The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Thursday that the shooting down of a US drone had sent “a clear message” to America.
In comments carried live on Iranian state television, Gen. Hossein Salami also said that Iran does “not have any intention for war with any country, but we are ready for war.”
An anonymous US official confirmed earlier Thursday that an American drone was shot down amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over the collapsing nuclear deal.
However, contrary to Iran’s claim, the official told the Reuters news agencythat the aircraft was shot down in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz — not in Iran’s airspace — by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it shot down the drone Thursday morning when it entered Iranian airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province.
Kouhmobarak is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) southeast of Tehran and is close to the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency, citing the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, identified the drone as an RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Capt. Bill Urban, a US Central Command spokesman, declined to comment when asked if an American drone was shot down.
However, he told The Associated Press: “There was no drone over Iranian territory.” READ MORE
