United States Air Force MQ-9 Reaper Shot down

An MQ-9 Reaper was shot down over Karbala in central Iraq during the night of 7 June 2026. The loss came a week before the Islamabad Memorandum ceasefire and reflected the continued threat from Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias, which had been engaging US unmanned aircraft over Iraq since the opening days of the war. Iraq's airspace remained a transit corridor for US missions staged from Gulf bases toward Iranian targets.