US shoots down Iranian drone flying towards aircraft carrier, navy says | US military
The US military announced that it shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively” approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.
U.S. Central Command said Tuesday that an Iranian Shahed-139 drone flew toward the aircraft carrier with “unspecified intent” and an F-35 fighter jet shot it down.
“An Abraham Lincoln F-35C fighter jet shot down the Iranian drone in self-defense and to protect the aircraft carrier and its personnel,” Central Command Navy spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said. He said no U.S. service members were harmed or their equipment damaged.
While Iran’s UN mission declined to comment on the allegations, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said that contact was lost with a drone in international waters, but the reason was unknown. The semi-official Fars news agency reported that an Iranian drone had completed a “surveillance mission in international waters”.
In another incident in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) harassed a US-flagged and crewed commercial ship, the Central Command said. “Two IRGC boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached the M/V Stena Imperative at high speeds and threatened to board the tanker and seize it,” said Hawkins.
The drone incident comes as diplomats are trying to organize nuclear talks between Iran and the US, and Donald Trump has said “bad things” are likely to happen if a deal is not reached, with US warships heading towards Iran.
Iranian president Massoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that he had instructed the country’s foreign minister to “conduct fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States; This is the first clear sign that Tehran wants to negotiate with Washington.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff plans to meet with Iranian officials in Türkiye towards the end of this week despite the drone incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, in the first direct acknowledgment by the White House regarding the talks.
But on reports that Tehran wanted the talks to be held in Oman instead of Turkey, Iran’s Nour News reported later on Tuesday, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said consultations on the venue of the meeting were still ongoing and narrowed it down to discussing only nuclear-related issues. Speaking to Nour News, the foreign ministry spokesman said that Türkiye, Oman and some other countries have expressed their readiness to host the meeting.
Pezeshkian’s announcement was a major turning point for the reformist president, who has been telling Iranians for weeks that the country’s unrest was beyond his control. It was also stated that the 86-year-old cleric received the support of Iran’s religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the talks, which he had previously rejected.
The Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group is the most visible part of a US military buildup in the Middle East following last month’s violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in Iran, the deadliest civil unrest since the 1979 revolution.
Trump, who refrained from following through on his threat to intervene during the crackdown, has since demanded nuclear concessions from Tehran and sent a fleet to Iran’s coast. He said last week that Iran was “talking seriously.”
