The Iranian military plans to teach school kids how to shoot down American spy drones that the Iranian military says the Americans are too afraid to send over Iran any longer.
The military plans to increase the amount of military training given in middle and upper schools when they open next month.
The military says the additional instruction will include teaching how to spot and down enemy spy drones—although the military has said repeatedly that Iran’s air defenses are so strong that no drone can penetrate Iranian air space.
The military did not explain how it would instruct children to shoot down drones—or how it would prevent them from attacking small Iranian aircraft in the skies.
The deputy commander of the Basij, Brigadier General Ali Fazli announced Sunday that military instruction in middle and upper schools will be increased to between two and three hours each week starting this fall. That could mean as much as 10 percent of instructional time would be devoted to military matters.
Fazli said, “This year we will witness changes in the contents, teacher and teaching hours of the defense preparedness course.”
The one specific change he announced will be the addition of a section on hunting and downing enemy spy drones flying over Iran. He did not explain why students all over the interior of the country would profit from such instruction if spy drones are incapable of penetrating Iranian air space, as military officers have long and often proclaimed.
In fact, the very same day Fazli was announcing the new instruction on downing spy drones, another military officer was proclaiming that the enemy is too frightened to try sending drones to spy on Iran any more.
That announcement came from Brigadier General Farzad Esmaeli, the commander of Iran’s air defense network.
“Perhaps some time ago, there were some drones that sought to enter the country’s airspace and they were hunted down. Or a number of drones came close to the country’s borders and then retreated. But at present they are not seen and the enemy is afraid of sending drones to Iran,” Esmaeli said.
The military has claimed several times that it has downed American spy drones, which are small and pilotless planes. It has displayed two drones that it has claimed to have downed. The United States has acknowledged losing one drone that Iran put on show. The other was a US Navy Scan Eagle; the Navy said it had lost some of those but none in many months before Iran claimed to have downed one. The suspicion in that case was that Iran had fished an old one out of the Persian Gulf.
