WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. warship on Thursday destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after it threatened the ship, President Donald Trump said. The incident marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries less than one month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

In remarks at the White House, Trump blamed Iran for a "provocative and hostile" action and said the U.S. responded in self-defense. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters as he arrived for a meeting at the United Nations that "we have no information about losing a drone today."

Trump said the Navy's USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, took defensive action after the Iranian aircraft closed to within 1,000 yards of the ship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

"The United States reserves the right to defend our personnel, facilities and interests and calls upon all nations to condemn Iran's attempts to disrupt freedom of navigation and global commerce," Trump said.

The Pentagon said the incident happened at 10 a.m. local time Thursday in international waters while the Boxer was transiting the waterway to enter the Persian Gulf. The Boxer is among several U.S. Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the nearby North Arabian Sea for weeks.

"A fixed-wing unmanned aerial system approached Boxer and closed within a threatening range," chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a written statement. "The ship took defensive action against the UAS to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew."

The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it's not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a U.S. warship.

In December, about 30 Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels trailed the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group through the strait as Associated Press journalists on board watched. One small vessel launched what appeared to be a commercial-grade drone to film the U.S. ships.

Other transits have seen the Iranians fire rockets away from American warships or test-fire their machine guns. The Guard's small fast boats often cut in front of the massive carriers, running dangerously close to running into them in "swarm attacks." The Guard boats are often armed with bomb-carrying drones and sea-to-sea and surface-to-sea missiles.

Thursday's incident was the latest in a series of events that raised U.S.-Iran tensions since early May when Washington accused Tehran of threatening U.S. forces and interests in Iraq and in the Gulf. In response, the U.S. accelerated the deployment of the Lincoln and its strike group to the Arabian Sea and deployed four B-52 long-range bombers to the Gulf state of Qatar. It has since deployed additional Patriot air defense missile batteries in the Gulf region.

Shortly after Iran shot down a U.S. Navy drone aircraft on June 20, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike but called it off at the last moment, saying the risk of casualties was disproportionate to the downing by Iran, which did not cost any U.S. lives.

Iran claimed the U.S. drone violated its airspace; the Pentagon denied this.

Zarif said Thursday that Iran and the U.S. were only "a few minutes away from a war" after Iran downed the American drone. He spoke to U.S.-based media on the sidelines of a visit to the United Nations.

Zarif also blamed Washington for the escalation of tensions.

"We live in a very dangerous environment," he said. "The United States has pushed itself and the rest of the world into probably the brink of an abyss." Zarif accused the Trump administration of "trying to starve our people" and "deplete our treasury" through economic sanctions.

Earlier Thursday, Iran said its Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement cleared up the fate of the missing ship but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical petroleum shipping routes. One-fifth of global crude exports passes through the strait. </s> WASHINGTON — A U.S. warship on Thursday destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after it threatened the ship, President Donald Trump said. The incident marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries less than one month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

In remarks at the White House, Trump blamed Iran for a "provocative and hostile" action and said the U.S. responded in self-defense.

He said the Navy's USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, took defensive action after the Iranian aircraft closed to within 1,000 yards of the ship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

"The United States reserves the right to defend our personnel, facilities and interests and calls upon all nations to condemn Iran's attempts to disrupt freedom of navigation and global commerce," Trump said.

The Pentagon said the incident happened at 10 a.m. local time Thursday in international waters while the Boxer was transiting the waterway to enter the Persian Gulf. The Boxer is among several U.S. Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the nearby North Arabian Sea for weeks.

"A fixed-wing unmanned aerial system approached Boxer and closed within a threatening range," chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said in a written statement. "The ship took defensive action against the UAS to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew."

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The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it's not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a U.S. warship.

In December, about 30 Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels trailed the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group through the strait as Associated Press journalists on board watched. One small vessel launched what appeared to be a commercial-grade drone to film the U.S. ships.

Other transits have seen the Iranians fire rockets away from American warships or test-fire their machine guns. The Guard's small fast boats often cut in front of the massive carriers, running dangerously close to running into them in "swarm attacks." The Guard boats are often armed with bomb-carrying drones and sea-to-sea and surface-to-sea missiles.

Thursday's incident was the latest in a series of events that raised U.S.-Iran tensions since early May when Washington accused Tehran of threatening U.S. forces and interests in Iraq and in the Gulf. In response, the U.S. accelerated the deployment of the Lincoln and its strike group to the Arabian Sea and deployed four B-52 long-range bombers to the Gulf state of Qatar. It has since deployed additional Patriot air defense missile batteries in the Gulf region.

Shortly after Iran shot down a U.S. Navy drone aircraft on June 20, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike but called it off at the last moment, saying the risk of casualties was disproportionate to the downing by Iran, which did not cost any U.S. lives.

