The US had to shoot down an Iranian drone on Wednesday as Iran carried out attacks across northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
“At approximately 2:10 p.m. local time, US forces brought down an Iranian Mohajer-6 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) headed in the direction of Erbil as it appeared as a threat to CENTCOM forces in the area," Colonel Joe Buccino, US Central Command’s communications director, said in a statement which was reported on Kurdistan 24.
CNN reported the US scrambled an F-15 to shoot down the drone. This would make the incident very serious and show how quickly the US responded. One US official described this as a "significant incident," the CNN report said.
The Central Command statement condemned the Iranian incursion as an "unprovoked attack" by the IRGC and said it was "indiscriminate." The statement said it threatened civilian lives.
The drone was apparently a Mohajer-6 drone. This is the kind of drone that Iran has supplied to Venezuela and Ethiopia according to other reports. It is one of Iran’s latest models and a workhorse of Iran’s increasingly growing drone force. US forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help fight ISIS. In the last several years the US has withdrawn from many facilities in Iraq and concentrated some forces in Erbil in the Kurdistan region.
Iran and its proxies in Iraq have carried out several attacks on US forces in and around Erbil. It has used drones and rockets to attack Erbil in the last years as well. Pro-Iranian groups launched drones at US forces in Syria from Iraq in August and the US retaliated against Iranian-backed groups in Syria. In addition in April 2021 reports said a drone targeted a “CIA hangar” at Erbil International Airport, according to the Washington Post.
According to today’s report at Kurdistan24, the US Central Command condemned "the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ unprovoked attack in Iraq’s Erbil Governorate this morning…Such indiscriminate attacks threaten innocent civilians and risk the hard-fought stability of the region.” No US forces were harmed.
The US has condemned Iran’s attacks in northern Iraq today and over the last several days. The attacks targeted Kurdish opposition groups. The fact the US had to down a drone could indicate Iran was using the drone to carry out a battle damage assessment near Erbil or was planning to use the attacks on Kurdish groups as cover to also attack the US. The US has downed drones in the past; earlier this year US aircraft downed Iranian drones that were targeting Israel. That incident in February included the downing of two drones by US warplanes. In January the US also downed drones over Baghdad that threatened Baghdad airport.
Reports claiming US citizen killed in Iranian attack
Iran International also reports that a US citizen was killed in Iran’s attacks in northern Iraq.
The full details of this incident still remain to be confirmed, but if it is accurate then the killing of a US citizen, even if he was linked to one of the Kurdish opposition groups, would be a major escalation on a day that has seen other escalations by Iran in its attacks.
Iran’s attacks have been condemned by local UN authorities, the US, Iraq, the Kurdistan region, Germany and others.