US attacks Iran after Apache helicopter downed in Strait of Hormuz

Explosions successful Iran’s Qeshm Island, Sirik, Jask and Bandar Abbas aft Trump blamed Tehran for downing a US helicopter.

The United States has launched waves of attacks connected Iran aft the downing of a US Apache chopper successful the Strait of Hormuz, prompting warnings of retaliation from Tehran.

The US subject said the attacks began astatine 22:00 GMT connected Tuesday and were a “proportional effect to unjustified Iranian aggression”.

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Iran’s authorities broadcaster IRIB reported explosions connected Qeshm Island successful the Strait of Hormuz, and successful the ports of Sirik and Jask during the archetypal wave.

It reported further explosions successful Jask astatine astir 00:00 GMT connected Wednesday and successful Bandar Abbas astatine 01:00 GMT.

Earlier connected Tuesday, US President Donald Trump blamed Iran for downing the helicopter.

In a connection connected his Truth Social platform, he wrote that Iran had changeable down the craft portion it was connected patrol implicit the strait and declared that the US “must, of necessity, respond to this attack”.

Both unit members were rescued safely, helium said.

Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, said that overseas subject forces adjacent Iranian territory were “at changeless risk” and aboriginal promised that determination would beryllium a effect to the caller US strikes.

Iranian forces “will permission nary onslaught oregon menace unanswered”, helium wrote connected X. “Leave our portion if you privation to beryllium safe.”

Helicopter unit safe, uninjured

The helicopter’s downing and the US strikes person further strained a two-month ceasefire, a time aft Iran and Israel exchanged occurrence for the archetypal clip since the fragile truce took effect.

Iranian authorities tv said connected Tuesday that the Israeli attacks killed astatine slightest 2 members of the country’s aerial defence units.

The US-Israel warfare connected Iran has shaken the planetary economy, driven up vigor prices and made galore basics, including food, much expensive.

Progress successful negotiations towards a imperishable woody remains slow, however, peculiarly arsenic Israel intensifies and expands its subject campaign successful Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah equipped group.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from Washington, DC, said the US subject believes the chopper was brought down by an Iranian Shahed drone – a one-way onslaught drone – conscionable disconnected the seashore of Oman.

In what the US subject described arsenic the archetypal cognition of its kind, an unmanned drone vessel was dispatched to the scene, and some pilots were recovered wrong 2 hours.

Trump told US media that some work members “are harmless and uninjured”.

US-Iran talks

Al Jazeera’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Tehran, said the US strikes rise the hazard of a caller escalation.

“We don’t cognize whether diplomacy volition instrumentality precedence here, due to the fact that determination are proposals by the Americans being studied present successful Iran,” helium said.

“Iran has ever been saying that it has near the doorway unfastened for diplomacy and for talks, but astatine the aforesaid time, it says it doesn’t spot the Americans, and the justification for that is that the Americans and the Israelis proceed to onslaught against Iran and to make a concern whereby bid cannot happen.”

Before the helicopter’s downing, Trump had expressed renewed optimism implicit negotiations with Iran.

“We person a bully chance” of signing a woody successful “two oregon 3 days”, Trump said precocious connected Monday. But helium did not supply immoderate details connected wherefore determination was crushed for optimism. In the 2 months since the US and Iran agreed to an archetypal ceasefire, Trump has repeatedly predicted that a woody is close.

“We’re precise adjacent to having a very, precise good, strong, almighty deal,” the president said.

Mediators, led predominantly by Pakistan, person been trying for weeks to get a woody crossed the line. However, some Iran and the US person taken hardline positions.

The US wants to spot Iran springiness up its stockpile of highly-enriched uranium, but Tehran is refusing that. It is demanding alleviation from sanctions, arsenic good arsenic the merchandise of frozen assets, adjacent earlier a last statement is successful place, which Trump has rejected.

Iranian Speaker of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said connected Monday that the US president’s remarks truthful acold connected a imaginable woody “contradicted the agreed-upon sections”, showing that the US is “neither seeking a ceasefire nor dialogue”.