Iran claimed the U.S. drone violated its airspace; the Pentagon denied this.

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif , said Thursday that Iran and the U.S. were only "a few minutes away from a war" after Iran downed the American drone. He spoke to U.S.-based media on the sidelines of a visit to the United Nations.

Zarif also blamed Washington for the escalation of tensions.

"We live in a very dangerous environment," he said. "The United States has pushed itself and the rest of the world into probably the brink of an abyss." Zarif accused the Trump administration of "trying to starve our people" and "deplete our treasury" through economic sanctions.

Earlier Thursday, Iran said its Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement cleared up the fate of the missing ship but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical petroleum shipping routes. One-fifth of global crude exports passes through the strait.

Associated Press writers Ian Phillips in New York and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. </s> 'No doubt about it,' Trump says as Iran disputes his report of drone downing 



DUBAI/WASHINGTON, July 19 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said there was "no doubt" the U.S. Navy had brought down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz this week while Tehran showed video footage that it said disproved the incident even happened.

Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton, told reporters at the White House they were certain the USS Boxer warship had downed an Iranian pilotless aircraft on Thursday at the Gulf's strategic waterway.

Speaking of Iran, he said the United States hopes "for their sake they don't do anything foolish. If they do they will pay a price like nobody has ever paid a price."

Bolton said: "There's no question that it was an Iranian drone and the USS Boxer took it out yesterday."

But Iran said all of its drones were accounted for, amid growing international concern that both sides could blunder into a war in the strategic waterway.

Iran's state television broadcast a video showing aerial views of ships that it said disproved the U.S. assertion. The television station said a drone had captured the footage, which came from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and that timing notations indicated the pilotless aircraft was still filming after Washington said it had been downed.

The episode is the latest test of nerves around the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for oil tankers. Oil prices rose on Friday because of the tension.

Despite tough talk on both sides and an Iranian downing of a U.S. drone in June, Washington and Tehran have so far shown restraint.

Trump announced on Thursday the Boxer, an amphibious assault ship, had destroyed an Iranian drone because it had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the ship in a "provocative and hostile action."

A U.S. official said the drone was brought down by electronic jamming.

Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior Iranian armed forces spokesman, was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency as saying there was no report of any "operational response" by the USS Boxer.

"All drones belonging to Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz ... returned safely to their bases after their mission of identification and control," he said.

Iran and the United States are in a series of disputes over issues including security in the Gulf, Tehran's nuclear ambitions and U.S. sanctions.

Relations worsened last year when Trump abandoned a 2015 international nuclear deal between world powers and Iran. Under the pact, Iran agreed to restrict nuclear work, long seen by the West as a cover for developing atomic bombs, in return for lifting sanctions. Economic sanctions have since been imposed again, badly hurting Iran's economy.

Tehran on Thursday signaled a willingness to engage in diplomacy with a modest offer on its nuclear work - ratification of a document prescribing more intrusive nuclear inspections if Washington abandoned its sanctions.

A senior Trump administration official dismissed the offer by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif appeared to have no decision-making ability and that Washington "would not consider anything from him serious," the official said.

Asked whom the United States would need to hear from in order to have negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, the official said: "I would say the supreme leader or the president."

Trump remained open to negotiations with Iran without preconditions on its nuclear program and will maintain a tough economic sanctions regime on Tehran in the meantime, the official said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she was concerned about the situation in the Gulf.

"You can't look at this region without being concerned at the moment," she said at a news conference. "Every opportunity for diplomatic contact should be attempted to avoid an escalation."

In the latest development in a standoff between Iran and Britain that has also stoked Gulf tensions, Gibraltar's supreme court granted a 30-day extension to allow authorities to detain the Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 until Aug. 15.

The United States has blamed Iran for a series of attacks since mid-May on shipping around the Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil artery. Tehran rejects the allegations.

The United States has reimposed sanctions to throttle Iran's oil trade and pressure Tehran to renegotiate the accord, discuss its ballistic missiles and modify its regional policies.

The United States is struggling to win its allies' support for an initiative to heighten surveillance of vital Middle East oil shipping lanes because of fears it will increase tension with Iran, six sources familiar with the matter said. </s> At the White House, President Donald Trump said flatly of the Iranian drone: "We shot it down." But Pentagon and other officials have said repeatedly that the USS Boxer, a Navy ship in the Strait of Hormuz, actually jammed the drone's signal, causing it to crash, and did not fire a missile. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive technology.

Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said, "There is no question this was an Iranian drone, and the USS Boxer took it out as the president announced yesterday because it posed a threat to the ship and its crew. It's entirely the right thing to do."

