Border security Iran’s redline: IRGC chief

Major General Hossein Salami expressed Iran’s full readiness to safeguard the country’s territorial integrity and security, while visiting border areas in the western province of Kermanshah on Wednesday.  
 
“Today, the security of borders is a redline for the country’s Armed Forces,” he said.
 
“Military forces are prepared under all circumstances to defend our beloved country’s borders and sovereignty and will give a firm response to any act of aggression,” he added.
 
Iran’s downing of US drone, seizure of UK tanker proved enemies’ empty power
 
Meanwhile, IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif said on Wednesday that Iran’s recent downing of an intruding US drone and its seizure of a British tanker proved enemies’ empty power to the world.
 
“The global arrogance, particularly the US, has ratcheted up their military threats over the past few years to evoke a sense of discontent in the [Iranian] society, but the downing of the intruding American drone and seizure of the UK tanker that breached [international maritime] law revealed enemies’ delusion of grandeur to the world,” Sharif said.
 
He added that enemies have been struggling over the past few years to use the influence of media to strike the Iranian society with a wave of disappointment, reiterating, however, that such a plot has been foiled through the power and solidity of the country’s Armed Forces as well as the Iranian nation’s resistance and resilience.
 
The UK-flagged Stena Impero tanker was impounded by the IRGC on July 19 when it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz en route to Saudi Arabia "for failing to respect international maritime rules.”

IRGC’s measure to seize Stena Impero came days after Britain’s naval forces unlawfully seized Iranian-owned oil tanker Grace 1 and its cargo of 2.1 million barrels of oil in the Strait of Gibraltar, under the pretext that the supertanker had been suspected of carrying crude to Syria in violation of the European Union’s unilateral sanctions against the Arab country.
 
Reports, however, said the confiscation took place at the request of the US.
 
Tehran has condemned the seizure as “maritime piracy,” warning that it would not go unanswered. It has also rejected London’s claim that the ship had been bound for Syria.
 
A day after the UK tanker was seized, the IRGC said it had shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.
 
In a statement, the IRGC said the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region — which sits in the central district of Jask County — after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.
 
The US confirmed that an American drone had been shot down over the Strait of Hormuz but claimed it was brought down over international airspace.  
 
The IRGC Aerospace Force displayed parts of the doomed drone a day after it was shot down, refuting earlier claims by the US that the drone was flying over international waters, and had not violated the Iranian airspace.
 
Iran issued "numerous" warnings before shooting down the aircraft, Brigadier General Qader Rahimzadeh, the second-in-command of Iran's Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base, said.
 
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also tweeted a map with detailed coordinates that showed the downed US spy drone was within the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters.