**JP** US spy drone shot down by Iran

US spy drone shot down by Iran

Updated at: 1245 PST,  Wednesday, July 20, 2011

TEHRAN: A senior Iranian legislator confirmed earlier reports saying that a US drone has been shot down by Iran over Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in the Central Qom province. Member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari said on Tuesday that the unmanned spy plane was flying near the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province when the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)'s Air Defense units brought it down.  The official stated that the US drone was on a mission to identify the location of the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant and gather information about the nuclear facility for the CIA, Dafsari stated.  Earlier this year, a senior Iranian military official had confirmed reports on the shooting down of several enemy drones over the Persian Gulf, and said Iran has targeted a large number of these pilotless planes during the last 7 years.  "We have experienced similar incidents many times in the past and there have even been drones belonging to the occupying Zionist regime (Israel), the United States and Britain which have been shot down in the Persian Gulf during the past 7 years," the senior military official told FNA in January.  Also in January 2007, the Iranian military troops shot down a spy plane of the US army when trying to cross Iran-Iraq borders in the Southwestern city of Dasht-e-Azadegan, Khuzestan province.