Iran has shown Russia, American UAS that it shot down over the Gulf, Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hadjizadeh was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
“Russian experts requested to see these drones and they looked at both the downed UAS and the models made by the Guards through reverse engineering,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Hadjizadeh as saying. Hajizadeh did not elaborate on the number or type of unmanned US aircraft it had shot down, or when or where it had done so.
Referring to the IRGC’s defense and combat power in confrontations against US drones in the Persian Gulf, he said that the drones were shot down in free waters and also in those regions under the control of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran announced on January 2 that its forces had downed two US drones after they “violated” Iranian-controlled territory. It later said it would put the aircraft on public display. “The planes that were shot down are among the most modern US navy UAS and have a long-range capability,” the Fars news agency quoted the commander of the Guards’ naval forces, Ali Fadavi, as saying at the time.
Earlier this year, a senior Iranian military official had confirmed reports on the shooting down of several enemy drones over the Persian Gulf, and said Iran has targeted a large number of these pilotless planes during the last 7 years.
“We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years,” the senior military official told FNA in January.
Also in January 2007, the Iranian military troops shot down a spy plane of the US army when trying to cross Iran-Iraq borders in the Southwestern city of Dasht-e-Azadegan, Khuzestan province.
The US navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, just across the Gulf from Iran. Washington never confirmed Tehran had shot down any of its drones. The US military and Central Intelligence Agency routinely use UAS to monitor military activity in the region. They have also used them to launch missile strikes in Yemen as well as in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.
On several occasions, the Iranian military has shown off UAS which it says it manufactured itself.
Source: Agence France Press; Fars News Agency