Donald Trump has ordered another 1,500 US troops to the Middle East and overruled Congressional objections to sell £6.3 billion in weapons to America’s Arab allies amid ongoing tensions with Iran.

Mr Trump approved plans to send more fighter jets and missile defence batteries to the Persian Gulf in what the Pentagon called a “defensive” deployment intended to protect US troops in the region from Iran.

The US also publicly accused Iran of carrying out a sabotage attack against oil tankers off the coast of the UAE, and said it had evidence Iran planned to load cruise missiles onto small ships and use Shia militias to attack American forces in Iraq.

Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, said the new US deployment “threatens international peace”.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump used emergency powers to sweep aside objections in Congress and push through £6.3 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan. </s> President Trump is ordering more troops to the Middle East as tensions between the United States and Iran continue to rise. The U.S. will also send more Patriot missile batteries and other force protection systems, and will be designed for the long-haul confrontation with Iran, CBS News' David Martin reports, citing U.S. officials.

The move follows Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's denial of reports Thursday that between 5,000 to 10,000 U.S. troops could be sent to the region to defend against the potential threat by Iran.

Shanahan told reporters Thursday, "There is no 10,000, there's no 5,000, and that's not accurate," referring to a Reuters report that the Pentagon was considering sending 5,000 defensive troops to the region, and an Associated Press report that up to 10,000 could be deployed. Shanahan he said his focus right now is determining "the right force protection."

Mr. Trump confirmed that the number was "about 1,500 people" before departing to Japan. Congressional aides confirm to CBS News that Congress was previously notified the administration's plans to send troops to the Middle East.

"We want to have protection the Middle East," Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. He said he was sending a "relatively small number" of "very talented" people to the region. Martin reports that the move is considered to be a very limited buildup – with about 900 new troops plus 600 who were already in place.

The move has already faced blowback as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Washington, who said the move to increase troop presence is "unsettling" without first establishing a clear strategy in the region.

"Without a clearly articulated strategy, adding more personnel and mission systems seems unwise, and appears to be a blatant and heavy-handed move to further escalate tensions with Iran," Smith said in a statement after the president's remarks.

He added, "I look forward to hearing from Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan how this decision complements a broader strategy in the region, which focuses on de-escalation and diplomacy first."

Only last week, Mr. Trump insisted he wasn't considering sending more troops to the Middle East to counter Iran, after the New York Times reported he might.

"I think it's fake news, OK?" Mr. Trump told reporters while leaving the White House Tuesday. "Now, would I do that? Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we're not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we would send a hell of a lot more troops than that."

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have been running higher since the U.S. earlier this month suddenly deployed U.S. bombers and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf over threats that have not been specifically described by the U.S. In a briefing with reporters on Friday, Vice Admiral Michael Gilday said there is high confidence the leadership in Iran was responsible for all the attacks of the past weeks – the tankers in the Gulf of Oman, the Saudi pipeline and the Green Zone in Baghdad. He presented no evidence, however.

Strife between the two nations has increased over the course of Mr. Trump's tenure in office since his decision a year ago to pull the U.S. out of the internationally-accepted Iran nuclear deal.

The president has been openly disdainful of the Iranian regime -- after a rocket landed near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, he warned Iranian leaders not to threaten the U.S. again or risk facing Iran's "official end."

Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday, however that he didn't think Iran wanted to pick a fight with the U.S., later predicting that things are going to be "very good in the Middle East."

David Martin and Emily Tillett contributed to this report. </s> Trump Says He Hopes for No U.S. War With Iran as Tensions Rise

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he hopes the U.S. doesn’t go to war with Iran, as tensions rise with the Islamic Republic over his administration’s allegation that Tehran may be preparing an attack.

“I hope not,” Trump told reporters on Thursday after he was asked about going to war with Iran while greeting Swiss President Ueli Maurer for a meeting a the White House.

The U.S. hastened the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf and withdrew diplomatic personnel from Iraq after claiming intelligence showed a growing threat from Iran or its proxy forces in the Mideast. The New York Times reported on Thursday that aerial photograps recently showed the Iranians placing missile launchers on small boats, raising U.S. concern that Tehran may be preparing to attack American military or commercial shipping.

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, has repeatedly warned Iran against any provocation.

Trump denied in tweets on Wednesday that there’s any “infighting” within his administration over Iran, and said he believes the country’s leaders “will want to talk soon.” His administration withdrew last year from a 2015 pact negotiated by former President Barack Obama to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has subsequently reimposed sanctions on much of the country’s economy.

