Iran Monday rejected a U.S. claim that a drone launched from Iran targeted a tanker off the coast of India last week.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani responded to a question about the incident by calling the U.S. claim “baseless.”
The U.S. Defense Department said Saturday that “a one-way attack drone fired from Iran” struck the Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned and Netherlands-operated Chem Pluto.
The incident caused a small fire on the tanker, but it was quickly put out and there were no reported injuries.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been blamed for a series of recent attacks against ships in the Red Sea after warning they would target vessels they saw as linked to Israel.
Saturday, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that an official in the country’s Revolutionary Guard warned of the potential forced closure of other waterways if the war on Gaza continues.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters