Iran’s Aggressive Propaganda Masks Insecurities About Soleimani Response
Iran’s Aggressive Propaganda Masks Insecurities About Soleimani Response by Paul Shinkman – U.S. News & World Report
An assertion on Friday that it had defeated U.S. drones in the region was met with incredulity by analysts, but it appears to indicate broader concerns in Tehran.
A series of extreme claims Iran has made in recent weeks appear to reflect the regime's persistent fears it has not yet responded strongly enough to President Donald Trump's decision to kill prolific Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani earlier this year, officials and analysts believe.
The head of air operations for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed Friday that his country had reverse engineered a U.S. surveillance drone Iran shot down last summer – a provocative attack that almost prompted a sharp military escalation with the U.S. at the time. Now, Iran claims, it has the technology to defeat the drones.
"We are now familiar with all its codes and frequencies, meaning that we can deactivate it not from a 100 kilomter distance, but from thousands of kilometers away from Tehran," IRGC Aerospace Force Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh said in a press conference of the MQ-4 Triton drone. His comments came a day after the IRGC released new footage of the wreckage of part of that drone.
The claim is ridiculous, multiple analysts and experts tell U.S. News. Were Iran to develop the capability to extract such information – an incredulous feat in itself – it would serve its own best interests to keep that a secret, not broadcast it publicly, so it could continue to glean information about U.S. drone operations in the region. And if the latest claim were true, then the U.S. could simply change the codes it uses for its aircraft…