Iran’s vice president said Thursday that the country’s leaders would only consider negotiating with Trump if the U.S. rejoins the nuclear deal, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alyza Sebenius in Washington at asebenius@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum </s> Iran on Friday denied President Donald Trump's statement that a United States warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf after it threatened the ship, an incident that marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries less than a month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

The Iranian military said all its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with a US vessel the previous day.

“We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else,” tweeted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The strait is at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and serves as the passageway for a fifth of all global crude exports; a clash there highlights the risk of war between Iran and the US.

Trump on Thursday said the USS Boxer took defensive action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

Trump blamed Iran for a “provocative and hostile” action and said the US responded in self-defence. Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters as he arrived for a meeting at the United Nations that “we have no information about losing a drone today".

After Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal last year and imposed economic sanctions on Tehran, the Iranians have pushed back on the military front, shooting down a US drone on June 20.

Also in the past weeks, the Persian Gulf region has seen six attacks on oil tankers that the US has blamed on Iran, and a tense encounter between Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the British navy. Iran has denied involvement in the attacks or the British naval encounter.

The US has also sent thousands of additional troops and increased its security presence in the region.

Adding to the economic pressure on Tehran, the Treasury Department said on Thursday it was imposing sanctions on what it called a network of front companies and agents involved in helping Iran buy sensitive materials for its nuclear programme. It said the targeted individuals and entities are based in Iran, China and Belgium.

The Pentagon said Thursday's incident happened at 10am local time in international waters while the Boxer was transiting the waterway to enter the Persian Gulf. The Boxer is among several US Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the nearby North Arabian Sea for weeks.

Neither Trump nor the Pentagon spelled out how the Boxer destroyed the drone. CNN reported that the ship used electronic jamming to bring it down rather than hitting it with a missile.

In Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekari as saying that “all Iranian drones that are in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, including the one which the US president mentioned, after carrying out scheduled identification and control missions, have returned to their bases.”

The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it's not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a US warship.

In December, about 30 Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels trailed the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier and its strike group through the strait as Associated Press journalists on board watched. One small vessel launched what appeared to be a commercial-grade drone to film the US ships.

Other transits have seen the Iranians fire rockets away from American warships or test-fire their machine guns. The Guard's small fast boats often cut in front of the massive carriers, running dangerously close to running into them in “swarm attacks". The Guard boats are often armed with bomb-carrying drones and sea-to-sea and surface-to-sea missiles.

Thursday's incident was the latest in a series of events that raised US-Iran tensions since early May when Washington accused Tehran of threatening US forces and interests in Iraq and in the Gulf.

In response, the US accelerated the deployment of the Lincoln and its strike group to the Arabian Sea and deployed four B-52 long-range bombers to the Gulf state of Qatar. It has since deployed additional Patriot air defense missile batteries in the Gulf region.

Shortly after Iran shot down a U.S. Navy drone aircraft in June, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike but called it off at the last moment, saying the risk of casualties was disproportionate to the downing by Iran, which did not cost any US lives.

Iran claimed the US drone violated its airspace; the Pentagon denied this.

Zarif said on Thursday that Iran and the US were only “a few minutes away from a war” after Iran downed the American drone. He spoke to US-based media on the sidelines of his visit to the UN.

“We live in a very dangerous environment,” he said. “The United States has pushed itself and the rest of the world into probably the brink of an abyss.”

Zarif blamed Washington for the escalation and said that the Trump administration was “trying to starve our people” and “deplete our treasury” through economic sanctions.

Earlier on Thursday, Iran said the Revolutionary Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement cleared up the fate of the missing ship but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most critical petroleum shipping routes. One-fifth of global crude exports pass through the strait. </s> British Special Forces have flown to the Middle East in the framework of a top secret mission to rebuff possible Iranian attacks on merchant ships, according to The Sun.

Members of the elite Special Boat Service are reported to have joined UK registered oil tankers heading towards the Persian Gulf, subsequently to be tasked with monitoring Iranian military activity in the vicinity of Qesham Island, home to the country's naval gunboats, the paper reports.

The UK Ministry of Defence declined to respond when contacted by The Sun Online, with a spokesman stating they never comment about the Special Forces.

The alleged military move comes shortly after the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group arrived for patrols in the Arabian Sea.

READ MORE: US Navy Flexes Muscles in Arabian Sea Amid Heightening Tensions With Iran

The US has already deployed the aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the Persian Gulf to counter alleged threats from Tehran, with the US planning to deploy as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces, a report claimed this week.

