The Iranian general dismissed US claims of sabotaging Iran’s missile program while addressing a festival in Tehran on Sunday, according to Fars News Agency. Hajizadeh said that Tehran “has understood this since several years ago but kept silent about it” and adopted special measures to confront it.

According to the IRGC commander, the US and its allies first tried to prevent the manufacturing of missiles, then blocked imports of large parts and machines, prevented the imports of boards and little parts and then withheld exports of little electronic parts to the country. However, he said, as they could not interrupt the manufacturing process, they tried to sabotage it, but “they have failed to do a damn thing so far because we have taken their animosity seriously.”

Hajizadeh said that “keeping ammunitions in underground tunnels was implemented for the first time in 1984 and we have used this method until today to build and keep different types of missiles” to protect the IRGC’ achievements in production.

Later on Sunday, the general said the US claim of sabotaging the Iranian missile program was foiled right from the start. He noted that the IRGC Aerospace Force decided to disclose its successful hacking of several US drones in Iraq and Syria in response to such baseless claims.

“We stated this issue (penetration into the US command centre) today because the Americans showed an impertinent behaviour and said that they had sent damaged parts to our missile industries,” he told reporters in Tehran on Sunday, adding: “We did this to tell them that you were not able to attain your goals and instead, we penetrated into your systems and it was a response to the Americans’ impudence.”

Hajizadeh referred to the reports that Iran managed to obtain control over “seven to eight drones” flying over Syria and Iraq, as well as access to their “first-hand intel”, published by Fars News Agency earlier this week. The agency released video footage claiming that it had been filmed by the US drones that were allegedly hacked by Iran. The video was possibly shot in 2016 in Syria, where an MQ-9 Reaper Drone crashed in July 2016, with the US Air Force reporting that the crash was due to an operator losing control of the UAV and not due to “enemy fire.”