Iran escalated tensions with the United States on Tuesday, harassing a U.S.-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz hours after sending a drone toward a U.S. aircraft carrier—an aggressive move that ended with an American fighter jet shooting the drone down.
Six Iranian gunboats armed with .50-caliber machine guns attempted to stop the tanker as it transited the waterway, ordering the vessel to shut down its engines and prepare to be boarded, according to the Wall Street Journal. The ship ignored the demand, accelerated, and was later escorted to safety by a U.S. warship.
Hours earlier, the U.S. military shot down an Iranian Shahed‑139 drone after it "aggressively" approached the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, Reuters reported. The drone was destroyed by an F-35C fighter jet launched from the carrier, a spokesman at the military’s Central Command said, describing the action as self-defense.
"The aircraft carrier and personnel on board were threatened," Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins said, adding that no U.S. service members were injured and no American equipment was damaged.
Iranian officials on Tuesday threatened to withdraw from planned nuclear talks with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, negotiations that were set to take place in Turkey on Friday. Trump has warned that "bad things" could happen if diplomacy fails.
Iran has periodically harassed commercial shipping during past standoffs, but such incidents have been rare in recent months, according to the Journal.
The incidents come as Washington continues a major military buildup in the region amid rising tensions with Tehran. The Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group—along with F-35 jets and missile defense systems—arrived last month as part of what President Donald Trump has described as an American "armada" moving toward Iran.
"Like with Venezuela," Trump wrote, "it is ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary." Trump warned that Iran must "quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal." He noted that he attempted to engage Tehran to make a deal before the United States’ bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites. "They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again," he wrote.
