TEHRAN – An IRGC commander has said U.S. President Donald Trump’s lie about shooting down an Iranian drone was so big that even Iran believed it at first.

“Trump’s lie was so big that even we believed it at first that they had managed to shoot down one of our drones,” Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Amir Ali Hajizadeh said on Sunday, according to ISNA.

Brigadier General Hajizadeh made the remarks after a meeting with Iranian lawmakers at the parliament.

“After Trump’s claim about downing an Iranian drone, we checked with various units several times, because we could not believe that he himself would directly tell such a big lie to the media,” he remarked.

“This is why we had a few hours of delay before rejecting the news and we finally watched that our unmanned aerial vehicle had monitored the activity of the [U.S.] strike group before it reached the Strait of Hormuz and after it got out of it,” the general explained.

Last week, Trump claimed that a U.S. warship had shot down an Iranian drone over the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump added that the USS Boxer fired on the drone on July 18, four weeks after Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone flying over Iranian waters near the Strait of Hormuz.

“The Boxer took defensive action against an Iranian drone, which had closed into a near distance, approximately 1000 yards, ignoring multiple calls to stand down threatening safety of ship and ship’s crew,” he said at the White House on the same day, claiming that Iran’s drone “was immediately destroyed.”

Iran later broadcast a footage which was filmed by the same drone to disprove Trump’s claim.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also reacted to the claim, saying, “We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else.”

“I am worried that USS Boxer has shot down their own UAS by mistake!” he tweeted on Friday.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have escalated since the U.S. administration of Donald Trump adopted a distinctly hostile approach toward Iran, which included pulling out of the historic Iran nuclear deal and reimposing sanctions on Tehran. 

MH/PA