The United States on Sunday appeared to give credence to Iranian state media reports that Iran had come into possession of a downed U.S. surveillance drone. The American-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan issued a brief statement Sunday saying that an unarmed U.S. reconnaissance aircraft had gone missing while on a mission in western Afghanistan late last week.
"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 last week," the ISAF public affairs office said in the statement sent to Yahoo News and other media outlets Sunday, in response to queries on the Iranian reports. "The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status."
The semi-official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Sunday that Iran's armed forces had brought down a U.S. spy drone in the east of the country.
Citing an "informed military official" the IRNA report "noted that the unmanned craft is of the type 'RQ170,' which was slightly damaged [and] is currently in the hands of the Iranian forces."
