BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 21. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday that its air defense forces had shot down a U.S.-owned MQ-1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the Strait of Hormuz.
The IRGC issued a statement regarding the incident.
"The UAV in question was tracked and destroyed by a new air defense system operated by the IRGC's Aerospace Force," the statement said.
The statement said the MQ-1 drone was known for having logged 2,000 hours of flight operations in Afghanistan and had been removed from the arsenals of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps years ago, with the MQ-9 taking its place. However, the United States has reportedly been forced to resume using MQ-1 drones because many MQ-9 UAVs have been shot down.
Tensions between the United States and Iran escalated again on July 8. On that day, U.S. forces carried out several rounds of strikes on Iranian territory, for the first time since a memorandum was signed between Washington and Tehran, saying the strikes were in response to an attack on a commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz.
That same day, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the ceasefire with Iran had been terminated. In response, Tehran began launching strikes against U.S. facilities located in Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
