“The Americans imagined that Iran would never engage in military confrontation with them, but Iran views itself capable of [achieving] asymmetric military victory against the US,” said Abbasali Mansouri, a member of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, in a Monday interview.
The lawmaker was alluding to the successful reaction of Iranian fighter jets which forced an American drone out of Iran’s skies after it crossed into the Iranian airspace last week.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces are responsible for safeguarding ground, air and marine borders of the country and accordingly, Iran is fully prepared to monitor any movement within its borders,” he added.
Mansouri argued that as the US drone had violated Iran’s airspace, it was quite natural for the Iranian fighter jets to fire at it.
Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said on Friday that Iran had turned away an unidentified aircraft that had entered the country’s airspace “above the territorial waters of the Islamic Republic in the Persian Gulf.”
The comments followed the Pentagon's claims that two Iranian warplanes had fired at a US drone as it was conducting a routine, but classified surveillance mission over the Persian Gulf about 16 nautical miles off the Iranian coast last week.
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