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A US military surveillance drone has been shot down by Iranian forces while flying over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the drone had violated Iranian airspace. But US military said it had been over international waters.

IRGC commander-in-chief Maj-Gen Hossein Salami said the downing of the drone sent a "clear message to America" that Iran's borders were its "red line".

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
I wish I could better trust our government right now. And that’s not just a comment about Trump.

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
I wish I could better trust our government right now. And that’s not just a comment about Trump.

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Originally posted by Mikhailoh:

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Originally posted by jon-nyc:
I wish I could better trust our government right now. And that’s not just a comment about Trump.

I suspect we were in fact in Iranian airspace. Just a hunch.

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President Trump approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them on Thursday night after a day of escalating tensions.

As late as 7 p.m., military and diplomatic officials were expecting a strike, after intense discussions and debate at the White House among the president’s top national security officials and congressional leaders, according to multiple senior administration officials involved in or briefed on the deliberations.

Officials said the president had initially approved attacks on a handful of Iranian targets, like radar and missile batteries.

The operation was underway in its early stages when it was called off, a senior administration official said. Planes were in the air and ships were in position, but no missiles had been fired when word came to stand down, the official said.

The abrupt reversal put a halt to what would have been the president’s third military action against targets in the Middle East. Mr. Trump had struck twice at targets in Syria, in 2017 and 2018.

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump simply changed his mind on the strikes or whether the administration altered course because of logistics or strategy. It was also not clear whether the attacks might still go forward.

Asked about the plans for a strike and the decision to hold back, the White House declined to comment, as did Pentagon officials. No government officials asked The New York Times to withhold the article.

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President Trump said Friday morning that the United States military had been “cocked and loaded” for a strike against Iran on Thursday night, but that he called it off with 10 minutes to spare when a general told him that 150 people would probably die in the attack.

....On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019

....proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 21, 2019

The president said in a series of tweets just after 9 a.m. that he was prepared to retaliate against three sites in Iran for that country’s shooting down an American drone, but that he was “in no hurry.” He indicated that the death of 150 Iranians would not be “proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

It was unclear why Mr. Trump would have been getting information about possible casualties so late in the process of launching military action. Such information is typically discussed early in the deliberations between a president and national security officials.

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Administration officials, including military commanders, did not issue public statements Friday morning to clarify the internal deliberations or the president’s actions. But one person familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking said he was pleased with Thursday night’s events because he liked the “command” of approving the strike, but also the decisiveness of calling it off.

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Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the chairwoman of the Republican Conference and one of the top Republicans in the House, lashed out Friday at Mr. Trump’s decision, comparing his actions to former President Barack Obama’s public waffling over striking Syria over its chemical weapons attacks in 2013.

“The failure to respond to this kind of direct provocation that we’ve seen now from the Iranians, in particular over the last several weeks, could in fact be a very serious mistake,” Ms. Cheney told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host, in an interview.

Ms. Cheney did not fault Mr. Trump directly, but she made it clear she was deeply concerned about his retreat from a strike.

She said leaders must “recognize that weakness is provocative, and that a world in which response to attacks on American assets is to pull back, or to accept the attack, is a world in which America won’t be able to successfully defend our interests.”

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President Donald Trump said Friday that he hadn't given final approval to any military strikes against Iran and he added that no planes were in the air.

In an exclusive interview with NBC's Chuck Todd for "Meet the Press," Trump was asked if planes were in the air and the president responded, "No, but they would have been pretty soon, and things would have happened to a point where you would not turn back, you could not turn back."