The U.S. military said it concluded “proportional” retaliatory strikes against Iran on Tuesday, one day after Iranian forces shot down an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz.
“U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces completed self-defense strikes against Iran, June 9, at the Commander in Chief’s direction in response to yesterday’s downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter,” U.S. Central Command wrote.
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“CENTCOM forces struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz with precision munitions from U.S. Air Force and Navy fighter jets,” the statement continued. “The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.”
CENTCOM had confirmed the start of the strikes at 5 p.m. Eastern.
The Iranian government said it was targeting U.S. bases in the region in response, including the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, and warned of “more severe and widespread attacks” across the region if the U.S. repeated its attacks. No damage to U.S. assets was immediately reported on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump said the strikes are a “response to what 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.”
“I think it’s very important to respond. They shot down a helicopter, and we are responding as we speak,” he told ABC News’s Jonathan Karl.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) echoed CENTCOM’s statement and insisted the strikes were “limited.”
“There is a defensive strike that has been taken and is proportional and limited,” Johnson said at a press conference. “The White House announced and said it’s against unjustified Iranian aggression.”
“The reason it did, as you all know, is because Iran struck U.S. assets and personnel,” he added. “We can’t allow that, and so we’re going to have to take care of this visit.”
The two pilots aboard the Apache helicopter are in stable condition. After they went down, they were rescued by a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel, or drone boat, which picked them up and took them nearby, where they were then hoisted up to a helicopter for further transport, a CENTCOM spokesperson told the Washington Examiner.
Trump has repeatedly said Iran wants to make a deal with him to end the war and that they have agreed to concessions that fall in line with Trump’s position, but the Iranians have not said any of those things publicly.
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Iran has carried out several attacks like the one on Monday, targeting U.S. or commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz with drones and ballistic missiles, but Trump has maintained the ceasefire he announced on April 7 remains in effect.
“We’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal,” the president said on Monday night. “If we go and bomb — which we could do very easily if we want, and we spend another two or three weeks bombing — they’ll have nothing left whatsoever. But you won’t have the strait open for months.”
Lauren Green contributed to this story.
