The United States on Tuesday launched strikes against Iran after President Donald Trump said Tehran had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz, deepening doubts about prospects for peace between the two countries.
“The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” U.S. Central Command said on X.
Trump earlier said the two U.S. pilots involved in the incident were uninjured but that the United States would respond to the attack.
The Apache was brought down by a one-way Iranian attack drone, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi did not directly address the 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 have been 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.
Trump told The Wall Street Journal during a phone call on Tuesday that the incident “wasn’t a big deal” and stressed that “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 has repeatedly said 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 around 3 a.m. on Tuesday.
U.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.