The US says it has carried out a series of strikes on Iranian military and surveillance sites in response to the downing of an American helicopter in the Gulf.
Air defence systems, ground control stations and radar sites were targeted near the Strait of Hormuz, the US military Central Command (Centcom) said.
In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched strikes on 21 targets at US bases in the region, one in Bahrain and the other in Jordan, while Kuwait’s army said it was also intercepting an attack.
The US has described its strikes as “a proportional response” for the Apache helicopter downing on Monday, while the IRGC described the attacks as “vicious”.
US President Donald Trump had earlier accused Iran of shooting down the helicopter and said the US “must, of necessity” respond. The two crew members survived and were rescued by an American sea drone.
According to US officials, Iran used a drone to launch the attack on the helicopter. But it is not clear whether the Iranian drone had deliberately attacked, an unnamed US official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner. The semi-official Mehr News Agency reported that Iran had not claimed responsibility for the downed aircraft.
Trump said the helicopter had been patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping channel that was effectively closed days after the US and Israel launched its first strikes on Iran in late February.
On Wednesday, the IRGC said US strikes had damaged a telecommunications tower and two water tanks, and added the US had targeted the cities of Jask and Sirik, and Qeshm – an island in the Gulf.
US officials are yet to comment on reports of attacks on its bases and it is unclear if there has been any damage. Jordan’s military said it had shot down five missiles fired from Iran.
Earlier, an air raid alert was issued in Bahrain, according to local authorities who said Iranian attacks had been repelled.
Iran’s foreign minister issued a threat to the US in the aftermath of the renewed US attacks, saying the country “will leave no attack or threat unanswered”.
“Despite its defeats on the battlefield, the US opted to test our determination,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
He added: “Leave our region if you want to be safe.”
In Washington, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said he was in the room with Trump when he decided that US attacks on Iran should resume.
“We lament that it became necessary,” said the top Republican in Congress, adding that “we’re going to have to take care of this business”.
Watch: Has Donald Trump lost control of the Iran war?
Araghchi said on Tuesday that foreign forces near Iran’s territory were at “constant risk on account of their own human errors, plain accidents or potentially being caught in crossfire”.
“To reduce risk, best solution is for them [foreign forces] to leave,” the Iranian leader said in a post on X.
Minutes before Trump’s comments on the downed American Apache helicopter on Tuesday, Iran’s top negotiator in peace talks with Washington, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, took to social media to signal retaliation.
“We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we’ll switch to what we speak best.”
“You ride the horse you saddled!,” he wrote.
It remains to be seen what impact the exchange of fire will have on the negotiations between the US and Iran.
But Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqai told reporters on Wednesday that the US was “damaging this diplomatic process through the contradictory messages it sends, its repeated shifts in positions and demands, and, worst of all, through repeated violations of the ceasefire”.
He said Iran needed to re-assess the situation, adding that any diplomatic process required a minimum of stability.
The flare-up between the US and Iran comes after Israeli forces carried out strikes across southern Lebanon on Tuesday.
Tehran had warned that Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon would trigger another wave of retaliatory strikes.
Israel and Iran halted attacks on each other after exchanging fire over the weekend for the first time since April’s truce.
Trump publicly told both countries to “immediately stop ‘shooting'” because they were jeopardising negotiations between Washington and Tehran on a deal to end the regional war.
He said on social media platform Truth Social that Israel and Iran are looking to do “an immediate ceasefire” but peace is “subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way”.
On Tuesday he also told journalists: “We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” adding that it could take “two or three days” and the Strait of Hormuz would open immediately after.
