Yemen blamed Iran for US spy plane

Yemen's government had intentionally identified a crashed unmanned spy plane as Iranian while knowing it belonged to the United States, according to a WikiLeaks release of a US memo.

The April 2007 memo from the US embassy in Sanaa reported that a US surveillance drone had washed up on the coast of Hadramawt province on the Arabian Sea on March 27 of that year.

After a protest from the government that the Americans were spying on Yemen, the US embassy informed President Ali Abdullah Saleh that the aircraft had been doing routine reconnaissance near a US naval vessel far offshore, outside Yemen's territory, the document said.

Saleh didn't completely believe the US explanation, but told the embassy he would not make an issue of it, the memo said.

Instead, on March 29, official and pro-government media reported that the Yemeni military had shot down an Iranian spy plane off the coast of Hadramawt, the cable said.

Saleh 'could have taken the opportunity to score political points by appearing tough in public against the United States, but chose instead to blame Iran,' the memo said.

He 'decided he would benefit more from painting Iran as the bad guy in this case,' it said.