Pentagon: Downed Drone in Iran Appears to be US-Made

Local Editor

Defying US denials that the downed drone is US made, Pentagon spokesman George Little admitted that the captured vehicle is a US-made ScanEagle.

"The drone Iran says it captured appears to be a US-made ScanEagle," Little said.
While Iran said it extracted valuable data from the unmanned aerial vehicle, Little told reporters that it couldn't be determined if the drone was operated by the US.

In parallel, a commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps confirmed Wednesday that his country extracted data from the US spy drone, which was captured by Iranian forces over the Persian Gulf upon its intrusion into Iranian airspace on Tuesday.

"The drone, in addition to gathering military data, used to pursue gathering data in the field of energy, especially the transfer of oil from Iran's oil terminals," Head of the IRGC Public Relations Department, Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif added.
The Pentagon spokesman is the first US official to admit to the loss of the pilotless aircraft, an issue that other high-ranking officials have shied away from verifying fearing the domestic and international backlash over the case which is not the first of its kind.
Earlier, Iran said its capture of the drone proves the Persian Gulf nation can protect itself from foreign aggression.

"The drone's mission was to gather military data and information pertaining to the energy sector and shipment of crude from Iran's oil terminals," Brig. Gen. Ramezan Sharif, head of the public relations department of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps said.
The seizure of the ScanEagle "is not something Americans can easily deny," Sharif said. The evolving comments from officials in Washington underscored his point.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the United States has "no evidence Iranian claims are true."
The US Navy "has fully accounted for all unmanned aerial vehicles operating in the Middle East region," Commander Jason Salata, a spokesman for the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, also said Tuesday.


Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org