Iran downs US MQ-9 Reaper drone over Ilam province, claims local official

MQ-9 Reaper

Iran has reportedly shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone in the western province of Ilam, near the Iran-Iraq border. According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, the unmanned aerial vehicle was intercepted and destroyed over the city of Dehloran. Another report by Russia's TASS cited the province’s deputy governor, who confirmed the drone belonged to the U.S. military and had violated Iranian airspace.

Meanwhile, Rafael Grossi, chief of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, provided an update on the condition of Iran’s nuclear facilities following Israeli military strikes. He confirmed that no additional damage had been observed at the major enrichment sites of Natanz and Fordow.

Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), noted that while the smaller, above-ground pilot enrichment plant at the Natanz complex had been destroyed in the attack, the larger underground facility at the same site showed no signs of a direct hit. However, its power supply was knocked out, which could potentially impact the operation of uranium-enriching centrifuges housed there. The Fordow plant, located deep within a mountain, remains undamaged.

"There has been no additional damage at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant site since the Friday attack, which destroyed the above-ground part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant," Grossi told a special session of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors.

He also expanded on earlier reports that Israeli strikes had affected four buildings at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear complex. Among the targets was the uranium conversion facility, which processes yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride—the feedstock required for uranium enrichment using centrifuges.