US drone now Iran’s ‘property’: defence minister

TEHRAN: A US drone captured by Iran is now the “property” of the Islamic republic, Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on Tuesday, dismissing a request by US President Barack Obama for its return.

“The American espionage drone is now Iran’s property, and our country will decide what steps to take regarding it,” Vahidi was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

“Instead of apologising to the Iranian nation, it (the United States) is brazenly asking for the drone back,” Vahidi also said, according to another news agency, Mehr.

Iran “will not back down from defending the nation or its interests,” Vahidi declared.

Obama on Monday acknowledged that Iran was holding the reconnaissance drone – a bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel – by saying: “We’ve asked for it back. We’ll see how the Iranians respond.”

Iran last week displayed on state television what it said was the drone.

A lawmaker said the Iran was unlocking the aircraft’s software and was going to reverse-engineer the drone.

Iran’s foreign ministry was similarly dismissive of Obama’s request.

“It seems he (Obama) has forgotten that Iran’s airspace was violated, spying operations were undertaken, international laws were violated and that Iran’s internal affairs were interfered with,” ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Tuesday in his regular media briefing, according to Fars news agency.

“Instead of an official apology and admitting to this violation, they are making this request,” he said.

Iranian officials claimed a Revolutionary Guards cyber-warfare unit had hacked the aircraft’s controls and brought it down.

US officials have admitted anonymously that the drone was on a CIA spying mission over the Iran when it was captured.

The head of Iran’s parliamentary national security committee, Parviz Sorouri, said on Monday that Iran was in the “final stages” of decoding the drone’s software and “our next action will be to reverse-engineer the aircraft.”

Obama, who gave the first official US confirmation that the drone was in Iran’s hands, shed no light on the plane’s mission or why it failed to return to its base in Afghanistan.

“With respect to the drone inside of Iran, I’m not going to comment on intelligence matters that are classified,” he said.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had expressed doubt that Iran would agree to give back the drone.

“Given Iran’s behavior to date, we do not expect them to comply,” Clinton told reporters at a Monday press conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague, with whom she discussed Iran.

Although the drone incident has handed Iran a propaganda coup, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta voiced scepticism that Tehran would gain much of a technological advantage from the aircraft.

“It’s a little difficult to know just frankly how much they’re going to be able to get from having obtained those parts,” Panetta told reporters aboard a US military aircraft.

“I don’t know the conditions of those parts. I don’t know what state they’re in.”

Asked if Iran may have forced the plane down in a cyber-attack, Panetta said: “I don’t know.”

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US Army helicopters crash on base, four soldiers dead

RAINIER: Two US Army helicopters crashed at a sprawling military base on Monday night killing four soldiers, a military spokesman said.

The two-seat reconnaissance choppers crashed in the southwest training area of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord, according to the Army.

The victims were not immediately identified, pending notification of relatives.

It was not immediately clear whether the aircraft collided or crashed separately.

”We don’t have details on what actually occurred,” base spokesman J.C. Mathews said. ”That will be part of the investigation.”

The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopters were on a training mission, Mathews said.

The Kiowa Warrior is a single-engine, four-bladed aircraft used for armed reconnaissance, Mathews said. It’s often called a scout helicopter.

The crash site is geographically closest to the civilian community of Rainier, which is south of Tacoma, Mathews said.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is one of the largest bases in the country, with about 100,000 military and civilian personnel.

In December 2006, a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter from Fort Lewis crashed southeast of Seattle during a night training mission, killing all three aboard.

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Afghan troops kill suicide bomber near Nato base

KABUL: Afghan troops have shot dead a would-be suicide bomber trying to approach the gate of a Nato base in the country’s northwest.

Delbar Jan Arman, the governor of Badghis province, says Afghan security forces became suspicious of the man and killed him before he was able to detonate his explosives.

Arman says the attacker’s explosives-packed vest detonated during the incident. He says no one else was harmed in the explosion.

Tuesday’s incident occurred outside the base in Qalay-e-Naw, the capital of Badghis province, about 340 miles (550 kilometers) northwest of Kabul.

A mix of military and international civilians work at the Spanish-run base to improve provincial governance, services and infrastructure in the area.

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Pakistan crucial for US to win Afghan war: Leon Panetta

KARACHI: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has stated that it was difficult to win the war in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s assistance, FTNews reported.

Panetta further said he was confident that the rift between Pakistan and the US would soon be resolved.

He said although relations between the two states were complicated but their importance could not be denied.

The defence secretary also said that Pakistan had assisted the United States in the Afghan war to a great extent.

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Blackwater changes name for second time

McLEAN, Virginia: The security firm once known as Blackwater on Monday changed its name for the second time in less than three years as its owners continue to reshape the company they bought from its founder a year ago.

The Arlington-based company announced it will no longer be known as Xe Services and is now called Academi. The name is inspired by Plato’s Academy in ancient Greece and is designed to connote elite, highly disciplined warriors who are thinkers as well as fighters.

CEO Ted Wright said a new name was needed to reflect changes the company has undergone since a group of investors bought it in December 2010 from founder Erik Prince.

“Simply stated, we are a new company. New ownership team. New board of directors,” Wright said.

Prince founded the company in 1997 in North Carolina and built it into a contractor that provided training and protection for US government workers in war zones around the globe. But Blackwater guards were involved in a series of high-profile shootings, none more so than the 2007 shootings in Nisoor Square in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead. Iraq has since banned the company from working in the country. And four Blackwater guards still face federal prosecution for their actions.

Prince, though, offered aggressive defenses of his company’s work and became a target for critics who said he fostered a trigger-happy culture. In 2009, the company acknowledged the Blackwater name had become tarnished and changed its name to Xe.

Asked about the name changes, Wright pointed out that the first name change occurred under the old ownership group, and he admitted he was not a fan of the Xe name.

“I think it was confusing,” Wright said of the Xe name. “It didn’t have any reason behind it.”

Wright, who came to Academi from government contractor KBR, also said he has promised customers that he’ll be taking a lower profile and that they won’t be seeing negative newspaper headlines about Academi. One of his first hires after becoming CEO in June was a newly created position of compliance officer, whose job is to ensure the company’s work is done ethically and legally.

One aspect of Blackwater’s legacy that Wright hopes to preserve and promote: its record of conducting more than 60,000 protective security missions worldwide in the past seven years without having a single person under its protection being lost or critically injured.

Wright said the company can maintain that level of protection even as it sheds the gung-ho culture of its past. The company continues to provide security or training in more than half a dozen countries around the world, most notably in Afghanistan. And it wants to get back into Iraq, where Wright said the business opportunities are promising.

“I have every confidence we’ll be operating in Iraq again,” Wright said, arguing that the Iraqi and the US governments will recognize his company’s culture change.

As for the name change, it did not receive universal approval from experts on marketing and brands. William Lozito, chief branding officer with Strategic Name Development in Minneapolis, called the name change hard to fathom. While the Academi name _which the company spells in all capital letters in its press release _ may be appropriate for the company’s training business, he said it sounds out of place for the security business because it conveys a notion that its security workers are
in some of training academy themselves.

“Blackwater has some bad associations. But just change the name once, not twice,” he said.

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