Navy ship shoots down Iranian drone

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, President Donald Trump said during a ceremony at the White House.

Trump said the unmanned aircraft threatened the Boxer, an amphibious assault ship that can launch attack jets and helicopters from its landing deck.

“The drone was immediately destroyed,” Trump said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said in a statement the Boxer was in international waters and the drone “closed within a threatening range” before the Boxer took defensive action.

It was unclear if the Iranian drone was armed.

There was no immediate comment from Tehran. But the downing will most likely again inflame tensions between Iran and the United States.

Last month, Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone amid a dispute over whether it was flying over international waters or Iran’s territory. The Trump administration considered retaliating with military strikes against a handful of Iranian targets, such as radar and missile batteries.

Officials said Trump initially approved the strikes. But with minutes to spare and planes headed to their targets, the president abruptly pulled back.

Washington also has accused Iran of sabotaging six tankers in the Gulf of Oman in recent months, an accusation Tehran has denied.

Earlier Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told journalists in New York that “we came a few minutes away from a war” after last month’s incident.

“Prudence prevailed,” Zarif said.

Separately, Iranian news media reported Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had detained a foreign oil tanker that it said had been smuggling fuel. The announcement came days after a United Arab Emirates vessel disappeared in the Persian Gulf.

Several state news organizations in Iran reported the seizure of the tanker, based on a statement from the Revolutionary Guard, which claimed the ship had been carrying 1 million liters of contraband fuel. The Iranian state news agency Al Alam reported the Revolutionary Guard detained the ship Sunday.

The statement said the episode took place to the south of Iran’s Larak Island, in the northern part of the Strait of Hormuz.