TEHRAN, — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Thursday that its forces intercepted and destroyed a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone over Qeshm Island near the Strait of Hormuz.
According to a statement from the IRGC’s public relations office, the drone was detected in Iranian airspace and was brought down at 10:12 a.m. local time. The IRGC said the operation was carried out by a new advanced air-defense system operated by the IRGC Aerospace Force under Iran’s integrated air-defense network. Iranian reporting said the system used domestically produced radar and missile systems.
The IRGC identified the aircraft as the 53rd U.S. MQ-9 it has claimed to have destroyed during the conflict.
The announcement came one day after Iran reported the destruction of another MQ-9 over the same area. On September 16, the IRGC said an MQ-9 was shot down at 2:29 a.m. local time over Qeshm Island using an advanced air-defense system operating within the country’s integrated network. That aircraft was described by the IRGC as the 52nd MQ-9 destroyed.
U.S. Has Not Confirmed the Latest Claim
There was no immediate public confirmation from the U.S. military regarding Thursday’s reported shootdown. The latest claim therefore remains an Iranian military assertion and has not been independently verified.
The reported incident follows several recent Iranian claims involving U.S. unmanned aircraft in and around the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC has also reported the destruction of MQ-1 drones in the region.
MQ-9 Reaper
The MQ-9 Reaper is a U.S.-made unmanned aircraft used for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and precision-strike missions.
The IRGC’s statement referred to an earlier valuation of an MQ-9 at around $30 million. It also pointed to a recently disclosed export version sold to Japan that was reported to have a value of more than $100 million. These figures refer to different configurations and should not be treated as the cost of every MQ-9 aircraft.
Qeshm Island and Strait of Hormuz
Qeshm Island is located in the Strait of Hormuz, an important maritime route. The area has remained an active part of the ongoing military confrontation involving Iran, the United States and Israel.
The latest IRGC statement attributed the recent drone interceptions to newer-generation air-defense systems and changes in tactics for dealing with unmanned aircraft. Those claims describe Iran’s assessment of its air-defense performance and have not been independently confirmed.
The reported September 17 incident is the second MQ-9 shootdown claimed by Iran over Qeshm Island within two days. The U.S. military has yet to publicly confirm the loss of the aircraft.
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