U.S. forces shot down Iranian drone over Iraq

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone aircraft that ventured inside Iraq last month, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Monday, an incident that highlights deep U.S.-Iranian tensions.

A U.S. military spokesman said that U.S. jet fighters shot down the unmanned Iranian aircraft on February 25 about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

"The UAV had been tracked by coalition air forces for nearly 1 hour and 10 minutes before it was engaged and shot down well inside Iraqi airspace," Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Ballesteros said.

"This was not an accident on the part of the Iranians" because of the distance into Iraq the drone flew and how long it stayed, Ballesteros said. The aircraft was believed to be an Iranian "Ababil 3" model drone, he added.

But Major-General Abdul Aziz Mohammed Jassim, head of military operations at the Iraqi Defense Ministry, told Reuters he believed the plane's entry into Iraq was probably a mistake.

"According to the report received by multinational forces, this drone entered Iraq mistakenly at a point 100 km (60 miles) from Baghdad. It crossed 10 km (6 miles) into Iraq," he said.

"It's most likely that its entrance was a mistake."

The three weeks of silence from U.S., Iraqi and Iranian officials about the unusual incident underscores the sensitive nature of any contact between Iran and the United States.

Iranian officials had no immediate comment on the incident.

The U.S. military has long accused Iran of arming militants and meddling in neighboring Iraq, where tens of thousands of people have died in sectarian and insurgent violence since the U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003.

But relations between the government of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Iran, a fellow majority Shi'ite nation, are mostly friendly.

The two countries fought a bloody eight-year war in the 1980s which killed an estimated 1 million people, but ties have warmed since Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, was removed from power.

IRAN'S ROLE IN IRAQ

In recent months, as violence has dropped sharply across Iraq, U.S. officials have spoken less forcefully about Iran's purported role in Iraq. Tehran denies backing Iraqi militants.

In a shift from the Bush administration, U.S. President Barack Obama, who took office in January, has said he would be open to engaging with Iran on a range of issues, from nuclear ambitions to how Iran might help in Afghanistan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he also is open to talks with Washington, but demands fundamental changes to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Underlying U.S.-Iranian tensions is Iran's nuclear program, which Washington believes is aimed at building atomic weapons. Iran insists it wants only power generation.

British defense analyst Tim Ripley said the drone incident was a symptom of ongoing U.S.-Iranian tensions but wouldn't necessarily escalate those strains immediately.

"It's one of those things you put in a file and when things kick off, you wheel it out to support your case," he said.

The United States has about 140,000 troops in Iraq, but combat operations will cease by the end of August 2010 under Obama's withdrawal plan, and all U.S. forces are due to leave the country by the end of 2011.

Ripley said such an incident may be even more sensitive for Iraqi officials than their U.S. counterparts, especially among those in the Iraqi government who fear the influence of Iran.

"They will use this as evidence of Iranian plots," he said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks; writing by Missy Ryan, editing by Tim Pearce)