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 Tuesday, in an incident that threatens to further ramp up tensions as the Trump administration warned of possible military action to get Iran to the negotiating table.

The drone “aggressively approached” the aircraft carrier with “unclear intent” and kept flying toward it “despite deescalatory measures taken by US forces operating in international waters,” Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement.

The shootdown was followed by a second incident, in which Iranian forces harassed a US-flagged and US-crewed merchant vessel that was sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, the American military said, and also came as Iran reportedly pushed to change the location and format of negotiations set to be held in Turkey on Friday.

The developments could escalate the heightened tensions between the longtime adversaries as President Donald Trump has threatened to use military action first over Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests and then to try to get the country to make a deal over its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and support for proxy groups. Trump’s Republican administration has built up military forces in the region, sending the aircraft carrier, guided-missile destroyers, air defense assets and more to supplement its presence.

The Shahed-139 drone was shot down by an F-35C fighter jet from the Lincoln, which was sailing about 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Iran’s southern coast, Hawkins said. No American troops were harmed, and no US equipment was damaged, the military’s statement noted.

Iranian state media reported that Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is investigating the “interruption” of the drone. Semi-official Tasnim news agency posted on its Telegram that before the footage cut out, the drone was able to successfully transfer the images it took back to Iran.

After the shootdown, Revolutionary Guard forces harassed the merchant vessel Stena Imperative, the US military said. Two boats and an Iranian Mohajer drone approached the ship “at high speeds and threatened to board and seize the tanker,” Hawkins’........

© The Times of Israel