Iran’s Army says its air defense forces have shot down an American MQ-9 unmanned strategic aircraft over the country’s central city of Isfahan and a LUCAS drone over Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf.

In a statement on Tuesday, Iran’s Army said that Isfahan air defenses managed to successfully shoot and destroy a US-made MQ-9 Reaper, which belonged to the American-Israeli aggressors, over the city in the early hours of the day.

MQ-9 is an unmanned aerial vehicle designed for long-endurance surveillance.

In a separate statement, Iran’s Army said that its air defenses also managed to shoot and destroy a Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System (LUCAS) over Qeshm Island in the Persian Gulf at 10:30 a.m. local time.

The LUCAS drones are made in the United States but they are in fact a reverse-engineered copy of the kamikaze Iranian drone called Shahed.

With the latest interceptions, the number of hostile drones destroyed by the Iranian Armed Forces’ integrated air defense network since the beginning of the ongoing US-Israeli war of aggression has reached 147.

The United States and Israel started a fresh round of aerial aggression on Iran on February 28, some eight months after they carried out unprovoked attacks on the country.

The attacks led to the martyrdom of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as well as military commanders.

Hundreds of civilians, including women and children, have also been killed in the war so far.

Iran began to swiftly retaliate against the strikes by launching barrages of ballistic missile and drone attacks on the Israeli-occupied territories as well as on US bases in regional countries.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has warned 18 major US companies, including tech giants, that their offices and properties in the region will come under attack as they have assisted US-Israeli terror operations inside Iran by providing espionage services.

The IRGC said in a Tuesday statement that these companies should expect Iran’s reprisal attacks starting at 20:00 Iran time on April 1, adding that their offices in the region will be “annihilated.”

The list released by the IRGC included big tech names such as Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, as well as major hardware suppliers like HP, Intel, IBM, and Cisco.

Other major brands included Tesla, Nvidia, Oracle, JP Morgan, and Boeing.

The IRGC described those companies as espionage entities associated with the warmongering government of the United States, saying their artificial intelligence (AI) and internet communication technology (ICT) services have been the main elements in designing terror operations and tracing assassination targets by the US and Israel inside Iran.

It stated that the US government and its Israeli allies had ignored Iran’s repeated calls to stop terror operations in the country and had carried out a new targeted terror attack earlier on Tuesday, killing a number of Iranian citizens.

“In response to this terrorist operation, henceforth, the main institutions involved in terrorist activities will be considered legitimate targets,” the IRGC said.

“We advise employees of these institutions to immediately leave their workplaces to protect their lives. Residents within a one-kilometer radius of these terrorist companies across all countries in the region are also urged to evacuate and move to safe locations.”

Dozens of senior Iranian political and military officials and their family members have been assassinated in the ongoing US-Israeli aggression against Iran that began in late February.

Iran has vowed to avenge the assassinations by targeting elements that have been influential in the attacks.

Chinese authorities have banned entombing cremated remains in cheap apartments, a practice that had gained popularity as mourners took advantage of the subdued housing market to dodge rising funeral costs.

“Bone-ash apartments” are units in often barely occupied residential complexes used by some families as resting places for their loved ones’ remains.

They can be cheaper than a public cemetery plot, according to local media, as well as giving families more control over the site.

Acquiring one “kills two birds with one stone”, Carsten Herrmann-Pillath from Germany’s Erfurt University told AFP.

“It’s an investment and eases the (process of carrying out) ritual practices.”

But regulations that came into force on Monday explicitly ban “the use of residential dwellings specifically for the interment of ashes”.

Bone-ash apartments are often identifiable by sealed-off windows or closed curtains, according to Chinese media reports.

A resident quoted by the Communist Party-run Legal Daily newspaper described peeking inside an apartment in his estate to see two candlesticks around a black box and a black-and-white portrait, a typical arrangement in China for commemorating the dead.

The ban comes days before the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, when families traditionally visit relatives´ graves to tidy them and make ritual offerings.

Human remains are only permitted to be buried in designated areas such as public cemeteries, according to the State Council, China’s cabinet.

Demand for cemetery plots is increasing though, as China´s population ages and deaths outpace births.

In 2020, funerals cost nearly half of the country’s average annual salary, according to a survey by British insurance firm SunLife.

On Tuesday, China’s market watchdog announced new rules to tackle fraud and a lack of transparency in funeral pricing to “reduce the burden of funerals on the masses”.

The price of apartments meanwhile has continued to fall as consumer confidence remains low and a long-running property sector crisis lingers.

Debt and stalled construction have plagued leading firms since 2020, when curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation dramatically narrowed access to credit.