The US military identified the drone as a US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk
JUNE 20th 2019
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
United States Drone Shot Down by Iran
On Thursday, a United States military drone was shot down by Iran, which according to the country was trespassing by flying over one of its southern provinces on the Gulf, bringing about tensions and concerns over military conflict as Washington aims to isolate Tehran as a cause of its nuclear and regional activities.
A United States official contested the report given by Iran, having stated that the drone was a US Navy MQ-4C Triton, and that it had been shot down in international air space over the Strait of Hormuz rather than the Gulf itself. It’s known that about a third of the world’s seaborne oil exits the Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz.
Tensions in general had been severely escalating in Iran’s Gulf region, with this only being the most recent incident since May, other incidents involving explosive attacks on oil tankers. The Gulf is well recognised as a critical source for global oil supplies. Tehran and Washington have come to a point of confrontation, with an increasingly rising fear of impending conflict.
Iran has denied having had involvement in any of the attacks that went down over the Gulf, but global concerns and whispers apropos the risk of a yet another Middle East conflict disrupting exports on oil have provoked a jump in crude prices. On Thursday, they surged by more than $3 to above $63 a barrel.
Tensions were already flared enough since the United States had pulled out of the world powers’ 2015 nuclear accord with Iran last year, and said tensions have only gotten worse as Washington imposed fresh sanctions to throttle Tehran’s vital oil trade. Iran retaliated against the US earlier this week, threatening to breach the limits that had been set on its nuclear activities initially imposed by the deal.
United States President Donald Trump’s call to enter talks covering nuclear, missile and other security disputes has since been rejected by Iran as well, until Washington agree to re-join the 2015 nuclear accord that the US had left to begin with. Trump stated that the 2015 nuclear accord signed by his predecessor Barack Obama was essentially of no help – that it did not do enough to curb Iranian interventions in other Middle East affairs or restrain its ballistic missile development programme. Iran counter-argued, however, that its development of ballistic missiles was purely in the interest of self-defence.
To complicate matters, it was said by Washington said on Monday that it intended to deploy about 1000 more troops, along with Patriot missiles and manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, to the Middle East on top of a 1500-troop increase announced after the May tanker strikes. Tensions between the two powers are arguably higher than they’ve been in a decade.
In a report from Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, a statement from Revolutionary Guards said that the drone’s identification transponder had been switched off, and that as such it had been “in violation of aviation rules and was moving in full secrecy” when it was downed.
The action that led to the incident was condemned by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, by having referred to it as a violation of Iranian air space, dispensing warnings regarding the consequences of such “illegal and provocative” actions.
Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, told Iran’s Tasnim news agency that “Our air space is our red line and Iran has always responded and will continue to respond strongly to any country that violates our air space.”
By Patryk Krych | The World Daily
The US military identified the drone as a US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk
