A pro Iranian news site claims hackers from the United States and Israel have tried to shut down their website.
Press TV, which operates in the United Kingdom, says after they released video of the captured RQ-170 stealth UAV, hackers attempted to shut down their www.presstv.ir website. Press TV gave no further details.
“It carries a variety of systems that wouldn’t be much of a benefit to Iran, but to its allies such as China and Russia, it’s a potential gold mine.”-Peter W. Singer, author of Wired for War
Iran has put on public display the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV. The vehicle in the Iranian video matches photos taken of a Sentinel possibly operated from Pakistan’s Shamis air base. Could it be that the real reason for U.S. forces evacuating Shamis is because their precious stealth UAV, nicknamed The Beast of Kandahar, got shot down by Iranians?
Back in January of this year, the buzz on the internet, concerning the appearance of the Beast in Afghan skies, was what was it doing there, it’s just a high tech and highly expensive recon vehicle? It was first spotted over Afghanistan back in 2009. Now, Iranian media says Afghan officials told the Iranian government the Beast was being used to spy on Iran.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps was ordered to hunt down the Beast, and they did. But instead of using real bullets or missiles, they used their Iranian designed electronic warfare computers. This explains why U.S./NATO operators lost control of the UAV: “The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status.”-NATO statement
In fact, reports say that the possibility that the Beast was a victim of remote cyber hacking never crossed the minds of those operating the multi-million dollar UAV.
One reason they didn’t think it was hacked is that, according to John Bumgarner of research company U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, the UAV should have self destructed if it was hacked.
Another UAV ‘expert’ from the United States said “…what the Iranians have is a pile of wreckage, many small and damaged pieces from which they could glean little in the way of technological insights.”-Loren Thompson, Lexington Institute
That was before the Iranians released the video of a near intact aircraft, boy does that UAV ‘expert’ have egg on his face!
So since the ‘experts’ say the Beast should have self destructed if it sensed it was being hacked, and, even if it suffered a malfunction it should’ve crashed into a thousand tiny bits, yet, the Iranians have a nearly intact Beast to publicly display, it strongly suggests that they not only hacked it, but were able to disable any self destruct and land it!
Islamic Revolution Guards Corps say they will reverse engineer the UAV.
By the way, flying a military aircraft into another country’s airspace, without permission, constitutes an act of war under international law. So officially the United States is at war with Iran.
“We have told them (US officials) to leave the air base.”-Chaudhary Ahmed Mukhtar, Pakistan Defense Minister
June 29, Mukhtar orders the CIA to vacate the once secret Shamsi air base. That’s where the Central Intelligence Agency has been launching drone attacks against supposed terrorists in Pakistan. The reality is that many hundreds of civilians have been killed instead.
Another reason the Pakistan government wants the U.S. to get out; they claim the United States has not been forthcoming with promised payments from a War on Terror coalition fund. Pakistani officials are now re-thinking their relationship with the U.S., in regards to the War on Terror.
In 2009, The times of London revealed that the CIA was using Shamis air base to launch drone attacks. The Times used Google Earth to spot drones parked on the runway.
Since the supposed assassination of Osama bin Laden, the United States has actually increased the number of drone attacks in Pakistan.
Since May 2 there have been four attacks.
An unnamed official says the assassination of bin Laden will not affect U.S. policy in Pakistan: “There are absolutely no plans at present to cease or scale back U.S. counter terrorism operations in Pakistan.”
A senior Pakistani intelligence official says U.S. personnel operating drones from a Pakistan base, have quietly left the country.
Officially the U.S. is not operating drones out of Pakistani bases, but Pakistani intelligence has been saying, for a while now, they the U.S. is indeed using Pakistani bases for drone attacks.
Supposedly U.S. drones use Pakistan’s Shamsi Air Base.
Carl Forsberg, research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, says it’s possible the Pakistanis are using pressure on the United States.
Drone attacks kill more civilians than terrorists. The latest attack, last Friday, killed 25 people, including five women and three children: “Drone attacks have become a core irritant in the counter terror campaign. We have repeatedly said that such attacks are counterproductive and only contribute to strengthen the hands of the terrorists.”-Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Perhaps the U.S. drone operators left, because they are now needed in Libya?