Official Confirms Authenticity of Iranian TV Images Showing Lost U.S. Drone

A senior U.S. official has confirmed to Fox News that images aired by Iranian state television do in fact show the secret U.S. drone that went down last week in eastern Iran.

"Yep, that's it," the official told Fox News. "And it's intact."

U.S. officials had been expecting the video to appear. The footage, which shows the aircraft intact, confirms the Iranians have custody of the drone but appears to refute Iranian claims that it shot down the RQ-170 drone.

With early knowledge that the aircraft had likely remained intact, the senior U.S. official also told Fox News that President Obama was presented with three separate options for retrieving or destroying the drone. The president ultimately decided not to proceed with any of the plans because it could have been seen as an act of war, the official told Fox News.

Among the options the U.S. considered were sending in a special-ops team to retrieve the drone; sending in a team to blow up the aircraft; and launching an airstrike to destroy it.

NATO initially said the drone may have been one that was flying a mission over western Afghanistan before operators "lost control" of it. Officials have since acknowledged that the drone was part of a joint CIA-military reconnaissance mission.

One official told Fox News on Thursday that the incident is a huge loss and makes the top-secret helicopter tail lost during the Usama bin Laden raid in Pakistan "look like a pittance." The official said there are real fears the Iranians will share this technology with the Russians and the Chinese, in addition to using it themselves.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/08/iranian-tv-airs-purported-images-downed-us-drone/?test=latestnews#ixzz1fzFwBnOv

Drone Lost in Iran Was Joint CIA-Military Reconnaissance Plane

The U.S. drone that apparently fell into Iran's hands was part of a joint CIA-military reconnaissance operation, Fox News has learned.

A senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that the spy plane was being used for the CIA-military operation along the Afghan-Iranian border when it lost connectivity and disappeared.

Officials had earlier confirmed the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, but it was previously unclear what the drone was doing or which agency was operating it.


After Iran's military made the questionable claim Sunday that it had shot down the drone, the CIA at first referred questions to the Pentagon.

The NATO-led military coalition then issued a brief statement, appearing to describe the mission as part of the routine military operation in Afghanistan.

"The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week," the International Security Assistance Force said. "The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."

But the official confirmation that the drone was part of a CIA-military mission would seem to line up with earlier confirmation that the drone was not a run-of-the-mill aircraft.

The RQ-170 Sentinel, which is so advanced that the U.S. Air Force has not even distributed a photo of it, is manufactured by Lockheed Martin and is equipped with stealth technology. The $6 million stealth aircraft has an RQ in its name to indicate it is unarmed.

The CIA's secret drone program is often used to fly missions over countries where the U.S. is not formally at war, such as Pakistan. It remains unclear what exactly this particular drone was doing in western Afghanistan.

Neither the Air Force nor manufacturer Lockheed Martin has released much information about the plane, dubbed "The Beast of Kandahar" in 2007 when its existence was finally confirmed.

According to a senior U.S. military source with intimate knowledge of the Sentinel drone, the aircraft likely "wandered" into Iranian air space after losing contact with its handlers and is presumed to be intact since it is programmed to fly level and find a place to land, rather than crashing.

"This is a big prize in terms of technology," the senior U.S. military source told Fox News.

The spy plane uses the same stealth technology as the drone used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden, U.S. military sources told Fox News on Monday.

Amid the standoff, the Obama administration is trying to convince Congress not to proceed with a new sanctions proposal on Iran.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/drone-lost-in-iran-was-joint-cia-military-reconnaissance-plane/#ixzz1fnVq8Zin

U.S. Military Sources: Iran Has Missing U.S. Drone

Iran appears to be in possession of one of America's most sophisticated weapons, a super-secret spy plane whose stealth technology is the same as the drone used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden, U.S. military sources told Fox News on Monday.

Military sources confirmed that the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, which is so advanced that the U.S. Air Force has not distributed even a photo of it. However, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian military official saying Sunday that the spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces and suffered minor damage.. The official also warned of strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.

Earlier, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement saying the aircraft may have been a drone that operators lost contact with last week while it was flying a mission over neighboring western Afghanistan.

A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the incident, said the U.S. had "absolutely no indication" that the drone was shot down.

Iran is locked in a dispute with the U.S. and its allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, which the West believes is aimed at developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and that it seeks to generate electricity and produce isotopes to treat medical patients.

Iran said in January that two pilotless spy planes it had shot down over its airspace were operated by the United States and offered to put them on public display. In July, Iranian military officials showed Russian experts several U.S. drones they said were shot down in recent years.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/05/us-military-sources-iran-has-missing-us-drone/#ixzz1fh3472nJ

Islamists say U.S. drone in Afghanistan kills son of Egyptian sheik imprisoned over New York bomb plot

CAIRO (AP) -- A U.S. drone strike killed a son of Egyptian-born Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in Afghanistan, a radical Islamist group said.

Egypt's Gamaa Islamiya, or Islamic Group, had posted on its website on Saturday a notice mourning the death of Ahmed Abdel Rahman, the son of the "Blind Sheik" now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his involvement in a plot to blow up New York city landmarks.

Abdel Rahman was the spiritual leader of the Gamaa, as well as of the men convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

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