US Central Command announced tonight that U.S. 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 U.S. Army Apache helicopter. The mission is a proportional response to unjustified Iranian aggression.” The Apache helicopter went down in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night but the two pilots were rescued within a couple of hours. At around mid-day on Tuesday President Trump issued a statement in which he claimed that the helicopter was shot down by Iranian forces and therefore “the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”
There has been no official statement from Iran claiming credit for the downing of the helicopter. There has even been speculation that the helicopter may have been the victim of an accidental collision with an Iranian Shahed drone. “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,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a posting on X prior to the U.S. strike. “To reduce risk, the best solution is for them to leave.”
