Military spokesman said jets destroyed an Iranian unmanned surveillance aircraft that flew over Iraq in February US jets shot down an unmanned Iranian surveillance aircraft in the skies over Iraq last month, a US military official in Baghdad said today. The aircraft - believed to be an Iranian Ababil 3 unmanned drone - was detected heading into Iraqi airspace on 25 February. Two jets were dispatched to intercept the aircraft, and after confirming it did not belong to coalition forces, shot it down, defence officials said. The jets tracked it for more than an hour before shooting it down roughly 60 miles north-east of Baghdad. The drone was "well inside Iraqi territory before it was engaged‚" said lieutenant John Brimley, a military spokesman in Baghdad. "This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians," he said. But major general Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi defence ministry, told Reuters he believed the plane had strayed into Iraqi airspace by mistake. "According to the report received by multinational forces, this drone entered Iraq mistakenly at a point 100 km (60 miles) from Baghdad. It crossed 10 km (6 miles) into Iraq," he said. "It's most likely that its entrance was a mistake." The US has long accused Iran of interfering militarily in Iraq, typically by supplying Shia Muslim militant groups. The incident roughly three weeks ago provoked no reaction from Tehran and was not made public by the US military until today. Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that when the US military acts without fanfare the Tehran regime is "caught off guard," and chooses not to respond. In contrast, "it's when we aim to publicly shame Iran with 'axis of evil'-style rhetoric‚" that the regime responds. Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington, said the drone was likely on a reconnaissance mission. "Traditionally when you conduct intelligence operations and you violate someone else's airspace you don't make an issue," he said. He said he was unaware of previous incidents in which unmanned Iranian aircraft had penetrated Iraqi airspace or been shot down. The Iranian-made Ababil can be packed with an explosive payload, although Cordesman said it has limited offensive capability. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, Hezbollah sent at least three Ababil drones into Israeli airspace. One was shot down and found to be carrying at least 10 kg of explosives.US forces shot down Iranian drone, official says
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
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