In Tehran, the Iranian military said all its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship.

"We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else," tweeted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard on its website Friday said the drone recorded three hours of video of the USS Boxer and five other vessels Thursday beginning when the ships first entered the Strait of Hormuz. There was no immediate explanation as to how the video was evidence that no Iranian drone was destroyed.

The strategically vital Strait of Hormuz is at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and serves as the passageway for one-fifth of all global crude exports.

Trump on Thursday said the USS Boxer took action after the Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored commands to stay away. The president accused Iran of "provocative and hostile" action and said the U.S. acted in self-defence.

The Revolutionary Guard said its forces continue to monitor all movements by foreigners — especially "the terrorist forces" of the U.S. and the British in the Strait and the Gulf.

After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal with world powers last year and imposed economic sanctions against Tehran, the Iranians have pushed back on the military front in recent weeks, with Washington accusing Tehran of threatening American forces and interests in the region.

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, suggested in New York as he arrived for a meeting at the United Nations that Iran could immediately ratify an agreement to allow broader checks of its nuclear facilities by U.N. inspectors if the U.S. dropped its sanctions.

China urged Washington to consider the offer, calling it "a positive signal that Iran is willing to seek a compromise solution."

The Pentagon said Thursday's incident happened in international waters while the Boxer was entering the Gulf. The Boxer is among several U.S. Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the North Arabian Sea for weeks in response to rising tensions.

The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it is not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a U.S. warship.

Zarif blamed Washington for the escalation and accused the Trump administration of "trying to starve our people" and "deplete our treasury" through sanctions. </s> Iran says new images will 'disprove' Trump claim that US destroyed its drone

Iran says new images will 'disprove' Trump claim that US destroyed its drone

Mr Trump says the USS Boxer destroyed the drone after it came too close. File pic

Iran has said it will release drone images that disprove President Donald Trump's claims that a US warship destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz after it ignored warnings to back off.

The incident escalated tensions between the countries, less than a month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Mr Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

The Iranian military said all of its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with a US vessel the previous day.

On Friday, Iran's deputy foreign minister Abbas Aragchi tweeted: "We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else."

Mr Trump said USS Boxer took "defensive action" after the drone ignored repeated warnings and came within 1,000 yards of the ship.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it would provide images from the drone, taken both before and after the US claimed it was destroyed.

It said the drone had been carrying out regular surveillance when the American vessel arrived and transmitted photos of the ship, but did not say when the images would be released.

The statement added that Guard forces continued to carefully monitor all movements of foreigners, especially the "terrorist forces" of the US and the British in the strategic Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf.

In response to the statement, the US said it would destroy any Iranian drones that fly too closely to its ship.

A senior Trump administration official said they have "clear evidence" that it shot down such a drone on Thursday.

"If they fly too close to our ships, they'll continue to be shot down," the official told reporters at a briefing.

The official added that a video of the incident could be released by the Pentagon.

The strait is a vital shipping lane for oil and gas and is at the mouth of the Gulf.

However, it has become a flash-point following the US decision to pull out of a nuclear deal with Iran and impose strict sanctions that are seriously damaging its economy.

A foreign tanker was seized by Iranian authorities in the strait on Sunday, according to state television.

It claimed the ship - which was not named but is believed to be the Panamanian-flagged MT Riah - was smuggling a million litres of oil out of the country.

Earlier this week, the head of Gibraltar's government met privately with Iranian officials in a bid to defuse tensions surrounding the seizure of an Iranian supertanker near the British overseas territory.

Chief minister Fabian Picardo said on Friday that the meeting at the Foreign Office in London "was both constructive and positive".

He said he wants to "de-escalate" the situation after the interception of the Panama-flagged Grace 1 tanker off the southern tip of Spain on 4 July.

Gibraltar later said the Supreme Court has extended for 30 days the detention of the supertanker. The government said the court has set 15 August as the date for the new hearing.

British Royal Marines boarded the ship on 4 July and Gibraltar police have arrested the vessel's captain and chief officer, as well as two second mates as part of their investigation. </s> Iran denies US destroyed an Iranian drone near Persian Gulf

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran is denying a U.S. warship destroyed an Iranian drone in the strategic Strait of Hormuz after it threatened the ship.

Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted on Friday: "We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else."

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is in New York for U.N. meetings, said there's "no information about losing a drone."

President Donald Trump on Thursday said the USS Boxer took defensive action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

The incident marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries, less than one month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike. </s> WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump says a U.S. warship destroyed an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz amid heightened tensions between the two countries.

READ MORE: Iran seizes foreign oil tanker and crew in the Gulf, state media says

Trump says it’s the latest “hostile” action by Iran. He’s calling on other countries to condemn what he says are Iran’s attempts to disrupt the freedom of navigation and global commerce in the strategic waterway in the Persian Gulf region.

