Israel shoots down drone

OCCUPIED-AL-QUDS: Israel shot down a pilotless plane over the Golan Heights on Tuesday and said it was probably an Iranian-built aircraft on a reconnaissance mission for the Lebanese Hizbullah militant group along Israel´s frontier with Syria.

The incident came hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to address the UN General Assembly and cite Israeli concerns about an entrenchment in Syria of Iranian and Hizbullah forces that have been helping Damascus beat back Islamist-led rebels.

The drone was launched from an air base near Damascus and was downed with a Patriot interceptor missile over the Golan demilitarised zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces since the 1967 Middle East war, the military said.

"As we understand, it was on a reconnaissance mission along the border and the Golan Heights on behalf of Hizbullah," a military spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus, told reporters.