Iran has shot down a US military drone using a surface-to-air missile, Iran and American military officials said, amid an escalating row over alleged attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
One or more unnamed US officials were quoted by Reuters and AP news agencies, saying the intelligence drone was downed in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz, south of Iran.
This contradicts reports by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency which said the country’s Revolutionary Guard had shot down an American drone in its airspace
IRNA said the drone was hit when it entered Iranian airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province.
Citing the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, IRNA identified the drone as an RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft designed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.