IRGC Claims It Downed Another U.S. MQ-1 Drone Over Qeshm Island

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday, November 6, that its Aerospace Force had intercepted and destroyed an American MQ-1 reconnaissance and combat drone over Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement attributed the alleged interception to an air-defense system operating within Iran’s integrated air-defense network. The IRGC public-relations office described the system as modern and said Iranian forces continuously monitor aerial movements, reconnaissance activity and drone flight patterns. A timestamped announcement at 14:09 UTC described the interception as having happened moments earlier. Iran presented it as another successful interception and claimed a cumulative total of 16 drones. Those descriptions and the loss tally are Iranian claims, rather than independently established findings about U.S. aircraft losses. The claim concerns the same strategic waterway that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed with U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year. In a May 24 statement, Netanyahu said their conversation the previous evening had addressed reopening the Strait of Hormuz and negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. He praised joint Israeli and American operations and said a final agreement must dismantle Iran’s enrichment facilities and remove enriched material. That statement set out Israel’s position months before Friday’s announcement; it was not a response to the new drone claim.