Iranian military leaders announced Thursday that they had successfully reproduced and improved a U.S. sentinel spy drone, one of which was downed and captured in Iranian territory in 2011.
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Aerospace Force, announced that Iran is calling its own version of the spy drone, "Simorgh," which is Iranian for "Phoenix," according to the country’s state controlled media.
Iran’s version of the drone "was manufactured through reverse engineering of the U.S. drone, which was tracked and hunted down in Iran late in 2011, and has been equipped by the IRGC with bombing capability," according to Fars News Agency.
The Iranian media outlet further claimed that "Iran has downed many other U.S. drones as well, and they have always started reproducing them immediately after conducting reverse engineering."