US military on Tuesday unleashed strikes against Iran in retaliation for its “unjustified” downing of an American military helicopter and its two pilots, US Central Command said Tuesday.
President Trump ordered the “proportional” strikes after determining Iran on Monday shot down a US Apache attack helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz, leaving a two-month-old cease-fire hanging by a thread.
Trump, however, signaled he wasn’t seeking a return to full-scale war and downplayed the helicopter attack – telling the Wall Street Journal that it “wasn’t a big deal” and “the pilot is fine.”
The military response also was billed as measured, with CENTCOM describing the Tuesday evening mission as “self-defense strikes.”
“CENTCOM forces began launching self-defense strikes against Iran at 5 p.m. ET today at the Commander in Chief’s direction, in response to yesterday’s downing of a US Army Apache helicopter,” the combatant command said Tuesday.
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”The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” it added, suggesting that the operation is limited and is not intended to spark a return to daily war with Tehran.
As the announcement was made, Trump told an ABC reporter over the phone that it was “very important to respond.”
“This is a response to what they did they did with our helicopter last night, and I believe the response should be very strong, very powerful, and that’s what this one is,” he said.
Minutes later, Iranian state media reported that a “projectile” had struck the Iranian port city of Sirik, which is near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz.
The strikes, which were still underway as of 7 p.m. EDT., targeted Iranian air-defense systems and radar installations, a senior US defense official told Fox News.
Earlier Tuesday, a source familiar with US military planning said any strikes would likely target Iran’s coasts by the strait — particularly areas Tehran has stored or launched weapons from.
The operation was launched about four hours after Trump revealed the military had determined after an investigation that Tehran had shot down the helicopter, which was first reported as a “crash” with no cause immediately given.
“I have just been informed by our Great Military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
Both crew members of the aircraft landed in the strait, with a maritime drone rescuing them about two hours after the helicopter went down.
Trump cited the pilots’ survival to downplay the helicopter incident. The president said details of the incident are “much different” than what is currently known to the public.
That justification came less than a week after he told reporters that he would consider a return to full-scale war if Iran killed US troops — while still touting the prospect of a diplomatic deal with Iran.
The retaliatory strikes would likely focus on targets along the Strait of Hormuz — particularly any sites where Iran has launched or houses drones and other weapons, sources familiar with military planning told The Post.
An Iranian deputy foreign minister, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that Tehran did not “deliberately” shoot down the helicopter.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi — who has been intimately involved with peace negotiations — suggested it may have been an accident.
“Foreign forces in proximity to our territory are at constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents, or potentially being caught in crossfire,” he posted to X. “To reduce risk, best solution is for them to leave.”
“We prefer language of diplomacy but speak other languages too,” he added.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, meanwhile, warned Trump that the Islamic Republic would respond in kind to whatever approach the US takes next.
“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best,” Ghalibaf said in a statement.
“You ride the horse you saddled!”
