It was announced by Iranian military officials on Sunday that they had shot down an Israeli spy drone as it neared their nuclear facility at Natanz and afterwards recovered the drone’s data collection system.

Israeli officials made no comment of the news released by Iran.

The pilotless aircraft was taken down with a surface-to-air missile as it approached Iran’s nuclear enrichment site, there was no information released by Iran as to when the incident occurred south of the country’s capital of Tehran. The enrichment facility is thought to house an estimated 16,000 centrifuges and has previously been the target of Israeli missions in the past, including the highly publicized Stuxnet virus attack in 2010.

Iran has reported the downing of several other stealth drones in the past, most notably the shoot-down of an American CIA RQ-170 stealth drone in 2011. 

In the statement released by the Iranian Islamic Revelution Guard Corps they said:

“This wiley act once again reveals the adventurist nature of the Zionist regime and added another black page to this fake and warmongering regime’s file which is full of crimes.” 

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