An Israeli spy drone was reportedly shot down in Iraq, Arab media reported on Thursday. According to the Al-Mayadin television network, a Hermes drone was shot down near the Baghdad Airport on Wednesday.
The drone was quickly recovered by US forces on the ground, the report said. Citing anonymous sources in Iraq, the TV network said that the US embassy in Iraq ordered personnel to gather up the drone’s remains.
Wednesday’s incident would be the third such time an Israeli drone was reportedly shot down. On Monday, Hamas claimed to have recovered the remains of a small Israeli drone in the Gaza Strip.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to have shot down the drone over east Shuja’iya in Gaza City. The group announced on its Arabic Twitter account that a “Zionist reconnaissance plane” had been captured. The IDF has neither confirmed nor denied the report.
Earlier this week, Iran said it had recovered an Israeli spy drone over one of its nuclear sites. On Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened Israel with a military response after it claimed that a Hermes spy drone was shot down down over its Natanz nuclear facility. Natanz is some 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of the Iranian capital of Tehran.
“Our response to this aggression will not be diplomatic, we will retaliate in the battlefield, but will not necessarily announce it. The enemy will see and understand it,” IRGC Lieutenant Commander Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
Iranian officials published video of the downed drone on Iranian TV. Iran said that the drone took off from a county on its northern border – either Armenia, Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan – but stopped short of identifying which.
The Hermes 450 model, made by Elbit Systems, is a widely used drone by the IDF. A medium-sized drone used for reconnaissance and surveillance, the Hermes 450 can fly for 20 straight hours and costs approximately $2 million.