Trump says the USS Boxer took defensive action after the drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

WATCH: Iran seizes foreign oil tanker and crew in the Gulf, state media says

The president says the drone threatened the safety of the American ship and its crew.

Iran recently shot down a U.S. drone that it said was flying over Iran. Trump called off a planned retaliatory airstrike at the last minute. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran’s top military spokesman said all the country’s drones had returned safely to base, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, after President Donald Trump said a U.S. Navy ship had “destroyed” one.

“All drones belonging to Iran in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz ... returned safely to their bases after their mission of identification and control, and there is no report of any operational response by USS Boxer,” Abolfazl Shekarchi, a senior armed forces spokesman, was quoted as saying by Tasnim.

Trump said on Thursday that the drone had flown to within 1,000 yards (914 meters) of the U.S. warship Boxer and had ignored “multiple calls to stand down” in the latest episode to stir tensions in the Gulf. </s> Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's statement that a United States warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf after it threatened the ship, an incident that marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries less than a month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

The Iranian military said all its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with a US vessel the previous day.

“We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else,” tweeted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The strait is at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and serves as the passageway for a fifth of all global crude exports; a clash there highlights the risk of war between Iran and the US.

Trump on Thursday said the USS Boxer took defensive action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

Trump blamed Iran for a “provocative and hostile” action and said the US responded in self-defence. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters as he arrived for a meeting at the United Nations that “we have no information about losing a drone today".

After Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal last year and imposed economic sanctions on Tehran, the Iranians have pushed back on the military front, shooting down a US drone on June 20.

Also in the past weeks, the Persian Gulf region has seen six attacks on oil tankers that the US has blamed on Iran, and a tense encounter between Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the British navy. Iran has denied involvement in the attacks or the British naval encounter.

The US has also sent thousands of additional troops and increased its security presence in the region.

Adding to the economic pressure on Tehran, the Treasury Department said on Thursday it was imposing sanctions on what it called a network of front companies and agents involved in helping Iran buy sensitive materials for its nuclear programme. It said the targeted individuals and entities are based in Iran, China and Belgium.

The Pentagon said Thursday's incident happened at 10am local time in international waters while the Boxer was transiting the waterway to enter the Persian Gulf. The Boxer is among several US Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the nearby North Arabian Sea for weeks.

Neither Trump nor the Pentagon spelled out how the Boxer destroyed the drone. CNN reported that the ship used electronic jamming to bring it down rather than hitting it with a missile.

In Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekari as saying that “all Iranian drones that are in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, including the one which the US president mentioned, after carrying out scheduled identification and control missions, have returned to their bases.”

The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it's not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a US warship.

In December, about 30 Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels trailed the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group through the strait as Associated Press journalists on board watched. One small vessel launched what appeared to be a commercial-grade drone to film the US ships.

Other transits have seen the Iranians fire rockets away from American warships or test-fire their machine guns. The Guard's small fast boats often cut in front of the massive carriers, running dangerously close to running into them in “swarm attacks". The Guard boats are often armed with bomb-carrying drones and sea-to-sea and surface-to-sea missiles.

Thursday's incident was the latest in a series of events that raised US-Iran tensions since early May when Washington accused Tehran of threatening US forces and interests in Iraq and in the Gulf.

In response, the US accelerated the deployment of the Lincoln and its strike group to the Arabian Sea and deployed four B-52 long-range bombers to the Gulf state of Qatar. It has since deployed additional Patriot air defense missile batteries in the Gulf region.

Shortly after Iran shot down a U.S. Navy drone aircraft in June, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike but called it off at the last moment, saying the risk of casualties was disproportionate to the downing by Iran, which did not cost any US lives.

Iran claimed the US drone violated its airspace; the Pentagon denied this.

Zarif said on Thursday that Iran and the US were only “a few minutes away from a war” after Iran downed the American drone. He spoke to US-based media on the sidelines of his visit to the UN.

“We live in a very dangerous environment,” he said. “The United States has pushed itself and the rest of the world into probably the brink of an abyss.”

Zarif blamed Washington for the escalation and said that the Trump administration was “trying to starve our people” and “deplete our treasury” through economic sanctions.

Earlier on Thursday, Iran said the Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement cleared up the fate of the missing ship but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical petroleum shipping routes. One-fifth of global crude exports pass through the strait.
U.S. President Donald Trump reports the United States Navy's USS Boxer "destroys" an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drone in a "defensive action", in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian drone reportedly came within 1,000 yards (3,000 ft) of the U.S. vessel and ignored multiple calls to stand down.