. There has been no comment from U.S. officials.

The report comes a day after Iran said it was installing new centrifuges aimed at speeding up its enrichment of nuclear material.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday the new equipment will bring more speed and better quality to the process.

He also reiterated that Iran's nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The United States and other Western countries believe Iran is enriching uranium to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States, European Union and the United Nations all have imposed sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment of uranium, a process that can be used for civilian and military purposes.

[vector7]

Companion Thread:

• Iran ‘shows Russia downed U.S. drones’

Stealth UAV surfaces in Kandahar

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 4/10/2009 9:25 AM CDT

Credit where credit is due: Steve Trimble reported the first flight of General Atomics' Predator C earlier this week, and now Shephard's Darren Lake has an artist's concept of what looks like a stealthy UAV or UCAV that was sighted at Kandahar recently - pictures apparently exist but have not been published.



Interesting question: are these events connected?

(Excerpt) Read more at aviationweek.com ...



Mysteries Surround Afghanistan’s Stealth Drone

* By David Hambling Email Author
* December 4, 2009 |


beast of Kanharar

Earlier this year, blurry pictures were released by the French magazine Air & Cosmos of a previously unknown stealth drone taken at Kandahar in Afghanistan. The photos, snapped in 2007, prompted a wave of speculation about the classified aircraft. That speculation grew even more intense this week, when a blog belonging to the French newspaper Libération released an even better photograph. But while the new picture may answers some questions, it also creates a heap of new mysteries. Chief among them: Why use such a fancy, stealthy aircraft in Afghanistan? The Taliban have neither the radar to spot the plane, nor the weaponry to shoot it down.

The lines of the drone clearly indicate a stealth design slightly reminiscent of the B-2A Spirit bomber, but smaller. Over on Ares, veteran aviation expert Bill Sweetman describes the wingspan as being perhaps eighty feet, and notes “One important detail: the overwing fairings are not B-2-like inlets, but cover some kind of equipment – satcoms on one side, perhaps, and a sensor on the other.”

The aircraft, which Bill has dubbed the Beast of Kandahar, is widely believed to be a product of Lockheed’s celebrated Skunk Works, home of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter. The Beast bears some resemblance to the Skunk Works’ Polecat drone, revealed in 2006. This was a private venture, costing some $27 million of Lockheed’s own money, designed to operate stealthily at high altitude and at supersonic speed. However, the Beast is not Polecat, as one look at the exhaust will indicate.

(Excerpt) Read more at wired.com...

CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden house

By Greg Miller, Published: May 17, 2011



The CIA employed sophisticated new stealth drone aircraft to fly dozens of secret missions deep into Pakistani airspace and monitor the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, current and former U.S. officials said.

Using unmanned planes designed to evade radar detection and operate at high altitudes, the agency conducted clandestine flights over the compound for months before the May 2 assault in an effort to capture high-resolution video that satellites could not provide.

The aircraft allowed the CIA to glide undetected beyond the boundaries that Pakistan has long imposed on other U.S. drones, including the Predators and Reapers that routinely carry out strikes against militants near the border with Afghanistan.

The agency turned to the new stealth aircraft “because they needed to see more about what was going on” than other surveillance platforms allowed, said a former U.S. official familiar with the details of the operation. “It’s not like you can just park a Predator overhead — the Pakistanis would know,” added the former official, who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the program...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com...

[American Patriot]

Vector.....

You posted three articles above.

This one, dated: Posted by Bill Sweetman at 4/10/2009 9:25 AM CDT is obviously over two years old now. I'm curious as to WHY you mentioned that, posted it or whatever.

Basically, same question to the second article: * By David Hambling Email Author
* December 4, 2009 |

On the third article:

CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden house

By Greg Miller, Published: May 17, 2011

This is from May, two months ago, and is related to Pakistan, not Iran.

Please explain the correlation.

Thank you.

[vector7]

After looking into stealth drones the three earlier posts were to outline the fact they have been seen and reported in the region for some time.

Couple that with the Companion Thread:

• Iran ‘shows Russia downed U.S. drones’

A downed stealth spy drone could be fragments of what they claim they have.

This story surfaced less than a month of when Iran was reported to have shown Russia the spy drones.

It could be connected, we'll have to wait and see if more information emerges.

[American Patriot]

[quote=vector7;70341]After looking into stealth drones the three earlier posts were to outline the fact they have been seen and reported in the region for some time. [quote]

Well... yes, kind of. Read this:

The report comes a day after Iran said it was installing new centrifuges aimed at speeding up its enrichment of nuclear material.

from my article.

This is a DIFFERENT drone as far as I can determine.

Couple that with the Companion Thread:

• Iran ‘shows Russia downed U.S. drones’

A downed stealth spy drone could be fragments of what they claim they have.

Perhaps they got one. Perhaps they didn't. It appears they are claiming a second one to me. Which is the reason I posted the message to begin with.

This story surfaced less than a month of when Iran was reported to have shown Russia the spy drones.

It could be connected, we'll have to wait and see if more information emerges.

We will wait.

I'd like to ask if you post things like that, in particular in someone else's thread (while it certainly IS related) please put some of your own information in there if you could, telling us why you're connecting things.

Everyone here is pretty intelligent and can usually put the pieces together, but it helps if you outline your own thinking as to why.

This is the sort of thing I was PMing you about recently. Sometimes the information isn't as obvious to everyone as you think it is.

I'm a pretty smart guy, but based on the knowledge I have of some things, I didn't get at all what you were trying to say.

