Crescent International
By shooting down a US spy drone that deliberately violated Iranian air space, Tehran has signaled that it will defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity with full force.
The drone—MQ-4C Triton, an advanced version of Global Hawk—was shot down by Iran’s indigenous missile, the Khordad-3 on early Thursday (June 20) morning in the southern Hormuzgan province.
Before shooting down the drone, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) issued successive warning signals to the spy plane. The operators of the plane received these warning signals but ignored them.
The last signal was sent at 03:55 am local time. Ten minutes later, it was brought down since it was in Iranian airspace close to a naval base.
The Revolutionary Guard also revealed that there was a second plane, P-8 with 35 people on board that accompanied the drone. Iran deliberately refrained from shooting it down.
As compulsive liars, the Americans claimed the spy plane was in international waters when it was shot down.
Iran categorically rejected this claim. And to prove its stand, the Revolutionary Guards put on display Friday (June 21) debris from the plane recovered in its territorial waters.
In a statement issued early Thursday, the IRGC said the US Global Hawk surveillance drone had flown from one of the US bases in the southern parts of the Persian Gulf region at 00:14 a.m. local time.
The plane’s identification transponders were off in breach of all international aviation rules, clearly signifying malfeasance.
The IRGC statement further said that the drone had stealthily continued on the route from the Strait of Hormuz towards Iran’s port city of Chabahar.
While returning towards west of the Strait of Hormuz, the drone violated Iran’s territorial airspace and began gathering intelligence and spying, the statement said.
Reflecting total disarray among US regime operatives, President Donald Trump initially huffed and puffed and tried to keep media hounds on tenterhooks. When asked whether the US would go to war with Iran, Trump said: “You’ll find out.”
He then speculated that the drone may have been shot down by “mistake”.
“I think probably Iran made a mistake - I would imagine it was a general or somebody that made a mistake in shooting that drone down,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
On Friday (June 21) US media outlets quoting ‘unnamed US officials’ said that Trump had ordered military strikes against Iran but decided to halt them as the US military was preparing to hit Iranian targets.
Two US media outlets, the New York Times and the Washington Post, quoted these unnamed officials as saying that Trump had ordered the strikes but then reversed the decision.
In his policy-by-tweets, Trump was quoted by the Post early Friday morning as saying that he called off the strikes when told of “loss of life” on the three sites that were to be targeted.
Since when has Trump or any US official ever cared for loss of life anywhere? The illegal sanctions imposed on Iran have caused the death of hundreds of patients that cannot receive critical care because of sanctions.
The British news agency Reuters on Friday quoted ‘unnamed Iranian officials’ as saying that Tehran had received a message from Trump through Oman overnight warning that a US attack on Iran was imminent.
“In his message, Trump said he was against any war with Iran and wanted to talk to Tehran about various issues... he gave a short period of time to get our response but Iran’s immediate response was that it is up to the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei to decide about this issue,” one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.
The second official was quoted as saying: “We made it clear that the leader is against any talks, but the message will be conveyed to him to make a decision... However, we told the Omani official that any attack against Iran will have regional and international consequences.”
This was a clear message that Iran’s response will be swift and severe. Oil prices will shoot to $200/barrel or more bringing the US economy crashing down. As businessman, Trump would not survive such a shock!
When media outlets claim to be quoting “unnamed officials”, this is usually speculation to try and justify an untenable position.
Both the New York Times and Washington Post have peddled lies about Iran and have frequently called for strikes against it. These papers are also known to be close to such hawks as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Both have repeatedly called for war against Iran. Bolton has received large sums of money from the terrorist cult, Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) for speaking at its hatefests.
Pompeo has admitted that when he was head of the CIA, “we lied, we cheated, and we stole.”
With such men close to decision-making in the US, the once mighty superpower is clearly in deep trouble.
For its part, Iran’s leadership—both civilian and military—has made clear that while they do not want war with any country, they will defend with full force their country, if attacked.
Russia meanwhile accused the US on Friday (June 21) of deliberately stoking dangerous tensions around Iran, according to the RIA news agency.
It quoted Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying Washington was pushing the situation to the brink of war. He called on Washington to weigh the possible consequences of conflict with Iran.
A number of other countries including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela etc have also criticized America’s provocative actions.
Iran has lodged a formal complaint with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, warning that it will “take all appropriate necessary measures against any hostile act violating its territory.”
In a letter to Guterres, Iran’s UN envoy Majid Takht Ravanchi said Washington was engaged in “continued unlawful and destabilizing measures in the already volatile region of the Persian Gulf.” These, he said would have dangerous consequences for the entire region.
The US is a virtual police state where everything an individual does is monitored. America's notorious spy agencies now want to extend this ...
Israel’s chief rabbi, Israel Lau, has been leading an international campaign for the release of 13 Jews arrested for spying in Iran. The c...
Speculation abounds about why, after years of threatening to attack Iran, the US suddenly decided to send William J. Burns, under secretary...
By standing firm on its principled stand, Islamic Iran was able to get its oil tanker released from UK-Gibraltar pirates and refused to make...
