By Reza Shafa
A drone sent by the Iranian regime was shot down by US fighter jets 3 miles from Ashraf City in Iraq, according to US military commanders. The New York Times has reported that the drone’s primary mission was to conduct surveillance on Ashraf City, where more than 3,500 members of the democratic Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have lived for almost 20 years.
The Iranian regime’s Aviation Industry produces various kinds of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), which include “Mohajer 1, 2, 3, 4,” “Ababil,” “Hodhod,” “Saegheh 1, 2,” and “Talash 1, 2.” The UAV flying over was Ashraf was an “Ababil 3.”
This was hardly the first time the regime has used these drones against the PMOI. In June 2006, a team of agents from the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq’s Badr Brigade was ordered by the clerical regime to target Ashraf by flying a UAV equipped with explosives over it. The agents had smuggled the UAV two months prior to the mission from Iran into the Diyala province, later hiding it in one of the Kharnabat region’s gardens. The explosives placed in the drone were cluster munitions and were designed to cause as many deaths and injuries as possible among the PMOI resident in Ashraf City. However, the PMOI managed to expose and thus neutralize the Iranian regime’s plot before it got under way.
Also on March 24, 2000, before the start of the Iraq War and closure of the PMOI’s bases in southern Iraq, three drones were sent by the regime into Iraqi territory to take pictures of the bases along the border close to Basra and Amareh. One of these went down in the al-Aziz region of Maysan province, leading to the mission’s defeat.
On April 19, 2001, one day after 77 Scud missiles were fired on PMOI bases in Iraq by the clerical regime, the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent a “Mohajer” UAV into Iraqi territory over Ashraf. The drone’s mission was to identify the damages caused by the 13 Scud missiles fired at Ashraf alone by the clerical regime a day earlier. This drone also went down while flying over Ashraf.
Although the clerical regime’s plans have all been defeated in this regard, the attempts highlight the nefarious intentions of the Iranian regime and the IRGC against the PMOI in Ashraf City. The clerical dictatorship is extremely terrified of Ashraf, and that is why it has resorted to various terrorist schemes against it.
—-
Reza Shafa is an expert on the Iranian regime's Intelligence networks, both in Iran and abroad. He has done extensive research on Iranian Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS) also known as VEVAK, Intelligence Office of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and Qods Force among others. Currently he is a contributor to NCRI website.
