Iranian armed forces have shot down another advanced American-made Israeli drone in the western province of Ilam near the border with Iraq.
The province governor’s political-security deputy announced on Monday that the advanced drone of the Zionist regime was shot down by the Iranian military’s integrated defense system.
“The drone, a General Atomics MQ-9, was hit by the defense systems of the Islamic Republic of Iran this morning (Monday) in the Ain al-Sawlah area of the Dasht Abbas district of the border city of Dehloran,” Tajeddin Salehian said.
This was the fourth advanced Israeli drone that was shot down in the province.
Brigadier General Ahmad-Ali Goudarzi, commander of border police, announced in a statement on Sunday that Iranian forces had downed 44 Israeli drones and quadcopters along the borders over the past 48 hours.
He said unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) attempted to breach Iranian airspace along multiple border regions, but were “detected and destroyed by vigilant and courageous border guards.”
He also reaffirmed that Iranian forces remain fully prepared to control and secure the nation’s frontiers, warning that any intrusion by “terrorist groups, armed gangs, or hostile elements” will be dealt forcibly with.
Meantime, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the damage inflicted on the Israeli regime in Operation True Promise III “far exceeds” what the regime had expected.
The IRGC started the retaliatory operation on Friday evening, hours after the Israeli regime, backed by the United States, carried out a large-scale military aggression on multiple locations inside Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and residential buildings in Tehran and other cities.
The operation began immediately after the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, delivered a televised message, saying that the “despicable” Israeli regime would be “rendered helpless” following reprisal by the Islamic Republic’s Armed Forces.