Iran unveils new drone

Iran unveiled a new aircraft Monday that it says is the biggest drone yet to be developed in the Islamic Republic, capable of staying aloft for up to 30 hours, CBS News reported.

Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said the reconnaissance and combat drone Fotros has a range of 1,250 miles. That would cover much of the Middle East including Israel.

"This drone is able to carry out reconnaissance missions and carry air-to-surface rockets for combat operations," the official IRNA news agency quoted Dehghan as saying.

Dehghan said scientists at Iranian Aircraft Manufacturing Industries, affiliated to Iran's Defense Ministry, have designed and developed the drone. He said the country has achieved self-sufficiency in building drones but didn't elaborate.

Earlier this year, Iran's state TV broadcasted footage allegedly extracted from the advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone it captured in 2011.

Iran claims that it managed to reverse-engineerthe RQ-170 Sentinel, which it seized in December 2011 after it entered Iranian airspace from its eastern border with Afghanistan, and that it's capable of launching its own production line for the unmanned aircraft.

Iran has pursued a military self-sufficiency program since 1980s, and frequently announces technological breakthroughs including the building of jet fighters, tanks, missile, submarines, torpedoes and drones. Most cannot be independently confirmed, however, and a picture of the alleged Fotros published by Iran's semi-official IRNA news agency on Monday looked similar to another new drone the nation unveiled about a year earlier. It wasn't immediately clear whether the Fotros was an entirely new model, or an upgraded version of an earlier aircraft.