Iran`s general denies claims foreign UAVs have entered Iranian airspace

TEHRAN – The Khatam-ol-Anbia Anti-Aircraft Base commander has dismissed news reports that foreign unmanned aerial vehicles have entered Iran’s airspace and taken photographs of the country’s sensitive sites and facilities. “No UAV has entered Iran’s airspace, and the published images belong to satellite systems,” Brigadier General Farzad Esmaili said on Tuesday. “No UAV… has the right or dare to enter the country’s airspace, otherwise we will provide media outlets with the photographs of its downed wreck,” he said. “One of these aircraft wanted to cross into (the country), and you saw what happened to it,” he added. Iran announced on December 4, 2011 that an advanced RQ-170 unmanned U.S. spy plane, which had violated Iran’s airspace, had been downed by the armed forces of the Islamic Republic but did not say when the incident occurred. Elsewhere in his remarks, Esmaili said that the reconnaissance UAVs of Iran’s Armed Forces and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps have also flown over Western countries’ aircraft carriers and taken photographs of them.