It’s a drone hunt: Iran prepares students for combat against spy drones

A section on hunting and downing spy drones is to be included in the Iranian school curriculum, said Lieutenant Commander of the Basij Forces, Brigadier General Ali Fazli, according to an Iranian news outlet on Saturday.

The textbooks in Iranian schools will mark a change in Iran’s “defensive preparedness” program.

“This year, we will witness changes in the contents, teachers and teaching hours of the defensive preparedness lesson,” Fazli said, whilst in the Northeastern city of Mashhad.

The general said that lessons will last between two to three hours each week for junior and high school pupils.

In February, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) announced that it hunted an unknown Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) after the drone neared the IRGC’s war-games zone in Southern Iran.

“On the first day of Payambar-e Azam 8 (The Great Prophet 8) war games, the IRGC’s electronic warfare systems detected signals showing that alien drones were trying to enter the [airspace of the] country,” spokesman General Hamid Sarkheili told reporters.

It is not the first time that Iran has hunted “alien” drones, reported Iran’s Fars News.

In 2012, the IRGC Navy hunted an American UAV over Gulf waters after the drone violated the country’s airspace.

There have been other such occurrences, including the sighting of a U.S. RQ-170 drone, that was downed by a cyber-attack.