IRGC Aerospace Cmdr Hajizadeh: We Hacked U.S. Drones and Have Thousands of Hours of U.S. Intelligence Footage

On February 20, 2019, Channel 5 (Iran) aired a report saying that the IRGC has infiltrated American command centers in Iraq and Syria and acquired intelligence from them. General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Force, said that the IRGC hacked up to 10 American aircraft that flew over Iraq and Syria and monitored the intelligence that they gathered. He said that Iran passed information to the Iraqi PMU and other operatives in the region. He then showed a video that he claimed was a recording from an American reconnaissance flight over ISIS centers and said that the IRGC has thousands of hours of this type of footage.

Anchor: The American surveillance aircraft in the region are being constantly monitored. The commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force said that Iran has infiltrated the command centers of the U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and controls their intelligence.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh: Seven, eight, or ten aircraft that used to fly 24/7 over Iraq and Syria were under our control. We would sit at our control center and monitor the intelligence that they gathered. For example, the ISIS centers… The ISIS command and control centers… They would plant an ambush somewhere, or produce explosives somewhere… The [American] systems were advanced, and their aircraft were always flying over the heads [of the ISIS members]. They would monitor them, listen to their communications, and identify their tunnels. Well, we got all that information directly from the source. The operations that were conducted… We mapped everything and made it available to the PMU or the guys running operations. Look, these are ISIS cars. This video is now on high speed. This plane is running a reconnaissance flight over ISIS centers. This is the short version. We have 18 hours of footage from this one aircraft alone. All in all, we have thousands of hours of this footage.