The US “must” react: Trump confirmed that Iran shot down an Apache military helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz | Today’s news
US President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the Iranians shot down a US Army Apache helicopter while it was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also said the U.S. “must respond to this attack.”
“I was just informed by our Grand Army that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote in a TRUTH post on Tuesday.
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He said two pilots were involved and “both are safe and unharmed”.
“However, the United States must respond to this attack,” he added in the post.
According to the Associated Press, a drone boat rescued two Army pilots who were aboard an Apache attack helicopter when it crashed near a waterway that Iran has effectively closed off during its war with the US and Israel.
The Apache helicopter is the second manned aircraft Washington has confirmed was downed by Iran during the Middle East war, following the loss of an F-15 fighter jet in April.
The downing and the prospect of a US response are the latest in a series of threats to a shaky ceasefire that has been in place since April 8 as the United States and Iran try to negotiate an end to the war.
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The Apache is a two-man attack helicopter that is armed with a 30mm chain gun and can carry a variety of other weapons including Hellfire missiles.
US Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for US forces in the Middle East, said earlier that two Apache crew members “were rescued by US forces after their helicopter went down near the coast of Oman”.
“The soldiers were safely rescued within approximately two hours and are in stable condition,” CENTCOM said in a post on X.
The command also said that a naval surface drone helped rescue the crew of the downed helicopter.
Uncertainty about the end of the Iran war
Trump’s latest remarks have thrown into deeper uncertainty the prospect of a ceasefire announced on April 8 in the Persian Gulf war.
The helicopter crashed as the Middle East was still reeling after Iran and Israel exchanged fire the previous day, the biggest blow yet to a tense truce in the Iran war.
On Monday, Israel and Iran said they would halt attacks on each other after Trump called for an end to the first direct firefights since April, but Tehran warned it would resume hostilities if Israel continued to attack its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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Monday’s flare-up added further strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Before Trump accused Iran of shooting down the US helicopter, he expressed renewed optimism about negotiations with Iran.
“We have a good chance” of signing the deal in “two or three days,” Trump said. But he gave no details on why there is reason for renewed optimism. In the two months since the US and Iran agreed to an initial ceasefire, Trump has repeatedly predicted that a deal was close.
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“We are very close to a very, very good, strong, strong deal,” the president said. “If we go bombing—which we could do very easily if we wanted to, and spend the next two or three weeks bombing—they’ll have nothing left at all. But you won’t have the straits open for months.”
He added: “If we do the bombing, you know, a lot of people will be killed. Who wants to do that? Not me.”
Mediators, led mainly by Pakistan, have been trying to get a deal across the line for weeks. However, both Iran and the US have taken hard lines.
(With inputs from AFP, AP, Reuters)
