TEHRAN – The commander of the Civil Defense Organization said on Sunday that the U.S. has sent a message to Iran saying it wanted to conduct a limited strike against the country in order to save face after Iran shot down its drone.

“After the downing of its intruding drone, the United States told us through diplomatic intermediaries that it wanted to carry out a limited operation in an unimportant and deserted region to save face and asked us to avoid giving them a response, but Iran said it would regard any operation as the initiation of a war,” Mehr quoted Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali as saying.

Jalali censured Washington’s warmongering rhetoric against Tehran, saying any move against the integrity of Iran will be firmly dealt with.

A U.S. Global Hawk spy drone violated Iranian airspace in June, and was downed by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) after it ignored repeated warnings by the Iranian military.

The IRGC said there was another intruding U.S. manned plane beside the Global Hawk but the force “refrained” from targeting it.

After the incident, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the U.S. military was “cocked and loaded” to retaliate against Iran but decided to call off the mission after he learned 150 Iranians would die as a result of the strike.

In comments made a few hours after the incident, IRGC Chief Major General Hossein Salami said the shooting down of the U.S. drone had a straightforward message that any foreign intrusion into Iranian territories would draw a crushing response.

MH/PA