Iran Reports Shooting Down U.S. MQ-9 Reaper Over Qeshm Island

Two near-simultaneous Telegram relays explicitly report Iranian military/state-media and IRGC/IRIB claims that Iranian forces shot down a U.S. MQ-9/MQ-9A Reaper over Qeshm Island. This is a new, concrete military escalation report with plausible forward implications for U.S.-Iran escalation and Strait of Hormuz security, so it is approved and rated material and surprising. No independent confirmation or exact time of the alleged shootdown is provided, so confidence and timestamp confidence remain below maximum; the timestamp is anchored to the 23:03 UTC reporting window rather than asserted as the time the aircraft was actually downed. The existing-event match is retained because the prior context identifies this as a distinct subsequent Qeshm/U.S.-Iran military development rather than a duplicate. Approved stakeholders are limited to shipping operators with a direct Hormuz rerouting and security channel and defense contractors with a clear counter-UAS procurement channel.