The Pentagon released a map on Thursday that clearly indicated that the United State’s drone shot down by Iran was over international waters and not over Iran, contrary to what Iranian officials maintain.
The Defense Department indicated that the location of the shoot-down was outside Iranian-claimed territorial waters.
(The Pentagon)
However, Javad Zarif, the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, posted a map on Twitter disputing the information provided by the Pentagon. Iran’s map — Zarif tweeted out a picture of it — included handwritten notes suggesting that the drone was shot down about eight miles from Iranian shores, within Iranian airspace.
He tweeted, “At 00:14 US drone took off from UAE [United Arab Emirates] in stealth mode & violated Iranian airspace. It was targeted at 04:05 at the coordinates (25°59’43″N 57°02’25″E) near Kouh-e Mobarak. We’ve retrieved sections of the US military drone in OUR territorial waters where it was shot down.”
Iran threw shades at the Navy high-altitude drone out of the sky over the Strait of Hormuz, with United States Central Command leaders on Thursday slamming the “unprovoked” strike and Tehran’s subsequent “false” justifications for it.
United States Central Command said in a statement that a United States Navy Broad Area Maritime Surveillance ISR aircraft, known as a BAMS-D, was shot down about 7:35 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
The drone cost about $110 million, according to a Navy official.
The U.S. Navy’s RQ-4A Global Hawk drone provides real-time intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions “over vast ocean and coastal regions,” according to the military.