Iran's Revolutionary Guard denied Sunday that it had
captured a foreign unmanned drone during a military exercise, despite Iranian
media reports to the contrary.
Gen. Hamid Sarkheili told Iranian media that Guard
experts took control of one unmanned aircraft's navigation system and brought
it down near the city of Sirjan where the military drills began on Saturday.
"While probing signals in the area, we spotted
foreign and enemy drones which attempted to enter the area of the war
game," the official IRNA news agency quoted the general as saying.
"We were able to get one enemy drone to land."
But a spokesman for the Guard, Yasin Hasanali, told The
Associated Press that the drone was actually being used during the drill as a
supposed enemy aircraft.
Iran has claimed to have captured several U.S. drones,
including an advanced RQ-170 Sentinel CIA spy drone in December 2011 and at
least three ScanEagle aircraft.
Earlier this month, Iran said it had broadcast footage on
state TV allegedly extracted from the Sentinel after it entered Iranian
airspace near the border with Afghanistan.
After initially saying only that a drone had been lost
near the Afghan-Iran border, American officials eventually confirmed the
Sentinel had been monitoring Iran's military and nuclear facilities. Washington
asked for it back but Iran refused, and instead released photos of Iranian
officials studying the aircraft.
In November, Iran claimed that the U.S. drone had
violated its airspace. The Pentagon said the aircraft, which came under fire
but was not hit, was over international waters.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this
report.
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