BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 21.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday that
its air defense forces had shot down a U.S.-owned MQ-1 unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) over the Strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC issued a statement regarding the
incident.
"The UAV in question was tracked and destroyed by a
new air defense system operated by the IRGC's Aerospace Force," the
statement said.
The statement said the MQ-1 drone was known for having
logged 2,000 hours of flight operations in Afghanistan and had been
removed from the arsenals of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps years
ago, with the MQ-9 taking its place. However, the United States has
reportedly been forced to resume using MQ-1 drones because many
MQ-9 UAVs have been shot down.
Tensions between the United States and Iran escalated
again on July 8. On that day, U.S. forces carried out several
rounds of strikes on Iranian territory, for the first time since a
memorandum was signed between Washington and Tehran, saying the
strikes were in response to an attack on a commercial vessel in the
Strait of Hormuz.
That same day, U.S. President Donald Trump announced
that the ceasefire with Iran had been terminated. In response,
Tehran began launching strikes against U.S. facilities located in
Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and
Oman.
