Home / *News and analysis / Debris proves US drone conducting espionage in Iran’s airspace: IRGC

Debris proves US drone conducting espionage in Iran’s airspace: IRGC

TEHRAN, Jun. 21 (MNA) – An IRGC top commander, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said that the retrieved sections of the US drone wreckage prove that the aircraft was involved in espionage activities after violating Iran’s airspace.

The fact that Iran possesses sections of the drone debris proves that it had violated Iran’s airspace and had been conducting acts of espionage, said Hajizadeh, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force on Friday.

He made the remarks while revealing the debris of US Global Hawk drone which was brought down by IRGC on Thursday after intruding into Iranian borders.

He went on to say that sections of the drone were afloat on Iran’s territorial waters and Iranian forces collected them after the the drone was shot down, and then sent the debris Tehran.

The commander said that Iranian forces had warned the US drone in two stages but ‘unfortunately’ there was no response. “The last warning was issued by Iran’s Army at 3:55 AM local time,” he said, noting that the IRGC targeted and shot down the drone at 4:05 AM after it didn’t refrain from invading the Iranian airspace.

“The country’s national security is our redline,” he reiterated.

Meanwhile, US claims that the drone was in international airspace when shot by an Iranian missile, without providing any evidence to back up the claim. Iran says it will take the US aggression to the United Nations.

 

 

 Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh looks at debris from a downed US drone in Tehran on June 21, 2019. (Photo by AP)
Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Amir Ali Hajizadeh looks at debris from a downed US drone in Tehran on June 21, 2019. (Photo by AP)

A senior Iranian military commander says Iran has refrained from shooting down a US plane with 35 people on board that was accompanying an American spy drone which was shot down in the Persian Gulf after intruding into the Iranian airspace.

“Along with the US drone, there was also an American P-8 plane with 35 people on board,” Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), told reporters on Friday.

“This plane also entered our airspace and we could have targeted it, but we did not because our purpose behind shooting down the American drone was to give a warning to terrorist American forces,” Hajizadeh added.

The IRGC announced on Thursday that its air defense force had shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

The IRGC said in a statement that the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region, which sits in the central district of Jask County, after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.

The IRGC Aerospace Force on Friday released the first photos of the wreckage of the downed US spy drone.

It displayed parts of the doomed drone, refuting earlier claims by the US that the drone was flying over international waters, and had not violated the Iranian airspace.

Check Also

Head of IAEA in Tehran ahead of Vienna Talks

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] has arrived in Tehran for ...