Trump had campaigned on avoiding overseas conflicts, but also on taking a tougher line on Iran.

The Washington Post quoted a senior administration official as saying the US President is growing frustrated with what he sees as warlike planning generated by hawkish advisers.

Hardline national security adviser John Bolton is a known foreign policy "hawk" and has long been advocating regime change in Iran.

The paper cited several US officials saying Donald Trump prefers a diplomatic approach to resolving mounting tensions in the Middle East and wants to speak directly with Iran's leaders.

“He is not comfortable with all this “regime change” talk,” which to his ears echoes the discussion of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the 2003 US invasion," the officials were reported as saying.

In a Fox News interview on Sunday, US President Donald Trump said that the only sphere where he wants to "invade" is actually the economy, thereby downplaying fears of a conflict with Iran.

READ MORE: Ex-CIA Director Warns Iran to Be ‘Very Careful’ Amid Rising Tensions with US

He reiterated that he did not seek a war with Tehran, noting that the main thing he wanted was "not to let Iran have nuclear weapons".

"I am not somebody who wants to go into war because war kills (the) economy, kills people most importantly," he added.

However, Trump is willing to respond with force should there be American deaths or a dramatic escalation, added the official.

"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!" Trump tweeted on Sunday.

Speaking with the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) at the end of a visit to China on Saturday, he added that Tehran did not want a war, but that no country had the "idea or illusion that it can confront Iran".

US-Iranian tensions flared up last year when Washington unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and reinstated crippling sanctions against the country.

On 8 May 2019, Iran announced its decision to partially discontinue its obligations under the deal.

The United States, in turn, stepped up its military presence in the Middle East in what White House National Security Adviser John Bolton has called "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime", sending a carrier strike group, Patriot missiles, B-52 bombers and F-15 fighters to the area, according to the Pentagon. </s> Trump says 1,500 more troops to deploy to Middle East

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump announced Friday that some 1,500 additional US troops would deploy to the Middle East against a backdrop of soaring tensions with Iran. “We want to have protection in the Middle East,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to set off on a trip to Japan.

“We´re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective,” Trump added. “It´ll be about 1,500 people.” The deployment includes reconnaissance aircraft, fighter jets, engineers, and the extension of the presence of a Patriot missile defense battalion that accounts for 600 of the personnel.

“This is a prudent response to credible threats from Iran,” said Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan. Pentagon officials said the 1,500 additional troops were in response to recent incidents in the region that US intelligence had tied to Iran´s leadership. Those have included a rocket attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad, explosive devices that damaged four tankers in Fujairah at the entrance to the Gulf, and a Houthi drone attack against a Saudi oil installation.

“We view this as a campaign,” said Rear Admiral Michael Gilday, director of the Pentagon´s Joint Staff. Gilday stressed that the expanded US military presence in the region, including an aircraft carrier task force, B-52 bombers, and an amphibious attack vessel deployed earlier this month, are defensive and meant to address an alleged ongoing threat from Iran. “We think that through a combination of a very measured deployment of assets as well as public messaging, we are again trying to underscore that we are not seeking hostilities with Iran.”

Meanwhile, acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart next week at a regional security conference in Singapore, a Pentagon official said Friday. Shanahan sets off Tuesday on a tour of Asia that will take him to Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, the Pentagon said in a statement. In Singapore, he will give a speech on the US defense strategy for the Indo-Pacific region at the Shangri-La Dialogue, which is held each year in the Southeast Asian city-state. </s> The Pentagon is set to brief the White House on a request for thousands more U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East, amid rising tensions between Iran and Washington, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been formally announced.

The officials said the request for additional troops was coming from U.S. Central Command and would be presented to the White House on Thursday. But it was not clear whether the White House would approve sending all or just some of the requested defensive forces, as well as additional Patriot missile batteries and more ships.

The Pentagon declined to comment on future plans. “As a matter of long-standing policy, we are not going to discuss or speculate on potential future plans and requests for forces,” said Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have been escalating since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his decision to try to cut Iran’s oil exports to zero and beef up the U.S. military presence in the Gulf in response to what he said were Iranian threats.

But despite the rhetoric, last week Trump told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he did not want to go to war with Iran.

Sending additional U.S. troops to the region would mark a shift in position for Trump, who has repeatedly said in the past he wanted to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the region.

Last December, Trump announced the withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. In February, however, he decided to keep about 400 troops there. </s> WASHINGTON/DUBAI (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran on Friday in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone, but called off the attacks at the last minute, the New York Times reported.

