The first part of the answer came in May 2011, when the bat-wing Sentinel was used to spy on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. But that was not the only target of the stealth jet drone. On December 4, 2011, the Western media reported that the Iranian army’s electronic warfare unit had downed a Sentinel that had intruded deep into Iranian airspace to spy on suspected nuclear weapons development facilities. The Sentinel, which had active phased-array radar, a “next-generation radar that allows one to use radar while staying stealthy,” and full motion sensors to detect radiation, was said to be one of a fleet of drones that had been flying over Iran from a base in Shindand in western Afghanistan without the knowledge of the Afghan government.123 The Iranians claimed the plane was captured intact over the eastern Iranian city of Kashmar, some 140 miles into Iran, by severing its communications links. The Iranians also claimed that they had reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran, not Afghanistan. An Iranian engineer said, “The [Sentinel’s] GPS navigation is the weakest point. By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”124
Cyberwarfare experts in the West were, however, highly skeptical of the Iranians’ claims of hijacking the state-of-the-art drone. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor,
To accomplish such a cyber coup, at least three and probably many more major technical hurdles would need to be overcome, several US cyber warfare and drone experts said. While none of these steps is impossible, each is difficult, and taken together, they represent a massive technological challenge for any enemy hacker—one that the US experts suggest is beyond Iran’s capabilities.
Hijacking and safe landing of the RQ-170 in Iran, if true, would represent a new level of cyber intrigue in the drone wars. First, Iran would need to spot the stealth drone. Second, it would need to jam the encrypted GPS signal. Third, it would have to substitute a false signal that the internal systems on the drone could understand and obey. US experts say even the first task—spotting the drone—would be very difficult for Iran.
The US used a stealth helicopter in the Osama bin Laden raid that went undetected, and US military planes have bombed all over the world undetected. So for Iran to detect a far-smaller stealth drone seems “almost like science fiction,” says John Bumgarner, chief technology officer for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit cyber-warfare think tank.125
For its part, the Pentagon told reporters that there was no indication that the drone was brought down by “hostile activity of any kind.”126 To allay fears, the military pointed out that the drone was programmed to automatically erase sensitive data onboard to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
Regardless of whether the CIA lost control of the drone on its own through a command malfunction or whether it was hijacked, the capture was a triumph for an Iran that was suffering under U.S.-led sanctions. Although the data onboard might have been erased or too encrypted to access, the Iranians were able to acquire the drone’s top-secret, radar-proof “skin.” The loss of the drone was such a disaster that the United States contemplated sending in airborne troops to retrieve it or blow it up but rejected the mission as too dangerous.127 They feared that such a mission would be construed as an “act of war.”
The Iranians subsequently displayed the stealth Sentinel in triumph in front of an American flag that had skulls in place of the stars.128 A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards proudly proclaimed that the Sentinel, which was equipped with highly advanced surveillance systems, electronic communication, and radar systems, had fallen into the trap of Iran’s armed forces.129 When the U.S. government asked for the drone back, an Iranian official contemptuously said, “No one returns the symbol of aggression to the party that sought secret and vital intelligence related to the national security of a country.”130 In a further display of contempt, the Iranians offered to return the drone in the form of a 1:80-scale colorful toy replica of the drone, which began to sell in Iran in January 2012, complete with a stand featuring the words, “We will trample America under our feet.”
In addition, Iran filed a complaint with the UN against the United States for the violation of its airspace. The Iranians promised that they would “reverse engineer” (i.e., duplicate) and “mass-produce” America’s most secret drone. Although this seemed unlikely, the CIA feared Iran would share American secrets with other nations, most likely Russia and China, which were suspected to have the capacity to reverse engineer the drone. One U.S. expert bemoaned the loss of the drone by calling it “the biggest Christmas present to our enemies in probably a decade.”131
THE SALALA FRIENDLY FIRE INCIDENT AND THE 2011–2012 DRONE LULL
According to the Long War Journal, there were 117 drone strikes in Pakistan in 2010 but only sixty-four in 2011.132 This bucked the trend that had seen an increase in the number of drone strikes every year since 2005. There were four reasons for this unprecedented dip in the number of drone strikes. The first was the previously mentioned monthlong moratorium on drone strikes following the Pakistanis’ arrest of the CIA contractor Raymond Davis in April and March 2011. This moratorium was designed to mollify the Pakistanis, who were infuriated by his killing of two Pakistani robbers/ISI agents. The second was a moratorium on drone strikes following the May 1–2 JSOC raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which similarly infuriated the Pakistanis.
The third reason received less attention. In the summer of 2011 the Obama administration had an internal debate on the usefulness of signature killing. The catalyst for this debate was the clumsy Datta Khel strike, which killed numerous civilians (discussed previously). Discussion of this collateral damage tragedy among U.S. officials ultimately led to a tightening of restrictions on signature killings of low-ranked Taliban fighters.
The story of the tightened restrictions was broken in November 2011 by the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the CIA had backed down on its “wide net” policy of killing low-ranked Taliban foot soldiers after U.S. military and diplomatic officials complained that they were damaging America’s tenuous relationship with Pakistan. Although they recognized the strikes’ overall tactical effectiveness, members of the U.S. military and State Department had asked the CIA to be more selective in their targets. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The disputes over drones became so protracted that the White House launched a review over the summer, in which Mr. Obama intervened.”133
In the end the CIA conceded to the more restrictive parameters for signature killings. One senior U.S. official described the new drone strike standards as follows: “The bar has been raised. Inside CIA, there is a recognition you need to be damn sure [the strike] is worth it.”134 In addition, the State Department won greater sway in influencing strike decisions, Pakistani leaders were to be given advance notice about future drone operations, and the CIA agreed to suspend drone strikes when Pakistani officials visited America. Soon thereafter the pace of drone strikes in Pakistan began to drop off.
The fourth reason for the decrease in drone strikes was the so-called Salala incident, on November 26, 2011, which led to an almost two month lull in attacks. The Salala incident was the lowest point in Pakistani-U.S. relations since Bush and Musharraf had forged the post-9/11 alliance. It involved a case of friendly fire on the Afghan-Pakistani border that led to the death of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers, including two officers, at the hands of American airpower.