Iran announced its Revolutionary Guards shot down a U.S. Spy Drone "RQ4 Global Hawk" in Hormozgan
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
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| The Guard said it downed a Global Hawk surveillance drone but the US denied it [AP] |
VietPress USA (June 19, 2019): According to the Aljazeera news, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard force said Thursday it shot down a US "spy drone" over its territory, Iranian state television reported.
An anonymous US official later told news agencies an American naval drone was downed over international airspace.
"The US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down" in the country's southern coastal province of Hormozgan, the Revolutionary Guard was quoted as saying by the English-language Press TV.
"It was shot down when it entered Iran's airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in the south," the force's website said.
State television did not provide images of the aircraft.
The US military initially denied the report.
"There was no drone over Iranian territory," Navy Captain Bill Urban, a US Central Command spokesman, told The Associated Press. He declined further comment.
However an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity, later said a US Navy MQ-4C Triton drone was brought down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz.
No further details were immediately available, including the time of the shootdown.
Read this news from Reuters on Yahoo News at: https://news.yahoo.com/irans-irgc-shoots-down-u-035434199.html
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Iran's Guards shoot down U.S. 'spy' drone in Hormozgan province: Iran media
State news agency IRNA carried the same report, identifying the drone as an "RQ-4 Global Hawk'.
"It was shot down when it entered Iran's airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in the south," the Guards' website added.
The RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) can fly at high altitudes for more than 30 hours, gathering near-real-time, high-resolution imagery of large areas of land in all types of weather, maker Northrop Grumman says on its website.
"No U.S. aircraft were operating in Iranian airspace today," Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. military's Central Command, said shortly before midnight on Wednesday.
Urban declined further comment. The U.S. military has in recent days confirmed an attempt by Iran to shoot down a U.S. drone last week as well as a successful shootdown of one on June 6 by Iran-aligned Houthi forces in Yemen.
Tension between Iran and the United States has spiked since last year when President Donald Trump exited a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers and reimposed sanctions on the country.
Concerns about a military confrontation between Iran and the United States have mounted since attacks on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week and four tankers off the United Arab Emirates on May 12, both near the Strait of Hormuz, a major conduit for global oil supplies.
The United States and its regional ally Saudi Arabia have blamed Iran for the incidents. Iran has denied responsibility.
To counter Iran's threats, the U.S. military has sent forces, including aircraft carriers, B-52 bombers and troops to the Middle East. However, Trump said he does not seek war with Iran.
Iran said last week that it was responsible for the security of the Strait of Hormuz, calling on American forces to exit the Gulf.
In protest at Trump's "maximum pressure", in May Tehran said it would start enriching uranium at a higher level unless other European signatories to the deal protected its economy from the U.S. sanctions within 60 days.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Michael Perry)
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