A US Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, US Central Command said today, threatening to ramp up tensions as the Trump administration warns of possible military action to get Iran to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
The drone \u201caggressively approached\u201d the aircraft carrier with \u201cunclear intent\u201d and \u201ccontinued to fly toward the ship despite de-escalatory measures taken by US forces operating in international waters,\u201d Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The shootdown occurred within hours of Iranian forces harassing a US-flagged and US-crewed merchant vessel that was sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, the US military said.<\/p>\n
The Shahed-139 drone was shot down by an F-35C fighter jet from the Lincoln, which, according to Hawkins, was sailing about 800 kilometres from Iran\u2019s southern coast. <\/p>\n
The military\u2019s statement noted that no American troops were harmed and no US equipment was damaged.<\/p>\n
Then, hours later, Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces harassed the merchant vessel Stena Imperative, the military said.<\/p>\n
According to Hawkins’ statement, two boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached the ship \u201cat high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker”.<\/p>\n
The destroyer USS McFaul responded to the scene and escorted the Stena Imperative \u201cwith defensive air support from the US Air Force,\u201d the statement said, adding that the merchant vessel was now sailing safely.<\/p>\n
The actions come as tensions are high between the longtime adversaries. They began to rise again as Iran\u2019s government spent weeks quelling protests that began in late December against growing economic instability before broadening into a challenge to the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump had promised in early January to \u201crescue\u201d Iranians from their government’s bloody crackdown on protesters, which later morphed into a pressure campaign to get Tehran to make a deal over its nuclear program. That is even as the Republican president insists Iranian nuclear sites were \u201cobliterated\u201d in US strikes in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have talks going on with Iran. We\u2019ll see how it all works out,\u201d Trump told reporters in the Oval Office this week. Asked what his threshold was for military action against Iran, he declined to elaborate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to see a deal negotiated,\u201d Trump said. \u201cRight now, we\u2019re talking to them, we\u2019re talking to Iran, and if we could work something out, that\u2019d be great. And if we can\u2019t, probably bad things would happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US shot down the drone hours after Iran\u2019s president said that he instructed the country\u2019s foreign minister to \u201cpursue fair and equitable negotiations\u201d with the US, marking one of the first clear signs from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate with Washington despite a breakdown of talks last summer.<\/p>\n
Turkey had been working behind the scenes to make the talks happen there later this week as US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region. A Turkish official later said that the location of talks was uncertain but that Turkey was ready to support the process.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Christchurch residents kicking up a stink, the US says it shot down an Iranian drone, and the hero teen who saved his whole family. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching the aircraft carrier USS Abraham…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1403,42,5107,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-266925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-defence","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-north-america","13":"tag-top-news","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-topnews","16":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}