{"id":332259,"date":"2026-10-21T07:52:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T07:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332259"},"modified":"2026-10-21T08:26:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T08:26:37","slug":"irgc-intercepts-shoots-down-54th-us-mq-9-reaper-drone-since-start-of-us-israeli-aggression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332259","title":{"rendered":"IRGC intercepts, shoots down 54th US MQ-9 Reaper drone since start of US-Israeli aggression"},"content":{"rendered":"

Press TV \u2013 Oct 20, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says its air defense forces have intercepted and shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper\u00a0long-endurance drone over the Strait of Hormuz.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The IRGC Public Relations Department, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said the unmanned aircraft\u00a0was downed over the skies of the strategic waterway by the IRGC Aerospace Force\u2019s advanced, new air defense system, which is operating under the country\u2019s integrated air defense network.<\/p>\n

The downing marks the latest in a series of similar interceptions over the Strait of Hormuz in recent weeks. Less than a month ago, the Iranian military announced the interception and destruction of a US MQ-1 Predator drone and an advanced Orbiter reconnaissance drone over the same waterway.<\/p>\n

The IRGC said in a statement on September 21 that the drone was shot down by the IRGC Aerospace Force\u2019s sophisticated new air defense system, which operates within the nation\u2019s integrated air defense network.<\/p>\n

It described\u00a0the MQ-1 as a sophisticated drone that had logged 20,000 flight hours in Afghanistan and was infamously referred to as the \u201cButcher of Kandahar.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said\u00a0the MQ-1 was retired from the combat fleets of the US Navy and Air Force several years ago, having been replaced by the MQ-9 Reaper.<\/p>\n

The US has been forced\u00a0to revert to using the older MQ-1 after losing a significant number of its MQ-9 drones during the war against Iran, the statement added.<\/p>\n

In a separate announcement, the Iranian Army reported that an advanced Orbiter reconnaissance drone was successfully targeted and destroyed by indigenous air defense systems managed by the Army\u2019s Air Defense Force.<\/p>\n

The Army noted that the incident took place in the southeastern region of the country, over the Strait of Hormuz, which is under the country\u2019s integrated air defense network.<\/p>\n

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran.<\/p>\n

Forty days later, on April 8, due to Iran\u2019s resilience and effective counterattacks, the enemies had no choice but to agree to a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

In July, the US launched a series of lethal air strikes on Iran and enforced a naval blockade, breaching the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Islamic Republic, which was signed on June 17 to conclude the war.<\/p>\n

In retaliation, the Iranian military executed powerful strikes on key American positions throughout West Asia and announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to all vessels.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has shot down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone. Before the war the US had 185 Reaper drones in service. So Iran has downed, or damaged on the ground, almost 30 percent of the U.S. Reaper fleet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":325210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-posts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332260,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332259\/revisions\/332260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}