WASHINGTON — The United States launched strikes against Iran on Tuesday after President Donald Trump said Tehran shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz, deepening doubts about prospects for peace between the two countries.
"They shot down a helicopter, and we are responding as we speak," Trump told ABC News. "I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful, and that's what this one is."
Iran's state media reported that Qeshm island in the Strait of Hormuz was attacked and that a projectile hit was confirmed in the port city of Sirik on the strait. Explosions were heard in nearby Bandar Abbas, the Mehr news agency said.
People walk past a mural Tuesday depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the late Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a street in Tehran, Iran.
Trump earlier said the two U.S. pilots involved in the incident were uninjured.
The Apache was brought down by a one-way Iranian attack drone, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi did not directly address the helicopter incident, but said foreign forces in the region risked being involved in accidents or crossfire.
"To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave," he said on social media.
Iran's state media later cited a military source as saying that no offensive air military operations were conducted in the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours.
The source was also quoted as saying that there would be a decisive response in the event of renewed "hostility by the enemy" in response to the helicopter incident.
The latest strikes began at 5 p.m. Eastern and "the mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression," the U.S. military said on social media.
Several Iranian air defense systems and radar systems around the Strait of Hormuz were targeted, Axios reported, citing a U.S. official.
Two US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters participate in a live fire exercise Feb. 10, 2025, at the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Not a 'big deal'
Trump told The Wall Street Journal during a phone call Tuesday that the incident "wasn’t a big deal" and said “the pilot is fine."
However, the episode could well add further strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war and reopen Hormuz, a vital conduit for petroleum and other commodities.
Trump repeatedly says Iran and the United States are close to an agreement, though there have been few signs of progress since a tenuous ceasefire took effect in early April.
A U.S. Navy surface drone found and rescued the two crew, the U.S. military said, after the U.S. Army attack helicopter went down in waters near Oman's coast while on patrol at about 3 a.m. on Tuesday.
The U.S. military's Central Command gave no reason for the crash. It said the soldiers were rescued after two hours and said they were in stable condition — a more cautious assessment than Trump's description.
Smoke billows Tuesday after an Israeli strike in Tyre, Lebanon.
Israeli strike kills 8
In a parallel conflict, Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, killing at least eight people. It was the deadliest strike on the city since fighting erupted in Lebanon in early March, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel.
A video verified by Reuters showed debris strewn across a road at the site of the attack.
Israel said it warned people to leave the city earlier Tuesday. Residents fled and civil defense teams transported elderly residents into temporary shelters, state media reported. Lebanon’s health ministry said the warning came minutes after the attack.
Israel's refusal to end its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah hindered Trump's efforts to extend a tenuous ceasefire in the wider U.S.-Israeli war with Iran into a durable settlement.
Iran and Israel exchanged airstrikes earlier this week, killing two people in Tehran.
Trump told Axios on Monday he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to return to war with Iran: "I said, 'Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon.'"
Israeli soldiers wait on a road Tuesday by the Israel-Lebanon border in northern Israel.
Tehran has long said any peace deal with Washington depends in part on an end to fighting in Lebanon.
In northern Israel on Tuesday, Israeli troops operating in the Ramim Ridge area close to Lebanon's border killed one person in an incident in which they returned fire, the military said.
Israel has never halted its Lebanon campaign, which has killed thousands of people, saying the conflict should be treated separately from any U.S.-Iranian ceasefire. Hezbollah has also continued its attacks.
At the same time, Tehran continues to block most shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried a fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas. Washington imposed its own blockade of Iranian ports.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed Tuesday that ship traffic through Hormuz is rising "very meaningfully," but added it would take many months to get back to normal flows of energy once the war is over.
Trump says any peace deal must ensure Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon. Iran's demands include the lifting of international sanctions, the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and recognition of its control of the strait.
