US shoots down Iranian drone 'aggressively' approaching aircraft carrier: official

• F-35C shot down drone in Arabian Sea: Centcom spokesperson.
• Iranian gunboats approach US-flagged tanker in Strait of Hormuz.
• Fars reports vessel entered Iranian waters without legal permit.
  

A US stealth warplane shot down an Iranian drone that "aggressively" approached an American aircraft carrier as it sailed in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, a US military spokesperson said.

"An F-35C fighter jet from Abraham Lincoln shot down the Iranian drone in self-defence and to protect the aircraft carrier and personnel on board," Central Command spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins said in a statement.

No American service members were harmed during the incident and no US equipment was damaged, he added.

The incident comes days after the US Central Command (Centcom) warned Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) against "any unsafe and unprofessional behaviour near US forces".

Washington has deployed a naval strike group to the Middle East led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, with President Donald Trump threatening to intervene militarily following anti-government protests in Iran that peaked last month.

Meanwhile, maritime sources and a security consultancy said that a group of Iranian gunboats approached a US-flagged tanker in the Strait of Hormuz north of Oman.

The Iranian boats ordered the tanker, the Stena Imperative, to stop its engine and prepare to be boarded before it could speed up and continue its voyage, maritime risk management group Vanguard said.

The vessel did not enter Iranian internal territorial waters and was escorted by a US warship, the maritime risk management group said. An American official confirmed it was US flagged.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations earlier said that a group of armed boats attempted to intercept a vessel 16 nautical miles (30 km) north of Oman, without identifying the vessel or the boats.

The agency said it was investigating the incident, which happened in the inbound Traffic Separation Scheme of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's semi-official Fars news agency cited unnamed Iranian officials as saying later on Tuesday that a vessel had entered Iranian territorial waters without the necessary legal permits, was warned and left the area "without any special security event taking place."

The strait links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea beyond.

Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq export most of their crude via the strait, mainly to Asia.

Three vessels, two in 2023 and one in 2024, were seized by Iran near or in the strait. Some of the seizures followed US seizures of tankers related to Iran.