Islamic State claims shooting down Iranian drone

Jerusalem Post

Islamic State claimed on Monday that it shot down an Iranian Shahin drone in eastern Iraq earlier that day.

The terrorist group broadcast footage online of its fighters speaking next to what it said was an Iranian drone. The video juxtaposed a shot of the downed drown with pictures of other Iranian drones.

Islamic State also claimed on Monday that it assassinated an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, according to images posted on jihadi forums, AFP reported. One of the images showed the body of the Iranian officer.

On Sunday, official Iranian media reported that a sniper had killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander who was training Iraqi troops and Shi’ite militia fighting Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Samarra. Brig.-Gen. Hamid Taqavi, a veteran of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, was killed by snipers hiding behind a power transformer in Samarra, an embattled city north of Baghdad and home to holy Shi’ite shrines, according to a statement from the Revolutionary Guards. Several people with him were wounded in the rain of sniper fire, it said.

Taqavi’s funeral was held on Monday in Tehran at the Iranian Revolutionary Guards headquarters, the Iranian Tasnim News Agency reported.

“Taqavi became a martyr while fulfilling his duty as a military adviser in the fight against Daesh [Islamic State] revisionist terrorists, a glorious end to a long valuable service to advance the cause of (Iran’s 1979) Islamic revolution.” said the official Defense Ministry site. It added that the general had fought “enemies on various fronts.”

Unspecified numbers of Iranian advisers and combatants are defending holy Shi’ite sites in Iraq and Syria against raids by Sunni Jihadi fighters. Iran sent reinforcements to Iraq to help stave off an advance on Baghdad by Islamic State terrorists this year at the request of Iraqi government and Shi’ite leaders.