Iran targeted and missed a US drone flying over the Gulf of Oman shortly after the Thursday attack on two tankers there, US officials said.

The unmanned aircraft was responding to a distress signal from one of the crippled ships, the officials said this weekend.

The US military said Iran fired a surface-to-air missile at the drone.

Tehran has denied responsibility for strikes on the tankers traveling on a vital shipping route south of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow bottleneck that vessels from

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states must traverse to export their oil.

Iran did not immediately respond to accusations of the attack on the drone.

The UK joined the US late Friday in casting blame on Iran for the Thursday attacks.

“It is almost certain that a branch of the Iranian military — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — attacked the two tankers on 13 June,” the British Foreign Office said. “No other state or non-state actor could plausibly have been responsible.”

The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat said Saturday that his country has evidence that the attacks were “state-sponsored.”

With Post wires