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Iran Protests Aerial Drones at U.N.

Iran has strongly protested what it said was the United States` use of unmanned aerial drones over its territory and said two of them had crashed this summer within its borders, according to diplomatic letters circulated at the United Nations. Iran`s charge d`affairs at the United Nations, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, asked the Security Council on Oct. 26 to circulate two letters from Tehran, which called for "an end to such unlawful acts" by the United States.

Asked about the Iranian letters, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said, "That`s not in my bailiwick. I`m just a catcher`s mitt here as far as Iran is concerned. I really can`t comment." The Pentagon did not deny the incidents but said it could not verify the Iranian claims. Iran began lodging opposition to U.S. surveillance flights earlier this year.

The U.S. military and the CIA have used a growing array of unmanned aircraft over Iraq and Afghanistan to gather intelligence, observe potential targets, and provide tactical information during military operations, and the Pentagon has acknowledged the crashes of several drones since 2001. Two have crashed in Iran in recent months according to the Iranian complaints, one on July 4 and one on August 25.