TEHRAN — Iran said its Revolutionary Guards Corps naval forces captured an American drone that it said entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf, state television reported on Tuesday. The claim was quickly denied by the United States.
Iranian state media said the aircraft was a ScanEagle built by Boeing, which according to the company’s Web site is an unmanned drone that can be launched and operated from ships.
A spokesman for the United States Navy in Bahrain denied the Iranian claim, saying that no American drones were missing.
“The U.S. Navy has fully accounted for all unmanned air vehicles (UAV) operating in the Middle East region. Our operations in the Gulf are confined to internationally recognized water and air space,” a spokesman for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain said, according to Reuters. “We have no record that we have lost any ScanEagles recently.”
State television showed images of what seemed to be an intact ScanEagle being inspected by Rear Adm. Ali Fadavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps naval forces. The drone was displayed in front of a large map of the Persian Gulf with a text in English and Persian saying : “We will trample the U.S. under our feet.”
Without mentioning the drone claim, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday warned Iran’s adversaries against aggression. “Our enemies should open their eyes,” he said in a speech. “They may be able to take a few steps forward but in the end we will make them retreat behind their own border.”
Admiral Fadavi said that his forces had “hunted down” the ScanEagle over the Gulf after it violated Iranian airspace and had forced it to land electronically, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported. A state television commentator said the drone was on a spy mission.
If the seizure is confirmed, it would indicate a spike in tension between the United States and Iran in the skies over the Gulf. On Nov. 8, Pentagon officials said that Iranian warplanes had fired at a Predator drone flying over the Gulf two weeks earlier. It was believed to be the first incident in which warplanes had fired on an American drone, they said.
While American officials maintain that the Predator had been over international waters, Iranian commanders insisted that it had violated Iranian airspace. Sea and air borders in the region are strongly contested. Iranian naval forces in small speedboats and United States warships monitor the sea lanes through which nearly 30 percent of the world’s oil is transported.
Last month Iran complained to the United Nations over at least eight violations of its airspace by American planes airplanes.
Iran’s latest claim came 12 months after Iran said it had brought down an RQ-170 Sentinel operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. At the time, Iranian state television showed images of the batwing drone, which Iran nicknamed as the “beast of Kandahar,” a reference to a drone base in Afghanistan.
Iran has maintained it had managed to hack into the RQ-170’s controls and forced it to land. But American officials said that it had crashed in Iranian territory.
Iran Says It Seized Another American Drone
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Iran Says It Seized Another American Drone
