Trump vows US response after saying Iran shot down Apache helicopter

Here's the latest

• US helicopter downed: US President Donald Trump said the US military informed him that Iran shot down an Army Apache helicopter off the coast of Oman. He said the US “must, of necessity, respond to this attack.” The two pilots were rescued, according to Trump.

• How it happened: Two US officials said the helicopter was brought down by an Iranian drone, with a separate source telling CNN it was a Shahed drone. One of the officials said it was unclear whether the helicopter was intentionally targeted.

• Fresh strikes on Lebanon: Israel’s military launched new attacks on Tyre and issued a rare evacuation order for the southern Lebanese city’s Christian quarter. Iran has warned Israel against continuing its offensive in Lebanon.

• US-Israel tensions: The allies have “some differences” to work out, Israel’s ambassador to the US told CNN, after Trump warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that further strikes on Iran could isolate him.

37 min ago

Iran urges US to leave region or risk being "caught in crossfire"

By Caitlin Danaher

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has urged foreign forces to leave the Strait of Hormuz or be “at constant risk,” after US President Donald Trump accused Iran of downing an Army Apache helicopter off the coast of Oman.

“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,” Araghchi said Tuesday in a post on X.

“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 added.

The Iranian foreign minister added that while Tehran prefers “the language of diplomacy … as our brave warriors have shown to the world, we know how to speak other languages too,” echoing a similar statement earlier from Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

The foreign minister said the Strait of Hormuz is not considered international waters but is shared by Iran and Oman. He vowed that Iran’s military is on constant alert for “any violation of Iran’s airspace, territory or territorial waters.”

While the strait lies within the territorial waters of Iran and Oman, it is nevertheless considered an international strait under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), meaning that foreign vessels, including warships, have the right of unrestricted “transit passage” through it. Neither Iran nor the United States has ratified UNCLOS, and Tehran rejects the transit passage provision.

Some context: Aragchi made the statement after Trump said the US “must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

50 min ago

Trump’s response to struck helicopter underscores his reluctance to attack Iran again

Analysis by Aaron Blake

In Trump’s social media post announcing that Iran “shot down” an Army Apache helicopter, one sentence stands out.

After noting that the pilots have been recovered safe and uninjured, Trump adds: “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

It sounds almost begrudging — as if this retaliation must be carried out, even though Trump doesn’t want to do it. This despite Trump saying Iran has literally attacked Americans during a ceasefire. That’s a very muted response.

It’s certainly a far cry from Trump’s previous bluster, when he threatened to strike Iranian infrastructure and end its civilization if it didn’t capitulate. It depicts a president who really doesn’t want to go back to largescale hostilities — and isn’t hiding that fact.

For many weeks now, Trump has made it pretty clear that he’s intent on avoiding going back to war, and he views provocations during the ceasefire as impediments to the deal he wants to cut to get out of Iran.

Repeatedly as those provocations and potential ceasefire violations keep coming, he and his administration have downplayed them or tried to smooth things over — as he did when Iran and Israel began striking each other over the weekend.

But there’s a downside to that approach: Iran knowing he doesn’t want to go back to war reduces his negotiating leverage.

Why Lebanon may hold the key to the future of the Iran war

Analysis by Jeremy Diamond

From Washington to Tehran, all eyes are on Lebanon.

That’s because the future of the Iran war — and the prospects for a deal to end it — could now hinge on what happens in Lebanon, where a secondary front in this regional war is taking center stage. That new reality is the result of Iran’s relentless efforts to link the fate of both conflicts, and of the increasingly diverging priorities of the US president and the Israeli prime minister.

The 12-hour exchange of fire between Israel and Iran had barely ended on Monday when Lebanon’s key role was brought to the fore once again.

In the same breath that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it would cease fire against Israel, it threatened to resume those strikes unless Israel halted its attacks on both Iran and Lebanon, where Tehran’s most powerful regional proxy, Hezbollah, is based.

“It is emphasized that should the aggressions and hostile acts continue — including in southern Lebanon — far more severe and crushing measures than before will be forthcoming,” the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, a key command center for the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard, said in a statement Monday.

If Iran makes good on that threat, Israel and Iran could soon be back at war. Israel has already carried out multiple new airstrikes in southern Lebanon as top Israeli officials rejected Iran’s efforts to link the two fronts and vowed to intensify attacks on Hezbollah.

2 hr 4 min ago

Iranian drone brought down US Army helicopter, US officials say

By Zachary Cohen, Haley Britzky and Kevin Liptak

Two US officials said the Army helicopter downed off the coast of Oman was brought down by an Iranian drone.

A separate source familiar with the incident said an Iranian Shahed drone struck the US helicopter. One of the US officials said that it was unclear whether the drone had targeted the Apache intentionally or if it was an inadvertent take down.

The helicopter’s two crew members were rescued by an uncrewed drone boat, the US military said earlier Tuesday.

President Donald Trump posted on social media that the US military informed him that Iran shot down an Army Apache helicopter and that the US “must” respond.

Iran’s one-way Shahed drones are known to fly low and slow — a feature that makes them more able to evade air defenses than ballistic missiles.