Thanks

[vector7]

I too have difficulty at times seeing the whole forest for the all dots.

This just popped up...

Reports: US drone shot down over Iran nuke site

Lawmaker claims unmanned spy plane was gathering information about the plant

msnbc.com updated 7/20/2011 4:41:40 AM ET 2011-07-20T08:41:40

A U.S. drone was shot down while flying over a nuclear facility in Iran, according to reports in the Iranian media.

Iran's Fars news agency reported that lawmaker Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, had confirmed the unmanned spy plane was flying near the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province when it was brought down by Revolutionary Guard soldiers.

It did not say when the alleged incident happened.

Dafsari told Fars that the drone was trying to gather information about the nuclear facility for the CIA.

Fars also said Iranian military officials had claimed to have shot down "several enemy drones" in January.

"We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years," Fars quoted a senior military official as saying at the time.

Other Iranian media reported the same story, including Hamsayeh.net.

[Backstop]

Here's a video of them shooting it down.

[American Patriot]

Here is the REST of the STORY. Near ATOMIC FACILITY!!!!!








Iran Reports Downing U.S. Drone Near Atomic Facility

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Iranian state media on Wednesday reported the military had brought down a U.S. drone aircraft near the nation's Qum uranium enrichment facility, Reuters reported (see GSN, July 19).
(Jul. 20) - Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, shown last year, on Tuesday said Tehran had yet to receive a Russian plan for resolving an international dispute over Iran's nuclear activities (Atta Kenare/Getty Images).
"An unmanned U.S. spy plane flying over the holy city of Qum near the uranium enrichment Fordow site was shot down by the Revolutionary Guards' air defense units," Iranian lawmaker Ali Aghazadeh Dafsari said in remarks reported by the Youth Journalists Club, an organization tied to Iranian state television.
"The plane ... was trying to collect information about the site's location," the lawmaker said, without elaborating further or specifying the event's timing.
Iran last month announced plans to move its manufacturing of 20 percent-enriched uranium to the new Qum facility and to boost generation of the material by threefold (see GSN, June 8). The United States and other Western powers have feared the process could help Iran produce nuclear-weapon material, which requires an enrichment level of roughly 90 percent. Iran has insisted its atomic ambitions are strictly peaceful (Reuters, July 20).
Separately, Iran's announcement this week of deployment of more advanced enrichment centrifuges prompted critical responses by France and the United Kingdom, the London Guardian reported on Tuesday. Iran has said the next-generation machines could increase its enrichment speed by three times.
Tehran's preparation of the sophisticated systems backs the position that its atomic activities have "no credible civilian application," the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding "Iran has just given into another provocation by announcing the imminent installation" of the devices.
"This is a new violation of six [U.N.] Security Council resolutions and 10 resolutions by the [Board] of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency," the ministry continued (Julian Borger, London Guardian, July 19).
France called on Iran to "suspend its sensitive activities and provide the favorable conditions" for restarting multilateral dialogue last held in January, the Xinhua News Agency reported (Xinhua News Agency I, July 19).
The United Kingdom said disclosure of the new centrifuges "further undermines Iran's claim that its nuclear program is designed for purely peaceful purposes, and demonstrates the urgency of increasing pressure on Iran," the Guardian reported.
"Iran must understand that we will not be distracted by events in the region and it should not doubt our resolve," the British Foreign Office said in released remarks (Borger, London Guardian).
The deployment would heighten U.S. and European concerns that Iran is moving forward with plans to establish new clandestine uranium enrichment facilities, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The United States has been "watching very closely" for indications that construction of another enrichment site is under way in the Middle Eastern state, one high-level official said.
It is "inevitable" that Iran would attempt to establish another enrichment location, the official added. “Based on their track record, it’s logical that they would try to build another clandestine enrichment facility,” the source said.
Institute for Science and International Security head David Albright said "Iran is dedicated to developing its capability.”
“It’s not only about being able to make a weapon. It’s also about being able to make HEU quickly,” Albright said. “If they can develop the advanced centrifuges which they’ve said they want to do at Qum this year, their capabilities will go way up,” he added (Anna Fifield, Financial Times, July 20).
Iran has said its new IR-2M and IR-4 centrifuges can refine uranium three times faster than an older model used to generate low-enriched material at its Natanz complex, according to an ISIS analysis released on Tuesday. The Persian Gulf state intends to deploy the sophisticated systems at its Qum site later in 2011, Tehran has indicated.
"More widespread installation of these advanced machines at declared and possibly also undeclared enrichment facilities increases Iran’s capability to make weapon-grade uranium quickly and perhaps secretly," the analysis states. "The international community should immediately strengthen its calls on Iran to accept inspections of its centrifuge component manufacturing and assembly facilities as provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency Additional Protocol" (Institute for Science and International Security release, July 19).
Meanwhile, Russia has not transmitted to Iran a plan announced last week for Tehran to address international concerns about its atomic activities in a "step-by-step" manner, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday (see GSN, July 18).
The Iranian government would review the blueprint when it has an opportunity to do so, Xinhua quoted the official as saying. At least two Iranian lawmakers have already dismissed the plan (Xinhua News Agency II, July 19).
Elsewhere, former U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Monday that Israel is unlikely to take military action against Iran in the near future.
"The claim Israel will attack Iran soon is not credible," Haaretz quoted Crowley as saying on Twitter. "The strategic costs, while not static, still outweigh the prospects of success."
"The Arab Spring has sufficiently complicated Israel's strategic calculus that it is more likely to show restraint in the immediate term," he added (Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz, July 18).