Iranian threat over US drones

Iran will hunt down American spy drones if the US continues to violate its air space, a senior Iranian official said yesterday.

Rear admiral Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s former defence minister, said Iran would not remain inactive to future incursions by foreign surveillance drones.

“If US spy planes continue their aggression, we won’t be idle,” he said. “We will continue to hunt down their spy planes,”

The comments came after US defence secretary Leon Panetta said earlier this week that America would continue intelligence operations such as the one that led to the loss of its RQ-170 Sentinel over Iran.