Iran Claims Destruction of U.S. MQ-9 Drone

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has claimed to have shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone in the skies over the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC stated that the drone was destroyed early Tuesday morning (October 20) using an advanced air defense system. With this incident, Iran now claims to have downed a total of 54 U.S. MQ-9 drones.

This information was reported by the Iranian news agency, Mehr.

In a statement, the IRGC announced that an air defense system under its aerospace division detected and brought down the U.S. drone as it was flying over the Strait of Hormuz.

The statement further claimed that the drone was destroyed using new, advanced defense equipment integrated into Iran’s unified air defense network.

The IRGC identified the drone as belonging to the U.S. military. However, there has been no comment from the United States regarding the incident, nor has there been any independent verification of the claim that the drone was destroyed.

It should be noted that the MQ-9 Reaper is a U.S.-manufactured unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), primarily used for surveillance, intelligence gathering, and military operations.