Tehran — Iran is celebrating what it calls a “historic air‑defence victory” after Revolutionary Guard commanders claimed their forces obliterated a wave of US and Israeli stealth drones over the skies of the capital, turning a high‑tech reconnaissance raid into a fiery spectacle above millions of stunned residents.

Just after midnight, witnesses reported strange, low rumbling noises and flashes in the hazy sky, followed by the crack of anti‑aircraft guns and the roar of surface‑to‑air missiles streaking upward from batteries ringing Tehran. Moments later, glowing debris began raining down on the outskirts of the city, setting scrubland and industrial lots ablaze as sirens wailed and power flickered in nearby neighbourhoods.

IRGC officials appeared on state TV within hours, standing in front of what they said were mangled fragments of advanced US and Israeli unmanned aircraft — jagged composite panels, sensor pods and scorched engine housings neatly arranged for the cameras. “Tonight, the myth of invisible American and Zionist drones has been shattered over Tehran,” one commander declared, vowing that any future intrusions “will end the same way: in pieces on our soil.”

In Washington and Jerusalem, defence spokespeople offered only terse statements acknowledging “the loss of several unmanned platforms” during “a complex intelligence operation,” insisting that no crewed aircraft were involved and no pilots were at risk. Privately, analysts admit the downings, if confirmed, would mark the most serious setback yet to the covert drone campaign that has quietly probed Iran’s airspace for years.

For Tehran, the images of charred stealth wreckage are pure gold: proof, it claims, that its radars can now see what once slipped by unseen. For the US and Israel, they are a stark reminder that every new sensor and wing design faces an enemy that is learning just as fast — and that the next mission over Iran’s capital may be even more dangerous than the last.