Iran says it is building a copy of downed US spy drone

World Blog/

Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA

Iranians gather around a replica of an American spy drone on display next to Azadi (Freedom) square during a ceremony marking the 33rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran on Feb. 11.

By msnbc.com and news services

A top Iranian official claimed on Sunday that his government was copying the top-secret American spy drone captured by Iran's armed forced last year.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who is chief of the aerospace division of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, was quoted by a semi-official news agency as saying that Iranian experts are recovering information from the RQ-170 Sentinel captured in December in eastern Iran, al Arabiya News reported.

"There is almost no part hidden to us in this aircraft. We recovered part of the data that had been erased. There were many codes and characters. But we deciphered them by the grace of God," Hajizadeh said. More >>