ISIS Claims to Have Captured Iranian Drone

The Islamic State group has claimed to have obtained an Iranian drone in Iraq. According to the 'Daily Beast' website, militants from the group known as ISIS announced on their social media accounts that they have landed and captured an Iranian drone. Photos of the claimed drone have also been published on these pages. The apparent date of publication for these photos is November 17. The description accompanying the images states that the drone was grounded in Diyala province, Iraq. Additionally, based on pages attributed to the Islamic State group on social media, the mentioned drone is currently in the possession of the group's forces. Iranian officials have yet to respond to this claim by ISIS. Meanwhile, domestic media in Iran have largely ignored this report, with only a few news websites reflecting it. However, Christopher Harmer, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told the 'Daily Beast' that the images released of this drone 'bear a strong resemblance to Iran's Mohajer-4 drone' and that this drone 'definitely does not belong to the United States or NATO forces.' Iran supports the central government of Iraq against ISIS. In September, when the Shiite-majority city of Amerli in Iraq was liberated from ISIS siege, images of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were released, reportedly taken around Amerli, and at that time, IRGC officials confirmed Soleimani's presence in Iraq. The 'Daily Beast' website writes: 'Iran has been one of the main effective forces in Iraq since before the emergence of the Islamic State group and has directly conducted military operations on Iraqi soil.' This is while Iranian officials insist that Iranian forces are not directly involved in the Iraq war and that Iran has not sent combat troops to Iraq. The 'Daily Beast' report further discusses the war spoils that ISIS has obtained so far. The report states: 'Assuming that the Islamic State group's claim of grounding one of Iran's Mohajer-4 drones is true, this is not the first time that military equipment and ammunition belonging to forces opposing ISIS have fallen into this group's hands. Recently, ISIS forces in Syria seized a shipment of American military equipment that was reportedly on its way to the group's Kurdish enemies. Additionally, ISIS had previously published other photos of what appeared to be another Iranian drone. Accordingly, the mentioned drone also fell in one of the conflict areas between ISIS and Tehran-affiliated forces.' However, despite ISIS's claims on social media, Harmer is skeptical about the group's role in the downing of Iranian drones. He told the 'Daily Beast': 'ISIS has previously shown that it has the capability to shoot down Syrian planes and helicopters; they also have the capability to shoot down drones, but the fact that [in the released images] the body of the aircraft remains intact is suspicious and likely indicates that the drone was not shot down but rather crashed on its own.' In recent years, the Islamic Republic has invested heavily in the production of various types of drones and claims to have been able to produce 'suicide drones' or 'air-to-air missile-equipped drones.' In one instance, the issue of the Photoshop authenticity of the image of a vertical takeoff drone that Iran announced it had successfully built in mid-October was raised. At that time, The Atlantic reported that this Iranian drone was not real and was based on a photo of a drone built by Chiba University in Japan, and even a building that exists in the Japanese photo is seen in the Iranian drone photo. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the IRGC, announced the 'construction and flight of the final model of the Iranian RQ-170 drone.'