For illustrative purposes only. In this file picture Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seated left, listens to an official during his visit at an aerospace exhibition in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 11, 2014. The exhibition revealed an advanced CIA spy drone, front, captured in 2011 by Iran, and its Iranian-made copy, back. Image Credit: AP

Dubai: Iran’s air defence force has shot down an “unknown” drone in the country’s south-west, the official IRNA news agency reported on Friday.

The agency said that Iranian forces hit the drone in the early morning at Mahshahr, which is in the oil-rich Khuzestan province and lies on the Arabian Gulf.

The report did not say whether the drone was a military or commercially available device.

Provincial governor Gholamreza Shariati told IRNA that the drone belonged to a “foreign” country and that parts of the drone had been recovered in a nearby lagoon.

He said the drone had violated Iran’s airspace.

In June, Iran shot down a US surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran said the drone “violated” its territorial airspace, while the US called the missile fire “an unprovoked attack” in international airspace over the narrow mouth of the Arabian Gulf.

Regional tensions remain high over Tehran’s collapsing nuclear deal with world powers, which the US unilaterally withdrew from over a year ago.