On Sunday Iran shot down an American-built RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft that was flying over the Iran and Afghanistan boarder. The RQ-170 is a stealth unmanned aircraft designed and developed by Lockheed Martin Company and are most commonly deployed by the CIA. Iranian information sources say that the the stealth vehicle was shot down with little damage.

Iran’s Arabic language Al Alam television quoted the military source as saying, without giving details:

“The Iranian military’s response to the American spy drone’s violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran’s borders any more… due to the clear border violation, the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces against invading aircraft will not remain limited to the Iran’s borders.”

These are the same stealth unmanned aircraft that are used to guide missile strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region. As you’ll recall these strikes killed 700 people in Pakistan in 2009-2010. Most commonly wedding parties are targeted by an automated system, second to that are civilian villages claimed to be Taliban.

The timing of this event could not have been much worse. The drone was shot down while US and other Western interference in the country is at an all time high. Just recently Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy in return for foreign interference. Britain evacuated its diplomatic staff from Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats in London in retaliation, and several other EU members recalled their ambassadors from Tehran.

All of this has come about as Western powers have been placing sanctions against Iran for a supposed nuclear weapons program. A program that has yet to be shown as existing. The claims of a nuclear weapons program by Iran has been circulating for three years now. It takes less than 3 years to refine uranium to the point where it can be used in a nuclear weapon. Which means if they had been building weapons when the claims started, they would already be finished by now.

Sources:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/213765.html
http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=248067
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2011/12/20111241599102532.html