The Taming of the Kandahar Beast
History with the American unmanned aerial vehicle RQ-170 Sentinel, also known as the “Beast of Kandahar”, is gaining momentum. As previously reported, 4 December 225 kilometers from the border with Afghanistan, near the city of Tabas, the Iranian military managed to capture an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. Later, they provided information that the UAV made reconnaissance for the CIA, in order to obtain information about the Iranian nuclear facilities and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement camps.At first, there were no comments from Washington representatives on this matter. They only mentioned that the connection with the device was indeed lost for unknown reasons, but noted the fact that the area of the operation was not Iran, but the territory of western Afghanistan. Most likely, at that moment they did not consider the possibility of hitting drone into the hands of the Iranians, since, according to them, he fell in a remote area, and it would be quite difficult to detect him.
However, already on Thursday, the Iranian media released a video that confirmed the capture of a scout. This was a real shock for the Pentagon, because the materials provided clearly show that the device received almost no damage. Thus, in the hands of Iran was one of the latest and secret developments of the US military. Recall that the very fact of the existence of the RQ-170 Sentinel was recognized by them only two years ago, in 2009. Until now, little is known about the technical characteristics "drone". There was only information about its almost complete invisibility to radar, due to the technologies used in the development of "stealth". There are unconfirmed reports of the use of the apparatus in Pakistan, where it was used to monitor the movements of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. According to The Washington Post, the cost of one such unmanned aerial vehicle is more than $6 million.
December 12 information appeared from US President Barack Obama, from which it follows that the representatives of the US government turned to Iran with a formal request for the return of its intelligence apparatus, which was in their hands. According to Vesti, he made this statement during a press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. According to the president, at the moment the US authorities are waiting for a response from Tehran.
Obama also mentioned that the plans of the US military was to conduct a special operation to rescue the UAV. A total of three options were considered. It was proposed to send a special forces group to Iran, which will find and destroy the drone. Later, an option appeared that envisaged the penetration of a group into Iran’s territory that would return the vehicle. And finally, the option of destroying a reconnaissance aircraft with a point airstrike was considered. However, these steps could be perceived by the Iranian side as the beginning of hostilities. This, according to Obama, they could not allow, and the proposed options did not receive further development. No information about the causes of the crash of the UAV, and about its mission over the territory of Iran, was received from the American leader.
However, the likelihood that Iran will nevertheless agree to return their aircraft to the Americans is extremely small. Already, the information agency Fars has published information received from General Hossein Salami, who, still semi-officially, stated that no country will tolerate espionage on its territory and any devices created for this purpose will never return to their hands.
Iran is not going to leave the fact of using the intelligence apparatus over its territory without attention. According to the Mehr agency, Mohammad Hazai, the Iranian representative to the UN, letters were sent to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Vitaly Churkin, the representative of Russia to the UN. In them, Hazai calls US intelligence operations military provocations and calls on UN officials to take effective measures that can put an end to their conduct in the future.
Information has also appeared on the first results of the work of military and technical specialists in the investigation of a captured drone. According to the representative of the Iranian government, Parvez Sorouri, at the moment their specialists have practically finished decrypting the information stored in the electronic filling of the device. He also mentioned that after the decryption is complete, they plan to use it to sue the UN against the US government for their “military invasion.”
Iranian military experts plan to continue to use the technologies and developments obtained for the development of their own military equipment. According to the Iranian television channel Press TV, Tehran intends to start producing its own UAVs, the base for which will be the captured CIA apparatus. According to a representative of the National Security Committee, Hossein Ebrahimi, Iranian scientists have everything they need to reverse engineer. However, according to various experts, Iran will be able to benefit greatly by transferring a drone to study to specialists from Russia or China, who have already received requests for providing them with a detailed study of the aircraft. In exchange, Tehran may demand more active protection of Iran at UN or IAEA meetings.
The question of the role in capturing an unmanned aerial vehicle, played by the Russian radio-technical intelligence complex Avtobaz, remains open. About his delivery to Iran, just a month before the incident with the intelligence officer, said Konstantin Biryulin, deputy director of the military-technical cooperation. Military experts agree that Avtobaz could be the ideal solution for this. Information about what kind of modernization went to Iran, no. However, the currently existing technical solutions fully allow the use of this complex to intercept the control signal.
Information