After weeks of rising tension amid a spate of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf, Iran said on Thursday it had shot down an unmanned U.S. military surveillance drone, fanning fears of an overt military confrontation between the longtime adversaries.

In response, the New York Times quoted a senior administration official as saying U.S. warplanes took to the air and ships were put in position for a retaliatory attack only for an order to come to stand down, without any weapons being fired.

Targets had included Iranian radar and missile batteries, the paper cited senior administration officials involved in, or briefed on, the deliberations, as saying.

The strikes were set for early in the day to minimize risk to the Iranian military or to civilians, the Times added.

It was unclear if attacks on Iran might go ahead later, it added, nor was it known whether Trump had changed his mind or whether his administration had become concerned about logistics or strategy.

Tehran said the unarmed Global Hawk surveillance drone was on a spy mission over its territory, but Washington said it was shot down over international airspace in the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said initially the downing of the drone could have been carried out by someone who was acting “loose and stupid,” adding that he suspected it was shot down by mistake.

“We had nobody in the drone. It would have made a big difference, let me tell you, it would have made a big, big difference” if the aircraft had been piloted, Trump said as he met Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the Oval Office.

The destruction of the drone compounded tensions escalating in the Gulf region, a critical artery for global oil supplies, where six oil tankers have been damaged by explosions in the past six weeks.

Iran has denied involvement in the tanker attacks, but global jitters about a new Middle East conflagration disrupting oil exports have triggered a jump in crude prices.

Saudi Arabia, Washington’s main Gulf ally, said Iran had created a grave situation with its “aggressive behavior” and the kingdom was consulting other Gulf Arab states on next steps.

Tensions with Iran flared with Trump’s withdrawal last year from a 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, and have worsened as Washington imposed fresh sanctions to throttle Tehran’s vital oil trade. Iran retaliated earlier this week with a threat to breach limits on its nuclear activities imposed by the deal.

The U.S. sanctions have hammered Iran’s economy, scuttling its oil exports and barring it from the dollar-dominated global finance system. That has undone the promise of trade rewards from the 2015 deal designed to curb its nuclear ambitions.

Iranian state media said the “spy” drone was brought down over the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan, which is on the Gulf, with a locally made 3 Khordad missile.

Lieutenant General Joseph Guastella, the top U.S. Air Force commander in the Middle East, told reporters the drone was shot down at high altitude about 34 km (21 miles) from the nearest point of land on the Iranian coast.

U.S. Central Command later posted a tweet here that included a map of what Guastella called the drone's flight path showing it WAS outside Iran's territorial waters. "This was an unprovoked attack on a U.S. surveillance asset that had not violated Iranian airspace at any time," he added.

Independent confirmation of the drone’s location when it was brought down was not immediately available.

The Trump administration is pursuing a campaign to isolate Iran and press it towards concessions on its nuclear and missile programs and involvement in regional conflicts.

Washington said on Monday it would deploy about 1,000 more troops, along with Patriot missiles and manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft, to the Middle East on top of a 1,500-troop increase announced after attacks on Gulf tankers in May.

Trump has dispatched forces including aircraft carriers, B-52 bombers and troops over the past few weeks. Iran said last week it was responsible for the security of the Strait of Hormuz, calling on American forces to leave the Gulf.

In the United States, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said Washington had no appetite for war with Iran and should “do everything in our power to de-escalate.”

After a White House briefing for lawmakers, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, told reporters he was worried Trump “may bumble into a war”. Schumer said he and his fellow Democrats believed congressional approval was needed to fund any conflict with Iran.

But Trump’s fellow Republican, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, told reporters: “The administration is engaged in what I called measured responses.”

While U.S. rhetoric against Iran has sharped, European states - fellow signatories of the nuclear deal with Iran - have been more cautious, saying more evidence is needed to pinpoint responsibility for the tanker strikes.

They have sought to keep the nuclear deal alive despite the U.S. pullout, but Tehran has told them and other world powers who signed the accord that they must rein in Trump’s aggressive stance towards Iran or it too will bow out of the deal. </s> TEHRAN, Iran — Iran said Friday it can provide images that disprove President Donald Trump’s statement that a U.S. warship destroyed an Iranian drone near the Persian Gulf after it threatened the ship. The incident marked a new escalation of tensions between the countries, less than a month after Iran downed an American drone in the same waterway and Trump came close to retaliating with a military strike.

The Iranian military said all its drones had returned safely to their bases and denied there was any confrontation with a U.S. vessel the previous day.

