Iran downs a drone over southern port city of Mahshahr: Report

Dubai, November 8

Iranian media reported on Friday that Iran had shot down a drone over its southern port city of Mahshahr, without providing further details.

“Iran’s army has downed an unknown drone in the port city of Mahshahr,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.

Other Iranian news outlets carried the same report, without elaborating on whether it was a military or civilian drone.

Iranian officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Students News Agency ISNA and the Young Journalists Club (YJC), affiliated to Iran’s state broadcasting, said “an unknown flying object” had been shot down by the Iranian army, adding that the report had yet to be confirmed by Iranian officials.

Iran’s Arabic-Language al-Alam TV channel said “residents of Imam Khomeini port city heard the sound of a missile being fired on Friday morning”.

In June, Iran shot down an unmanned US surveillance drone, which the elite Revolutionary Guards said was flying over southern Iran. Washington said the US drone had been shot down by Iran in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.

Relations between Iran and the United States have worsened since last year when President Donald Trump pulled out of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions on the country.  Reuters