DUBAI Iran will increase its naval presence in the Gulf to strengthen its authority over three islands which the United Arab Emirates says are its territory, Tehran said on Sunday. 
 
 The islands sit near oil shipping routes at the mouth of the strategic Strait of Hormuz and the challenge over their sovereignty is a constant threat to Iran's fragile relations with its Arab neighbors. 
 
 "The security of the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf is part of the various strategies of the naval force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps," IRGC Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said, according to the website of state television IRIB. 
 
 Jafari was speaking at a ceremony inaugurating a fifth "naval defense zone" at the port of Bandar Lengeh. He said the IRGC was "increasing, expanding and improving the expert capability in naval defense" in the five zones. 
 
 "The fifth zone of the Guards' naval force is one of the naval defense chains which is in particular responsible for the defense of the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf," he said. 
 
 The 41-year-old dispute between Shi'ite Muslim Iran and the Sunni UAE over the islands - Greater and Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa - has nationalist and ethnic overtones and was inflamed when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Abu Musa in April. 
 
 In September, UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan said Iran's "occupation" of the three islands was against international law. 
 
 Last month Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tehran would consider downgrading ties with the UAE over the dispute, although the foreign ministry later denied the report, according to state television. 
 
 (Reporting By Yeganeh Torbati and Zahra Hosseinian; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) ||||| Iran's media is reporting the country has produced a domestically-made drone capable of hovering in midair. 
 
 The Sunday report by several newspapers including the conservative Resalat says an advanced vertical take-off and landing or VTOL drone will be displayed in February. 
 
 Resalat quoted Abbas Jam, who is director of the project, as saying that the drone can also fly in silence. 
 
 Earlier in October Iran said it obtained images of sensitive Israeli bases taken by a drone that was launched by Lebanon's Hezbollah movement that month and downed by Israel. 
 
 Iran says other drones made dozens of apparently undetected flights into Israeli airspace from Lebanon in recent years. Israel has rejected that. 
 
 Iran frequently claims breakthroughs in military technology and other achievements. Most are impossible to independently confirm.
– Iran has been making increasing noises about its drone program, and Tehran's latest sabre-rattling says that it now has an advanced drone that can take off vertically, ie, without a runway. As Reuters reports by way of Iranian state media, a lead researcher claimed that the drone would be tested yesterday and "unveiled" next year, adding that the drone "enjoys ultra-advanced technology and has been built for the first time in the world." The drone is reportedly also capable of hovering in mid-air, and is silent, adds the AP. Iran earlier this week claimed it had drones far more advanced than Hezbollah's.