|
 |
He made the remarks in his sermon before Friday Prayers.
‘Americans are withdrawing from Iraq. The threats by the US and the Zionist regime against Iran and Syria are rooted in the challenges they are facing in the region,’ he noted.
Lebanese Friday prayers leader also condemned recent explosions in Afghanistan as well as US plots in Lebanon.
Islamic Republic of Iran in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN General Assembly and UN Security Council called for condemning the violation of Iran’s airspace by the US spy drone while strongly criticizing the US government.
Islamic Republic of Iran’s Permanent Representative to UN Mohammad Khazaei in his letter to the heads of UN’s main bodies wrote that in continuation of US hostile moves against the Islamic Republic of Iran, a US RQ170 drone violated Iran’s airspace by penetrating 250 kilometers into the Iranian soil in northern Tabas region that faced timely and strong reaction of the Iranian armed forces.
‘My government emphasizes the obvious and provocative violation of the US government is a hostile move and in evident contradiction to international law, particularly the basic principles of the UN charter,’ Ambassador Khazaei wrote in his letter while mentioning Islamic Republic of Iran’s previous letters to US government in this regard.
Iran displayed an aircraft Thursday that it said was a US spy drone downed last week by an ‘electronic ambush,’ a feat that prompted boasts of Iranian technological prowess in the face of increased hostility from the West.
Iranian state television used its main newscast to unveil the drone, identified as a stealth RQ-170 Sentinel made by Lockheed Martin. The drone was shown in a video at an undisclosed location where two men in military uniforms could be seen walking around it. The belly of the plane was covered with banners saying, ‘We’ll trample the US underfoot’ and ‘the US cannot do a damn thing.’
Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corps (IRGC) told state television that the drone was downed by a joint operation of IRGC and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Army.
‘After entering the country’s eastern space, the plane was caught in an electronic ambush by the armed forces, and it was downed on the land with the minimum damage,’ Hajizadeh said.
He said the drone is equipped with advanced systems for gathering electronic, visual and telecommunication information and possesses various radar systems.
US officials said that while they have enough information to confirm that Iran does have the wreckage, they are not sure what the Iranians will be able to gain technologically from what they captured.
According to these officials, the US built up the air base in Shindand, Afghanistan, with an eye to keeping a long-term presence there to launch surveillance missions and even special spy missions into Iran if deemed necessary in the future.
The RQ-170 is one of the most sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA’s fleet. RQ-170 drones have been used in stealth missions into the airspace of other nations, including Pakistan, where surveillance was conducted for months on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan before he was killed in a US raid in May.
dagobertobellucci 