In a Sunday report, the Observer confirmed that Washington is worried that the US drone, as Tehran says, has really violated Iran's airspace.
"In tweets and interviews on Friday, Trump and his backers claimed, variously, that he halted the strikes to save human life, that a local Iranian commander opened fire without authorization, even that the on-off strikes were a cunning ploy. But a senior administration official, speaking anonymously, seems to have come closer to the truth when he said the strikes were halted due to “concerns” that the drone, or another US drone, or the navy P-8A, had indeed strayed into Iranian airspace “at some point”," notes the report.
"This degree of confusion and incompetence in US military operations should not come as a total surprise. In Afghanistan and Iraq, systemic blunders, notably by the US airforce, have cost thousands of civilian lives, as UN figures show, The US record in the Gulf is little better. In 1988, a US navy missile cruiser shot down an Iranian passenger jet, killing 290 people. The Pentagon initially denied responsibility, and then claimed the plane posed a threat."
In a statement issued early on Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the US-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 Iranian airspace.
Iran says it will take the case to the United Nations in protest of the US' blatant act of aggression. US claims the drone had been flying over international waters, despite Iran's evidence that the debris of the downed drone was retrieved from Iranian waters.
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