Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency has said the country’s Revolutionary Guard has shot down an American drone, a claim denied by the US military.

IRNA said the drone was hit when it entered Iranian airspace near the Kouhmobarak district in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province.

IRNA, citing the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, identified the drone as an RQ-4 Global Hawk, a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft designed to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Captain Bill Urban, a US Central Command spokesman, declined to comment when asked if an American drone was shot down.

However, he told The Associated Press: “There was no drone over Iranian territory.”

Earlier this week Washington announced it was sending another 1,000 troops to the Middle East in response to what it described as “hostile behaviour” by Iranian forces.

The US has blamed Iran for attacks on tankers and cargo ships in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz, a major transit route for global oil supplies.

On Wednesday the US navy released pictures of pieces of mines recovered after the attacks which it said “strikingly” resemble those belonging to Iran.

Officials showed debris and a magnet recovered, they said, from the tanker Kokuka Courageous to reporters at the US navy’s 5th Fleet base near Fujairah, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard left them behind when they removed an unexploded limpet mine after the attack, the officials claim.

Tehran has denied any involvement.

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