Iran's military has recovered a super-secret American stealth drone after the unmanned vehicle flew out of control and crashed inside Iran, NBC News reported Monday, citing a senior U.S. official.
According to the official, the RQ-170 drone was flying inside Afghanistan along the Iranian border, when ground commanders "lost control" of the aircraft. It took a "hard turn" into Iran and ultimately crashed, the source said.
Iranian media reported on Sunday that their country's military had shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone in eastern Iran, but a U.S. official said there was no indication the aircraft had been shot down.
The incident comes at a time when Tehran is trying to contain foreign outrage at the storming of the British embassy on Tuesday, after London announced sanctions on Iran's central bank in connection with Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
Iran has announced several times in the past that it shot down U.S., Israeli or British drones, in incidents that did not provoke high-profile responses.
"Iran's military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran," Iran's Arabic-language Al Alam state television network on Sunday quoted a military source as saying.
"The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces," the source said. "The Iranian military's response to the American spy drone's violation of our airspace will not be limited to Iran's borders."
Iranian officials were not available to comment further.
NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a statement: "The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week.
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