A Navy fighter jet on Tuesday shot down an Iranian drone that aggressively approached a U.S. aircraft carrier transiting the Arabian Sea, according to a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command.
The downing of the drone comes at a moment of heightened tension in the region, as the U.S. military builds up forces for a possible confrontation with Iran. Last month, President Trump threatened to attack the country after its government brutally crushed anti-government protests that began in late December.
As the protests have ebbed, Mr. Trump has shifted his focus to demanding a deal that would end Iran’s nuclear program and its support for proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis operating in Yemen.
Talks between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi; Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy; and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, are scheduled to take place in Istanbul this week. But regional officials and diplomats have described the plans for the negotiations as tenuous. It was unclear whether the strike on the drone would scuttle the talks.
The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was operating about 500 miles from Iran’s southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone “unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship,” Capt. Tim Hawkins, the U.S. Central Command spokesman, said in a statement.
Several hours later, in a separate incident, two Iranian vessels and an Iranian Mohajer drone harassed a U.S.-flagged and U.S.-crewed merchant vessel that was legally transiting the Strait of Hormuz, Captain Hawkins said.
A U.S. guided missile destroyer that was operating in the area responded to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats, escorting the U.S.-flagged vessel. The U.S. Air Force provided defensive air support, and the situation de-escalated as a result, Captain Hawkins said. The U.S.-flagged tanker was proceeding safely, Captain Hawkins added.
Mr. Trump has described the U.S. military buildup in the region, which consists of the Lincoln aircraft carrier and three warships equipped with Tomahawk missiles, as an “armada.”
The U.S. vessels entered the Central Command’s area of responsibility in the western Indian Ocean last week and are now on station in the Arabian Sea, Navy officials said. The carrier’s stealthy F-35 fighters and F/A-18 attack planes are well within striking distance of dozens of targets in Iran, if Mr. Trump were to order them into action.
The United States has also sent F-15E attack planes to the region, bolstering its force of land-based strike aircraft.
Taking down a drone in the way the United States did on Tuesday is unusual. In July 2019, the U.S. military downed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after it came within 1,000 yards of a U.S. amphibious assault ship.
At the time, Iranian officials moved to calm tensions, which had built up over Iran’s continued nuclear program and what U.S. officials described as the country’s “continued harassment of vessels” in the strait.
A month earlier, in June 2019, Iran shot down an unarmed U.S. spy drone that U.S. officials said was operating in international air space. Shortly after the Iranian strike, Mr. Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing the surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them.
Mr. Trump called off the strike with only minutes to spare, after being told that it might kill as many as 150 Iranians.
Greg Jaffe covers the Pentagon and the U.S. military for The Times.
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