Iranian high schoolers to study ‘drone hunting’

Revolutionary Guards to teach course as part of ‘Defensive Readiness’ program beginning next month

Chief of the aerospace division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Amir Ali Hajizadeh (left), near a captured US RQ-170 Sentinel drone in April 2012. (photo credit: AP/Sepahnews)
Chief of the aerospace division of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Amir Ali Hajizadeh (left), near a captured US RQ-170 Sentinel drone in April 2012. (photo credit: AP/Sepahnews)

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards paramilitary units plan to teach drone-hunting to school students, an Iranian newspaper reported Monday.

The report by pro-reform Etemad daily quoted Gen. Ali Fazli, acting commander of the Guard’s Basij militia, as saying the new program will be taught as part of a “Defensive Readiness” lesson in high schools from late September.

He did not elaborate but the plan suggests students would be taught how to track and bring down drone aircraft by hacking their computer systems.

Iranian hardliners have long sought a larger role for the military in the country’s education system. Students at both junior and senior high schools currently take courses focusing on “civil defense.”

Iran captured a US RQ-170 Sentinel drone in 2011 after it entered Iranian airspace. Since then, Tehran said, it has seized more US drones, including a Boeing-designed ScanEagle.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

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