Iranian drone 'shot down in Iraq'

Page last updated at 18:27 GMT, Monday, 16 March 2009

Iranian drone 'shot down in Iraq'


US forces shot down an Iranian drone 60 miles (100km) north-east of Baghdad last month, the US military says.

A military spokesman said the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was in Iraqi airspace for almost an hour and 10 minutes before it was engaged.

The US accused Iran of deliberately sending the spy drone into Iraqi airspace, but a top Iraqi official suggested it had been a mistake.

There was no immediate comment from Iran on the 25 February incident.

The US has long accused Iran of military interference inside Iraq.

"This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians," said US military spokesman Lt Col Mark Ballesteros, who identified the drone as an Iranian-made Ababil 3.

Pilots "were directed to shoot the UAV down after determining there would be no possibility of collateral damage", he added.

Maj Gen Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi defence ministry, told Reuters news agency he believed the plane's entry into Iraq had probably been a genuine error.

"It crossed 10km into Iraq," he said. "It's most likely that its entrance was a mistake."

The Ababil 3 is a reconnaissance drone. Israeli forces reported downing several Hezbollah Ababils during the 2006 Lebanon War.

UPDATE:

U.S. Military Confirms It Shot Down Iranian Drone
By Nathan Hodge March 16, 2009 | 10:09:29 AMCategories: Drones, Iraq's Insanity, Mullah Menace

Last month, a U.S. fighter aircraft tracked and shot down an Iranian drone. Details — first reported by Danger Room — have been elusive, but the U.S. military has now confirmed the incident.

Multinational Forces Iraq spokesman Col. Scott Maw tells Danger Room that coalition fighters intercepted an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle over Iraqi airspace on Feb. 25. The UAV, an Ababil-3 (pictured here), was "tracked as it crossed the border." Coalition aircraft were sent up to visually ID the drone. Finally, they did, and then shot it down "over 25 miles from the Iraq-Iran border." All told, the UAV was tracked "for an hour and 10 minutes before it was shot down."

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi Defense Ministry, also confirmed the incident, telling Reuters: "An unmanned Iranian plane crossed the border and it was discovered by multi-national forces' radar. They intercepted it and brought it down ... an American plane brought it down." According to Jassim, the incursion was most likely a "mistake."

Initially, coalition press officials would neither confirm nor deny the incident. But the presence of Iranian drones over Iraq — and the confirmation of the shoot-down — raise new questions about Tehran's unmanned aircraft capabilities and its intentions.

-- Nathan Hodge and Noah Shachtman

[Photo: Globalsecurity.org]

this is an interesting development.

i seriously doubt it was an accident , the drone was 25 miles over the border for an hour and a half. that's clearly not a mistake. the iranians were probably scouting out the boarder to see what we were doing and to test how much they could get away with.

it will probably happen again imo