The American military launched strikes against Iran Tuesday evening in response to the downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter off the coast of Oman, according to U.S. Central Command.
CENTCOM said in a post on X that its forces started launching “self-defense” strikes around 5 p.m. ET at the direction of President Donald Trump. “The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression,” the command said.
Trump said early Tuesday afternoon that he had been informed by the U.S. military that Iran was responsible for the helicopter crash that prompted a rescue mission.
“Last night, the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
Trump did not specify at the time what that response would entail or when it would be launched.
Both pilots aboard the helicopter “are safe and uninjured,” Trump said.
Iran has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a social media post following Trump’s comments, however, that “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.”
“To reduce risk, the best solution is for foreign forces to exit, as soon as possible, an environment which will never be hospitable to a hostile presence,” he said.
CENTCOM earlier said that two crew members had been rescued by American forces. The operation occurred at 7.33 p.m. ET Monday and was led by the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 82nd airborne division.
The soldiers, who had been “patrolling regional waters,” were rescued within around two hours. Before Trump's update, CENTCOM had said the cause of the incident was "under investigation.”
U.S. military officials rescued the crew members by a sea drone, in the first operation of its kind.
"The surface drone that assisted in last night's rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet's Task Force 59. The Task Force began fielding these drones in theater in late March," Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for CENTCOM, told TIME in an emailed statement.
The U.S. has lost several aircraft since the start of the Iran War on Feb. 28, according to a congressional research report.
In March, three U.S. F-15E fighter jets went down following a friendly fire incident involving Kuwaiti air defenses. Another incident saw six crew members killed when a U.S. refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq.
In April, a two-person F-15E fighter jet crashed inside Iran. One of the crew members was rescued swiftly, but a high-stakes near 48-hour search operation was conducted to find the second airman.
Trump referred to it as “one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history.”
The latest incident off the coast of Oman comes amid an ongoing effort to restore unrestricted naval navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.
The crucial passage, through which around a fifth of global oil production flows, remains difficult to navigate freely without Iranian approval.
The U.S. in April launched its own naval blockade targeting Iranian ports in an effort to reopen the vital trade route, but the tussle remains a roadblock in the drawn-out peace negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
Iranian and Israeli forces halt traded strikes, but Israel's parallel war against Hezbollah rages on
A renewal of fresh hostilities between Iran and Israel threatened to derail peace deal negotiations at the start of the week.
Over the weekend and into the early hours of Monday, the two countries exchanged their most intense fire seen since the fragile cease-fire came into play in April.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday afternoon said Israel would hold off on further strikes against Iran, provided the fire is contained on both sides. If "Iran makes the mistake of resuming attacks on us, we will respond with overwhelming force," he said in a televised address, emphasizing Israel’s right to “self-defense.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also confirmed the halt of active fire, but threatened that if Israel continues its attacks, including in Lebanon, “much harsher and more crushing actions than before will be on the way.”
But the broader conflict has continued. Israel has kept trading strikes with Hezbollah—the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group that last week rejected a cease-fire proposal agreed upon by Israel and Lebanon after U.S.-led negotiations.
Further escalations occurred Tuesday, as Israel struck the port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, killing at least eight people, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry.
The parallel war between Israel and Hezbollah has become a significant obstacle in the U.S.-Iran talks. Tehran has maintained that any cease-fire with the United States must include a halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
The issue appears to be straining relations between Trump and Netanyahu. In an interview published Monday, Trump said he had told Netanyahu that if Israel returned to war with Iran, it might find itself fighting alone.
Trump earlier acknowledged that the two had a heated phone call last week over Israel’s initial plans to strike Beirut.
What is the status of the U.S.-Iran peace talks?
Early Tuesday, Trump said the U.S. and Iran were "in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal, that will not allow in any way, shape or form nuclear weapons, and the Strait will open up straight away.”
It remains unclear if the incident involving the U.S. Army helicopter and the American military’s ensuing strikes will impact the negotiations.
Iran’s nuclear ambitions have remained a central obstacle in the talks between Washington and Tehran.
The U.S. has insisted that Iran must never possess a nuclear weapon and that any enriched uranium belonging to Tehran must be destroyed. But Iran has repeatedly vowed to protect its nuclear and missile capabilities.
Iranian officials are also pushing for control over the Strait of Hormuz and have suggested a tolling system—an idea Washington and many global leaders have shut down.
Iran has not yet responded to Trump’s most recent claim of progress in negotiations.
Esmaeil Baghaei, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, on Monday said the peace deal talks between Washington and Tehran were taking place amid a backdrop off extreme suspicion, according to a statement carried by semi-official Fars news agency.
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