TEHRAN (FNA)- Saudi Arabia assisted Israel in flying the drone that Tehran shot down near an Iranian nuclear site, Jordanian security officials disclosed.
The security officials did not detail the kind of assistance provided by the Saudis, but it is likely to have included the use of a Saudi airbase, the WND reported.
In November 2013, the WND quoted informed Egyptian intelligence officials as saying that Israeli personnel that were in Saudi Arabia for a month to inspect bases that could be used as a staging ground to launch attacks against Iran.
The officials said at the time the US passed strong messages to Israel and the Saudis that the Americans maintain radar capabilities around the skies of Iran and that no strike should be launched without the permission of the Obama administration.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force shot down an Israeli spy drone before it could reach Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, in Central Iran, on Sunday.
The IRGC Public Relations Department said in a statement that the Israeli pilotless aircraft was a radar-evading, stealth drone with the mission to spy on Iran’s enrichment activities by flying over Natanz nuclear enrichment plant.
IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said on Monday that the Israeli spy drone that was shot down near Iran’s nuclear enrichment site in Natanz had not taken off from an Israeli airport.
“The operational range of the drone shows that it hadn’t been sent from the occupied territories (Israel); rather it had started its flight from a regional country. We have received clues and we are investigating them,” the commander said.
Hajizadeh further warned that the Iranian armed forces, including the IRGC, are fully ready to trace and intercept enemies’ drones.
“The Israeli pilotless aircraft which was shot down yesterday was a Hermes-type drone and made in Israel,” General Hajizadeh said.
He said the operational range of Hermes drones is 800 kilometers, adding that the aircraft can fly 1,600 kilometers by refueling once.
The General said parts of the aircraft have burnt out after it was targeted by the ground-to-air missiles of the IRGC Aerospace Force and after its fuel tank blast, yet “some parts of this drone are intact and we are now analyzing the information and intel of these parts”.
Elaborating on the details of the down Israeli aircraft, the commander further stated that the drone, which is 5.5 meters wide in wings, is equipped with two cameras which can take high-quality photos.
“There was no prior information available about the aircraft and the only one of this type had been downed in Syria, but this one is more advanced,” General Hajizadeh said.
The Elbit Systems Hermes 450 is an Israeli medium size multi-payload UAV, designed for tactical long endurance missions.
It has a flight endurance of over 20 hours, with a primary mission of reconnaissance, surveillance and communications relay.
Since December, 2011, Iran has hunted down several more US drones of various types.
In January 2013, a deputy commander of the Iranian Navy announced that the country’s Army had hunted two more advanced RQ type UAVs.
“The air-defense units of the Army have hunted two enemy drones,” Deputy Commander of the Iranian Navy for Coordination Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari told FNA.
“These drones were from 11th series of the RQ class, and one of them was hunted in Shahrivar 1390 (August 21-September 19, 2011) and the other one in Aban (October 22-November 20, 2012),” Rastegari said, adding that the Army research center is now studying the two UAVs.
“Much of the data of these drones has been decoded by the Army’s Jihad and Research Center,” he said, but did not provide any further detail.
The remarks by the Iranian commander came after Iran announced on December 4, 2012 that the IRGC Navy had hunted a US UAV over the Persian Gulf after the drone violated the country’s airspace.
The IRGC navy commander announced at the time that the hunted UAV was a ScanEagle drone, adding that “such drones are usually launched from large warships”.
ScanEagle is a small, low-cost, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing.
Iran later reproduced its own model of ScanEagle through reverse engineering techniques.
Iran has downed many other US drones as well, and they have always started reproducing them after conducting reverse engineering on them.
The unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA, US officials admitted in December. The aircraft is among the highly sensitive surveillance platform in the CIA’s fleet that was shaped and designed to evade enemy defenses.
In December, Lieutenant Commander of the IRGC Brigadier General Hossein Salami announced that the Iranian version of the US drone, RQ-170, would be unveiled to the public soon.
“The construction of this drone will finish soon and most of the job has been done now,” General Salami told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran in December, 2013.
In relevant remarks in October, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran moved as much as 35 years ahead in building drone engines by reverse engineering the US drone, RQ-170 which was tracked and hunted down in Iran late in 2011.
The RQ-170 engines are the fifth generation and the engines of Iranian unmanned planes are the third generation, Hajizadeh said, adding that to produce the engine we had to spend 35 years on the project.
He said that the home-made version of the US drone RQ-170 captured by the IRGC would make its maiden flight in the near future.
In April, 2013, a senior Iranian parliamentary official announced that Iran has reverse engineered the RQ-170, adding that the Iranian version of the drone would soon have a test flight.
“The brave personnel of the Armed Forces hunted down the drone with their knowledge and science and the Americans protested immediately and called for the return of the UAV,” Chairman of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said in the Northern city of Rasht last April.
Iran has downed several US drones so far and Boroujerdi did not mention which one he meant, but explained, “The reverse engineering started immediately (by the Iranian experts after hunting down the US UAV) and the Iranian type of the US drone will fly in Iran’s Aerospace Organization soon which shows the Islamic Republic’s might and power.”
Uprooted Palestinian 
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