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IRGC commander: Drone attack message to US, Iran could down P8 aircraft with 35 aboard

21 June 2019 19:18 (UTC +04:00)

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force said on Friday that his forces could have shot down a US P8 aircraft with 35 passengers on board while it was violating Iran’s airspace, but decided to shoot down the drone to only send a message to Washington, APA reports citng IRNA.

At the early hours of Thursday, the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) air force shot down an American spy drone, identified as RQ-4 Global Hawk that had violated Iranian airspace in the Kuh Mubarak (Mubarak Mountain) region located at Hormuzgan province, south of the country, the IRGC’s public relations department said in a statement. RQ-4 typically flies at a high altitude to conduct reconnaissance missions.

IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said “the Americans ignored our warnings in addition to the fact that at the moment that the UAV was intercepted, another US military stealth aircraft dubbed P-8 was flying next to it with 35 personnel on board. We could have targeted that too, but we refrained from doing that. We intended to send a message to American terrorists in the region. As the Americans said last week that 'Iranians had fired at us and wanted to bring us down', that was actually a warning which they again ignored. If we had wanted to down their aircraft, we would have done that then and there.”

The IRGC Aerospace commander further noted that “Iran had objected to the US so many times, we fired warning shots, but the Americans seem not care about international regulations. Therefore, under such circumstances, it is clear that we would react.”