US forces shot down an Iranian drone aircraft that ventured inside Iraq last month, US and Iraqi officials said on today, an incident that highlights deep US-Iranian tensions.
A US military spokesman said that US fighters shot down the unmanned Iranian aircraft on February 25th approximately 100 km northeast of Baghdad.
"The UAV had been tracked by coalition air forces for nearly an hour and 10 minutes before it was engaged and shot down well inside Iraqi airspace," he said.
Major-General Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi Defence Ministry, said he believed the plane's entry into Iraq was likely a mistake.
The three weeks of silence from US, Iraqi and Iranian officials about the unusual incident underscores the sensitive nature of any contact between Iran and the United States.
Iranian officials had no immediate comment on the incident.
The US military has long accused Iran of arming militants and meddling in Iraq, where tens of thousands have died in sectarian violence since the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003.
But relations between the government of Iraq's Shi a prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iran, a fellow majority Shia nation, are mostly friendly.
The two countries fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s which killed an estimated one million people, but ties have warmed since Saddam, a Sunni, was removed from power.
In recent months, as violence has dropped sharply across Iraq, US officials have spoken less forcefully about Iran's purported role in Iraq. Tehran denies backing Iraqi militants.
Reuters