Iranian Foreign Minister Reveals Another US Spy Drone Flight

On 20 June, Iran downed a US spy drone due to what it says was a violation of Iranian airspace. The US military confirmed that the aircraft had been shot down, but said it was flying in international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has posted a map on his Twitter, which he says shows another US spy drone encroaching Iranian airspace on 26 May. He also hinted in the tweet that Iran has information about US preparations to blame the Islamic Republic for an attack on oil tankers.

The map shows a US MQ9 Reaper drone entering Iranian airspace off the coast of Asaluyeh in Bushehr Province. The UAV received a total of three warnings over the border violation. After it left Iranian airspace it also circled near the country’s border for some time, the map shows.

The foreign minister notably attributed the moves, described in the tweet, to the “B Team” – a group of Trump administration “hawks”, which, as Tehran insists, are trying to drag the US into a war with Iran.

The Pentagon is yet to comment on the minister’s revelations.

Zarif previously posted a detailed map showing the flight path of the US drone that was shot down on 20 June, including the spot, where it was destroyed by the country’s air defences. The map explicitly showed that the drone entered Iranian airspace on several occasions and received multiple warnings until it was finally shot down.

However, the Pentagon insists that the drone was flying above neutral waters in the Gulf of Oman. In the wake of the drone’s downing Washington planned a retaliatory strike against Iran, which was “stopped” by President Donald Trump 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start. Trump shared that the strike could result in numerous casualties, making it disproportionate to the downing of an unmanned drone.

The MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aircraft, mentioned in Zarif’s tweet about the 26 May incident, is widely used by the US not only for reconnaissance, but also to carry out military strikes on objectives in enemy territory.