A senior Iranian official denied yesterday a local news agency report that a US military plane had violated the country's airspace and was forced to land, saying both the aircraft and the people on board were Hungarian.

The Pentagon also denied the report by Iran's semi-official Fars News agency. "The Fars report was not accurate. It was an Hungarian aid plane. No American was on board. The incident happened on September 30," the Iranian official, who declined to be named, said.

Iran's Arabic-language al-Alam channel, citing a military source, said the Hungarian plane was carrying aid to Afghanistan and that it had been allowed to leave Iran after the incident.

"The plane was trying to fly low in order to not be detected by Iranian radars," Fars said. "This American Falcon plane was forced by Iranian military planes to land."

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