Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Tuesday its air defense units shot down two US LUCAS attack drones over Bandar Khamir in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province, hours after a US fighter jet struck Iranian military sites on nearby Qeshm Island. State-affiliated Fars News Agency released footage it said showed one of the downed American drones, though Washington has not acknowledged losing the aircraft. The IRGC had also claimed Monday that it shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone and captured two MQM-170 Outlaw drones intact east of the Strait of Hormuz.
US officials told the Wall Street Journal, Axios and CNN that Monday night’s strike on Qeshm Island destroyed an IRGC surface-to-air missile launcher and radar detectors in self-defense after Iranian forces fired a missile at a US aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz, while US forces separately intercepted an IRGC missile fired from Qeshm toward commercial shipping. State news agency IRNA reported five consecutive explosions on Qeshm as residents saw two aircraft overhead, and Fars reported separate blasts from the sea off Bandar Lengeh. Officials told the Journal and the Washington Post that the Qeshm attack was the latest in a series of limited, unannounced strikes the US has conducted since September to protect commercial shipping without signaling a return to major combat ahead of Tuesday’s US midterm elections.