An unmanned drone aircraft crashed into the mountains of central Iran on Sunday, according to a Reuters news service report out of Tehran. The aircraft’s origin has not been determined yet by Iranian officials, but we bet they have some pretty strong suspicions. Iranian media have claimed that US has been flying surveillance missions over Iran ever since American forces began using UAVs over Afghanistan. They say the US is using them to spy on Iran’s nuclear efforts, mostly located (we think) in the central region.
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as of late.