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Iran claims it has images of highly sensitive Israeli military bases

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Oct. 6, 2012: This file image made from video released by the Israeli Defense Forces shows the downing of a drone that entered Israeli airspace in southern Israel. (AP/Israeli Defense Forces)

Iran claims it has images of secret Israeli military bases  taken by a drone that was launched by Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and downed by  Israel earlier this month, a senior Iranian lawmaker said Monday.

The announcement gave no details about the photos — other  than calling the Israeli bases “forbidden sites” — but it suggested Iranian  drones have the ability to transmit data while in flight. It also appeared aimed  at warning Israel about the options for retaliation for any possible strikes on  Iranian nuclear sites. It was the latest boast from Tehran about purported  advances in the capabilities of its unmanned aircraft.

A prominent lawmaker, Ismaeil Kowsari, also was quoted as  saying that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah possesses more sophisticated  Iranian-made drones than the one that was downed, including some that could  carry weapons.

“These drones transmit the pictures online,” Kowsari he  told the semiofficial Mehr news agency. “The pictures of forbidden sites taken  and transmitted by this drone are now in our possession.”

The lawmaker, who heads the parliament’s defense committee,  said Hezbollah is “definitely” equipped with more sophisticated drones, but gave  no further details.

But a senior Israeli military official said he did not  believe the drone possessed a camera

“To the best of our knowledge, no,” the official told  Reuters.

Iran has also claimed that Iranian-made surveillance drones  have made dozens of apparently undetected flights into Israeli airspace from  Lebanon in recent years. Israel has rejected the account.

Iran’s Defense Minister Ahmad Vahid also claimed on Sunday  that Tehran has drones far more advanced than the Ayub unmanned aircraft  launched by Hezbollah, saying it was not the “latest Iranian technology,  definitely.” He did not elaborate.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah has said the Ayub  drone was manufactured in Iran and assembled in Lebanon.

Iran routinely announces technological breakthroughs in its  defense program. Last month it claimed to have started producing a long-range  missile-carrying drone with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles).

The Shahed-129, or Witness-129, covers much of the Middle  East including Israel and nearly doubles the range of previous drones produced  by Iranian technicians, who have often relied on reverse engineering military  hardware with the country under Western embargo.

But it’s unclear whether the new drone contains any  elements of an unmanned CIA aircraft that went down in eastern Iran last year.  Iran said it has recovered data from the RQ-170 Sentinel and claimed it was  building its own replica.

Iran’s claims are impossible to independently confirm  because the country’s arsenal is not open to widespread international inspection  with multinational war games or other cooperation.

The Associated Press contributed to  this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/29/iran-claims-to-have-received-pictures-israeli-bases-from-downed-drone/#ixzz2B463pCUi

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