The US military said Tuesday that it opened fire and destroyed two small Iranian boats this week trying to steal a drone ship in the waters off Iran.
It is the latest volley of fire in the more than six-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. US Central Command has been using them in the region for several years to surveil maritime traffic. The military has long asserted that the technology on the Saildrones is commercially available and not sensitive in nature.
Hawkins said Tuesday that the drone involved is a “Saildrone” – a small, roughly 25-foot (8-metre) craft – that can operate by itself. Hawkins said all of the command’s surface drones “remain fully accounted for. 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.”
Captain Tim Hawkins, US Central Command spokesman said that “Iranian small boats recently attempted to take possession of a US unmanned surface vessel, but they were unsuccessful after CENTCOM forcefully responded.”