“We have not lost any drone in the Strait of Hormuz nor anywhere else,” tweeted Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The strait is at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and serves as the passageway for a fifth of all global crude exports; a clash there highlights the risk of war between Iran and the U.S.

Trump on Thursday said the USS Boxer took defensive action after an Iranian drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the warship and ignored multiple calls to stand down.

Trump blamed Iran for a “provocative and hostile” action and said the U.S. responded in self-defense. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, told reporters as he arrived for a meeting at the United Nations that “we have no information about losing a drone today.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said on its website Friday that it would release images from the drone — taken both before and after the U.S. claimed it was destroyed.

The Guard said the drone had been carrying out regular surveillance when the USS Boxer arrived, and transmitted photos of the ship. The statement added that Guard forces continue to carefully monitor all movements of foreigners — especially “the terrorist forces” of the U.S. and the British in the strategic Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf.

The Guard did not say when the images would be released.

After Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal with world powers last year and imposed economic sanctions on Tehran, the Iranians have pushed back on the military front, shooting down a U.S. drone on June 20.

The others involved in the deal — Germany, France, Britain, Russia, China and the European Union — have been struggling to keep it alive, and Iran has begun breaching some of its limitations to put pressure on them to find a solution to offset crippling American sanctions.

Following remarks in New York from Zarif suggesting that Iran could immediately ratify an agreement to allow broader inspections of its nuclear facilities by U.N. inspectors if the U.S. dropped its sanctions, China on Friday urged Washington to consider the offer.

Zarif’s statement sends “a positive signal that Iran is willing to seek a compromise solution,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said.

In an attempt to defuse another issue, the head of Gibraltar’s government, Chief Minister Fabian Picardo, said he met with Iranian officials earlier in the week in London to discuss the seizure of an Iranian supertanker near the British overseas territory.

The tanker was seized July 4 on suspicion it was carrying Iranian oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, further stoking tensions over the Persian Gulf. Picardo characterized his meeting with the Iranians as “constructive and positive.”

The Pentagon said Thursday’s incident happened at 10 a.m. local time in international waters while the Boxer was transiting the waterway to enter the Persian Gulf. The Boxer is among several U.S. Navy ships in the area, including the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been operating in the nearby North Arabian Sea for weeks.

Neither Trump nor the Pentagon spelled out how the Boxer destroyed the drone. CNN reported that the ship used electronic jamming to bring it down rather than hitting it with a missile.

In Tehran, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted military spokesman Gen. Abolfazl Shekari as saying that “all Iranian drones that are in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, including the one which the U.S. president mentioned, have … returned to their bases.”

The Iranians and Americans have had close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz in the past, and it’s not unprecedented for Iran to fly a drone near a U.S. warship.

The U.S. benchmark for crude oil rose 77 cents on Friday, or 1.4%, to $56.07 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange following the drone claims. Brent, the international oil standard, picked up $1.03, or 1.7%, to $62.96 per barrel.

Thursday’s incident was latest in a series of events that raised U.S.-Iran tensions since early May when Washington accused Tehran of threatening U.S. forces and interests in Iraq and in the Gulf.

In response, the U.S. accelerated the deployment of the Lincoln and its strike group to the Arabian Sea and deployed four B-52 long-range bombers to the Gulf state of Qatar. It has since deployed additional Patriot air defense missile batteries in the Gulf region.

Shortly after Iran shot down a U.S. Navy drone aircraft in June, Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike but called it off at the last moment, saying the risk of casualties was disproportionate to the downing by Iran, which did not cost any U.S. lives.

Iran claimed the U.S. drone violated its airspace; the Pentagon denied this.

Zarif said Thursday that Iran and the U.S. were only “a few minutes away from a war” after Iran downed the American drone. He spoke to U.S.-based media on the sidelines of his visit to the U.N.

“We live in a very dangerous environment,” he said. “The United States has pushed itself and the rest of the world into probably the brink of an abyss.”

Zarif blamed Washington for the escalation and accused the Trump administration of “trying to starve our people” and “deplete our treasury” through economic sanctions.

Earlier Thursday, Iran said the Guard seized a foreign oil tanker and its crew of 12 for smuggling fuel out of the country, and hours later released video showing the vessel to be a United Arab Emirates-based ship that had vanished in Iranian waters over the weekend.

The announcement cleared up the fate of the missing ship but raised a host of other questions and heightened worries about the free flow of traffic in one of the world’s most critical petroleum shipping routes.
U.S. President Donald Trump orders 1,500 troops and several Patriot missile launchers to the Persian Gulf as tensions rise with Iran.