U.S. forces shot down Iranian drone over Iraq

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone aircraft that ventured inside Iraq last month, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Monday. A U.S. military spokesman said that U.S. jet fighters shot down the unmanned Iranian aircraft on February 25 about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. “The UAV had been tracked by coalition air forces for nearly 1 hour and 10 minutes before it was engaged and shot down well inside Iraqi airspace,” Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Ballesteros said. “This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians” because of the distance into Iraq the drone flew and how long it stayed, Ballesteros said. The aircraft was believed to be an Iranian “Ababil 3” model drone, he added. But Major-General Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi Defense Ministry, told Reuters he believed the plane’s entry into Iraq was probably a mistake. “According to the report received by multinational forces, this drone entered Iraq mistakenly at a point 100 km (60 miles) from Baghdad. It crossed 10 km (6 miles) into Iraq,” he said. “It’s most likely that its entrance was a mistake.” SH (S) 1