Iran’s top Air Force commander warned on Tuesday that Tehran is monitoring "all stealth aircraft flying in the region," and even hinted that it had chased off U.S. "reconnaissance planes" in recent months after they allegedly infiltrated Iranian air space.
Iranian Air Force Brig. Gen. Farzad Esmayeeli said that Iran has improved and upgraded its radar and air defense units following the downing of several U.S.-made stealth drones.
"We have issued warnings to (alien) reconnaissance planes which approached our borders and they responded to our alerts and moved away from our borders," Esmayeeli, commander of Khatam ol-Anbia Air Defense Base, told Iran’s state run Fars News Agency on Tuesday.
Esmayeeli suggested that Iran had improved its detection capabilities by gleaning technology from the captured U.S. stealth drones, which Iranian scientists claim they dissected and decoded.
"Esmayeeli also explained that the stealth technology used by reconnaissance planes is the same as the technology used in the U.S. F-22 fighters, a number of which have been deployed in the" United Arab Emirates, Fars reported.
Esmayeeli has claimed in the past that Iran has the technological capabilities to "confront" U.S. spy planes and other unmanned aircraft.
He claimed in October that Iranian forces "warned tens of U.S. spy planes" to "keep away from Iranian airspace," according to Fars.
"In the last ten years, we have issued countless warnings even to those U.S. AWACS airplanes which were flying over Iraq's airspace or along the free airspace of the Persian Gulf," Esmayeeli was quoted as saying.
Due to the regime’s secretive nature it is difficult to determine how advanced its air defenses actually are.
"If they had that capability, I doubt they’d be talking about it," said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon advisor on Iran and Iraq. "But one thing is certain: If they’re not careful, they might one day be able to detect our planes from the 5,000lbs bombs they will drop."
As Iran attempts to boost its ability to spot enemy aircraft, it is also expanding its ability to shoot them down.
Esmayeeli also declared on Tuesday that Iran had "optimized" its Russian-made S-200 missile system by reducing the amount of time it requires to detect a plane and fire at it.
This is the same system that Russia has tried to install in Syria, where embattled President Bashar al-Assad could use it to deter Western forces from entering the conflict.
Tehran now claims that its S-200 system, which detects and then fires missiles at enemy planes, can be operated in "real time."
"The detection-firing-tracing time in S-200 system has been reduced to the least possible," Esmayeeli was quoted as saying by Fars.
"In the missile part of the system, we should say that S-200 is no more used just against strategic and collective targets, rather it can now be used for pinpoint targeting and can be guided to a very specific point," he reportedly said.
Outgoing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad departed for Moscow on Monday to attend a Russian forum on gas exports.
Ahmadinejad is reportedly slated to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the confab. Both Russia and Iran have been the primary backers of Syria’s Assad regime.
Meanwhile, Iran also took steps this week to protect and secure its nuclear reactor in Bushehr.