WASHINGTON – American forces shot down an Iranian drone Tuesday as it ‘aggressively’ approached the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea and appeared to have ‘unclear intent,’ US Central Command said.
“USS Abraham Lincoln was transiting the Arabian Sea approximately 500 miles from Iran’s southern coast when an Iranian Shahed-139 drone unnecessarily maneuvered toward the ship,” a spokesman for the command, Capt. Tim Hawkins, said in a statement. “The Iranian drone continued to fly toward the ship despite de-escalatory measures taken by US forces operating in international waters.” The drone was shot down by an F-35C fighter jet from the aircraft carrier, the statement said, and no American service members were injured and no US equipment was damaged.
Tensions between the US and Iran have spiked as President Donald Trump is considering military strikes against the Islamic Republic.
Top American and Iranian officials are expected to hold talks Friday in Turkey, four senior Middle East diplomats and a US official told NBC News. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be part of the delegations, according to four of the sources.
Asked about the possibility of US and Iran talks this week in a gathering of reporters at the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump noted that negotiations have already begun. “They are negotiating. They’d like to do something, and we’ll see if something is going to be done,” he said. “They had a chance to do something a while ago and it didn’t work out, and we did Midnight Hammer. I don’t think they want that happening again, but they would like to negotiate. We are negotiating with them right now.”
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