Donald Trump said the Navy amphibious assault ship USS Boxer took down and “destroyed” an Iranian drone that was “approximately 1,000 yards” from the vessel.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday afternoon, the president called on other nations to defend against Iranian attempts to “disrupt freedom of navigation and global commerce” and to “protect their ships as they go through the [Strait of Hormuz]”.
He described the USS Boxer as having taken “defensive action” after the drone ignored repeated calls to stand down.
The drone was threatening the safety of the US warship and its crew, the president said. The US also demanded Iran immediately release a vessel it seized in the Gulf on Thursday shortly before the USS Boxer struck down the drone.
“The United States strongly condemns the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with safe passage in and around the Strait of Hormuz,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement sent to Reuters.Iran said it had seized the ship because it was smuggling oil.
“We do this (inspecting ships) every day,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted saying on Iran’s Press TV.
“It was a small ship used to smuggle one million litres — not one million barrels — of crude oil,” he reportedly added.
The latest tense development arrived after Iran recently shot down a US drone it said was flying over its territory.Iran´s deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi denied on Friday having lost any drone recently and hinted that the US could have downed their own "by mistake."
"We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else. I am worried that USS Boxer has shot down their own UAS by mistake!" Araghchi tweeted, after the United States claimed it downed an unmanned Iranian aircraft.
US President Donald Trump said Thursday an American naval vessel downed an Iranian drone that threatened the ship as it was entering the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
Trump announced that the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, "took defensive action" against the Iranian aircraft as it was "threatening the safety of the ship and the ship´s crew."
The drone was "immediately destroyed" after it approached within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the Boxer, Trump said.
Tehran´s top diplomat, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters Thursday he had "no information about losing a drone today," as he arrived at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The apparent confrontation between the two foes comes after Tehran last month shot down an American surveillance drone it said was flying in its airspace, a claim denied by the United States.
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