By: Lauren Gelfand JDW Middle East/Africa Editor
Source: Jane's Defence Weekly
Key Points
The US military has shot down an Iranian UAV in Diyala province near a camp that is home to more than 3,500 Iranian dissidents
The Iraqi military has stepped up pressure on the camp, blockading deliveries of supplies, in accordance with an announcement that the camp would be closed by the end of March
An Iranian drone shot down in late February by coalition aircraft in Diyala province is the second to have been brought down in the airspace near Camp Ashraf, home to some 3,500 Iranian exiles, according to a representative of the dissident People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI).
The aborted surveillance effort comes as the Iraqi armed forces stepped up their pressure on the camp, in line with a pronouncement by National Security Advisor Mowaffaq al-Rubaie in January that the camp would be closed by late March.
In a statement released on 17 March, the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) confirmed that two coalition multirole jet fighters shot down an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on 25 February, some 60 miles (96 km) northeast of Baghdad.
The aircraft were likely to have been US Air Force F-16s operating from Joint Base Balad.
After tracking the UAV – identified by US officials as the Ababil III model – for more than an hour, the aircraft "engaged and shot [it] down well inside Iraqi airspace", according to the MNF-I statement.
The Ababil III reconnaissance UAV has a wingspan of roughly 3 m, an estimated payload of 45-50 kg and is thus able to carry transmission and recording equipment, according to previous Jane's analyses of the drone.
It was likely to contain a data link transmitter capable of sending information in real time back to its ground control station.
Iran provided the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hizbullah with two Ababil IIIs in 2004-06, both of which were shot down by Israeli aircraft.
A spokesman for Iran's Foreign Ministry told reporters in Tehran on 17 March that the country rejected the claims that a drone had been shot down, adding that, if such an event had occurred, military officials would have discussed it. As it was, he said, according to press reports in Iranian media, "we have received nothing regarding the issue".
Air raids and missile attacks have been hallmarks of the Iranian regime's lengthy assault on Camp Ashraf since the 1990s when dissidents first based themselves there. During an April 2001 offensive against PMOI bases in Iraq, Camp Ashraf was hit by more than 20 'Scud' missiles. The following day, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps drone identified as a Mohajer was shot down over the still smoldering remains of buildings at the camp.
Neither the US nor Iraqi governments have confirmed that Camp Ashraf was the focus of interest of the drone shot down in late February.
Iraqi army soldiers began a siege of the camp in early March, suspending water and blockading supplies of food and medicine to its residents, who disarmed in 2003 under an agreement that would provide them with US protection.
The Shia-led Iraqi government assumed control over the camp in January 2009 under the terms of the Status of Forces Agreement signed with the United States, which included a supervisory role for the US in terms of protection for the camp's residents.
Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, in public remarks during a February visit to Tehran by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, demanded that a longstanding agreement to expel the PMOI from Iraq be implemented.
The PMOI was borne from leftist Islamist opposition to the Shah of Iran but was repudiated by Shia clerics in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. The group remains on a terrorist watch list in the US and Iraq as well as in Iran but, following a preliminary agreement reached in February, it was removed from the EU's terrorism blacklist.