On the morning of February 3, six Iranian armed speedboats approached the U.S.-flagged tanker Stena Imperative in the Strait of Hormuz, north of Oman. This was reported by Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, citing sources and data from the consultancy Vanguard Tech. According to their information, personnel aboard the boats demanded that the tanker stop its engines and prepare for boarding, but the crew increased speed and continued on its course. The vessel was later escorted by a U.S. Navy warship.
Iran’s Fars news agency claimed that, according to Iranian officials, the tanker entered Iran’s territorial waters and left after receiving a warning, “without any particular security-related incidents.” Reuters, however, notes that the vessel did not enter Iran’s territorial waters.
The same day, according to Bloomberg, a U.S. F-35C fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was heading toward the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. U.S. Central Command said the drone was destroyed in self-defense because it was “aggressively approaching” the carrier with “unclear intentions.”
The incidents occurred against the backdrop of preparations for U.S.-Iran talks on Iran’s nuclear program, scheduled for February 6. Tehran is insisting that the meeting be moved from Istanbul to Oman. In recent weeks, officials in Washington had raised the possibility of a military strike on Iran, but on January 31 U.S. President Donald Trump said that Tehran was engaged in “serious negotiations” with the United States and stressed that further steps would be determined by their outcome.