TEHRAN – Chief of the Iranian Army Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi says the unidentified drone which was flying over the Iranian southern port city of Mahshar on Friday was downed by the homegrown Mersad defense missile system.

In remarks on Saturday, General Mousavi said the origin and target of the aircraft is still unknown, Fars reported.

“We cannot yet certainly identify the origin and main target of this drone since we have not retrieved parts of the drone to make our graphs and date complete, but the drone was certainly flying at low altitude and was targeted by the homegrown Mersad system,” he explained.

The general also said that the downed drone was intercepted and destroyed in spite of its low radar cross-section (RCS), adding that the incident displayed one of the capabilities of the Mersad missile system.

“Any other aggressor in any size will naturally be hit and destroyed as well,” General Mousavi asserted.

The Iranian Army announced on Friday that it had shot down an unidentified drone that was violating Iran’s airspace near the port city of Mahshahr in the southwestern province of Khuzestan on the Persian Gulf coast.

Chief of the Army’s Air Defense Force Brigadier General Alireza Sabahifard said the intruding unmanned aerial vehicle was brought down early on Friday before it could reach “sensitive areas” thanks to the precision of Iran’s domestically-produced air defense system.

“This decisive move and the firing of a missile were a reaction to the intrusion by a foreign drone into our country’s airspace,” he added.

The senior military commander did not specify which country the drone belongs to but emphasized that Iran has repeatedly warned that it is fully prepared to give a firm response to any violation of its airspace.

Meanwhile, governor of Khuzestan Gholam Reza Shariati told IRNA that the wreckage of the aircraft has been recovered and is being investigated.

He stressed that the downed drone “definitely belonged to a foreign country” and said the results of investigations would be announced soon.

Back in June, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) shot down an American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

In a statement, the IRGC said the U.S.-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County — after the aircraft violated the Iranian airspace.

MH/PA