Iran claims shot down drone was over Iranian territory

Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone Thursday in the first direct military contact between the two nations in more than 30 years. But where it happened is in dispute. Iran said it was over their territory, while the U.S. says the plane was over international waters.

The drone left a corkscrew smoke trail as it fell tens of thousands of feet into the sea after being hit by an Iranian missile, a direct attack by Iran on a U.S. military aircraft.

“Iran made a big mistake. This drone was in international waters clearly. We have it all documented, it’s documented scientifically, not just words, and they made a very bad mistake,” the president said.

When asked how he will respond, President Trump responded, “You’ll find out.” But after that, the president seemed to give Iran’s leaders the benefit of the doubt.

“I have a feeling — I may be wrong and I may be right, but i’m right a lot — I have a feeling that it was a mistake made by somebody that shouldn’t have been doing what they did,” he said.

Trump says it’s “hard to believe” Iran intentionally shot down U.S. drone

Mr. Trump pointed out there was no loss of life since the drone was unmanned and laid the destruction of a $200 million aircraft off on some trigger happy officer down in the ranks.

“I think it could have been someone who was loose and stupid that did it,” he said.

The shoot down of the Global Hawk occurred just after 4 a.m. local time. A rudimentary map released by the Pentagon showed the location of the Iranian missile battery and the drone, which the U.S. military said was more than 20 miles off the coast of Iran at the time. It’s the same area where last week two tankers were attacked by what the U.S. said were Iranian mines.

Iran’s foreign minister tweeted coordinates that put the shoot down closer to Iran and claimed “we’ve retrieved sections of the U.S. military drone in our territorial waters.”

Iran has now taken two shots at U.S. drones in the past seven days. It missed the first time and hit the second. If the president wanted to, that’s enough to justify a military strike against Iranian anti-aircraft sites.