Iranian officials have said they will use unmanned aerial vehicles to shoot down any foreign P-8s that try to spy on their activities in the Strait of Hormuz.
“To learn more about the drill, a non-regional national P-8 reconnaissance aircraft attempted to descend but was chased away by the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Karrar. Defending Iran from the skies, “According to a statement released by Iran’s Fars News Service on December 31.
Iranian media did not report the P-8’s nationality, although the US military frequently uses P-8s to keep tabs on Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is also a frequent meeting place for the armed forces of Tehran and Washington.
The US Department of State and the US Department of Defense declined to comment.
The Iranian military declared a coordinated drill involving a wide variety of units on December 30. These units included submarines, surface ships, infantry, armored and motorized troops, air defense complexes, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The area was dubbed “strategic seas” because it was located southeast of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital sea route through which 20% of global oil output travels.
Tensions between Iran and the West have been rising, and these drills come at a bad time. In response to Iran’s crackdown on protesters and reports that it supplied Russia with unmanned aerial vehicles for use in an attack on Ukraine, the West placed sanctions on the country. Iran has denied supplying Russia with weapons and has claimed that its sanctions are retaliation to the West.
The US Navy’s P-8 Poseidon is a state-of-the-art maritime surveillance and reconnaissance plane that will eventually replace the venerable P-3 Orion series. This particular aircraft model can work in tandem with the RQ-4 UAV in reconnaissance operations and is fitted with cutting-edge sensors for gathering intelligence from great distances.
In June of 2019, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said they had spotted a group of US P-8A and long-range UAVs in the area, adding that they had the ability to fire down the manned surveillance aircraft from Washington but had not yet done so. About $200 million RQ-4N was shot down for allegedly violating Iranian airspace.