The U.S. has confirmed previous Iranian state news reports of an American military drone being shot down Thursday. The two countries, however, have shared contradictory claims regarding the location of said drone at the time of the incident.
The drone in question, per an ABC News report, was an unmanned U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk that Iran said was in their airspace but the U.S. claimed was in "international" airspace. The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shared a message on the shootdown, saying the country does not "intend to engage in war" with any country while simultaneously characterizing the act as a message to anyone violating their airspace.
"The message is that the guardians of the borders of Islamic Iran will decisively respond to the violation of any stranger to this land," Gen. Hossein Salami said, per the report's translation. "The only solution for the enemies is to respect the territorial integrity and national interests of Iran . . . We do not intend to engage in war with any country, but we are completely ready for the war. Today's incident is a clear sign of this accurate message."
In a subsequent statement, Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, disputed the drone's location and characterized the craft as a "surveillance asset in international airspace."
This move is the latest development in the back-and-forth between Iran and U.S., a tense relationship that has seemingly ramped up considerably under the Trump administration. Outgoing Trump mouthpiece Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that Trump—who tweeted that Iran had made a "big mistake" early Thursday—had been briefed on this incident. As you may recall, Trump received some firmly worded public criticism from Barack Obama in May 2018 for his administration's decision to arguably violate the Iran nuclear deal.
For measured and informed takes on this ongoing fuckery, consider these:
