Washington:The US military said it opened fire and destroyed two small Iranian boats after they allegedly attempted to 'steal' an unmanned surface vehicle in the waters off Iran, operated by the United States Navy while patrolling the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
What did the US military say?"Iranian small boats recently attempted to take possession of a US unmanned surface vessel, but they were unsuccessful after CENTCOM forcefully responded," news agency Associated Press quoted CENTCOM spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins as saying.
Hawkins on Tuesday said that the drone involved was a 'Saildrone,' a small unmanned craft measuring around 25 feet (8 metre) that can operate by itself. US Central Command has been using such drones in the region for several years to monitor maritime traffic.
He further said that all surface drones operated by the command 'remain fully accounted for.' The US military has long asserted that the technology on the Saildrones is commercially available and not sensitive in nature.
What did Iran say?Iran gave a different account of the incident. Iranian state media reported Monday that two fishing boats came under attack in Hormozgan province on Iran's southern coast and that several fishermen were reported missing, citing a provincial official.
The latest drone incident, which was reported earlier by Axios, comes a week after Iranian state television reported that the country's navy captured one of the US military's underwater drones at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.
The latest confrontation comes amid another dispute involving near the Strait of Hormuz. A week earlier, Iranian state television reported that Iran's navy had seized a US underwater drone near the entrance to the strategically important waterway.
Hawkins said then that an Anduril Dive-LD drone had malfunctioned while it was surveying the waters in the region and that the US military no longer had possession of it. He stressed that the drone was defective and noted that it was also an 'older model that neither collected sensitive data no carried any classified sonar or radar equipment'.
It is the latest volley of fire in the more than 6-month-old war as both sides seek control over the Strait of Hormuz, where the US has succeeded in recent weeks in loosening Iran's grip over the critical energy shipping corridor. But the impact of the unpopular conflict has driven up the cost of oil and gasoline prices, posing political problems for President Donald Trump and his Republican Party ahead of November's congressional midterm elections.
"Oil will drop like a rock as soon as the Military Conflict with Iran is over, and that will not be long," Trump asserted in a social media post Monday.
(With AP inputs)Also Read