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Iran
says it shot down infiltrator
drone near key port – not one of
ours, US responds
RT,
8 November, 2019
Iranian
air defense forces have shot down a foreign drone near the port city
of Mahshahr, Iranian media reported, showing alleged footage of the
intercept as proof. The US Central Command said it didn’t lose any
of its UAVs.
The
drone was taken down on Friday by an Iran-developed Mersad
surface-to-air missile, the Iranian Mehr news agency reported.
Alleged footage of the takedown released by the Iranian side showed a
missile being fired, followed by an explosion.
Gholamreza
Shariati, the governor of the Khuzestan province where Mahshahr is
located, said a wreck of the drone was recovered from the marshlands
in the suburbs of the city.
The
Iranian official said the aircraft “definitely belonged to a
foreign country”, but would not say which.
Responding
to the news, the US Central Command stated that none of the drones
operated by the US military had been lost. Israel, another party that
could fly a surveillance UAV inside Iranian airspace, declined to
comment on the incident.
Iran’s
Revolutionary guard shot down a sophisticated US drone in June.
Tehran and Washington disputed whether the aircraft had violated
Iran's border, which was what Iran stated, or was destroyed illegally
in international airspace.
The
incident comes amid a period of high tension in the Middle East, as
the US continues its so-called “maximum pressure campaign” to
cripple the Iranian government through unilateral sanctions,
arm-twisting of its trade partners and military brinkmanship.
Iran
has begun the process of enriching uranium to 5 percent at its Fordow
nuclear facility this week, as Tehran continues to scale back its
commitments under the 2015 nuclear treaty that the US withdrew from
last year.
Iran’s
nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi announced Tuesday that the country
would begin to inject uranium gas into centrifuges at the underground
facility, and said that it had the capacity to enrich to 20 percent
“if needed.”
Iranian
state media reported Wednesday that a 2,800 kg cylinder loaded with
2,000 kg of enrichment precursor uranium hexafluoride has been
installed at Fordow. Under the 2015 deal, Iran committed to reducing
the purity of its enriched uranium to 3 percent and enrichment was
prohibited at the Fordow plant.
The
process began on Wednesday "with the presence of inspectors from
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," Iranian state TV
reported.
In
a statement carried by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency on
Thursday, the country’s atomic energy authority confirmed that the
enrichment process is underway at Fordow.
"After
all successful preparations ... injection of uranium gas to 1044
centrifuges started on Thursday at Fordow ... all the process has
been supervised by the inspectors of U.N. nuclear watchdog," the
agency said.
UN
nuclear inspectors on the ground said they would "report any
relevant activities" to their headquarters in Vienna
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