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The US and Iran have exchanged fire after President Donald Trump blamed Tehran for the downing of an American military helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said it launched airstrikes at Iranian targets at 17:00 ET (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday and later said the operation was complete.

In response, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it launched strikes on two 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, while the IRGC described the attacks as “vicious”.

The exchange of fire comes after two crew members of the downed helicopter were rescued by an American sea drone on Monday, Centcom said. It was the first time the US military publicly confirmed that type of vessel was used in such an operation.

According to US officials, Iran used a drone to launch the attack on the helicopter. But it’s 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.

In response, Centcom said US fighter jets “struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz”.

The IRGC said US strikes had damaged a telecommunications tower and two water tanks.

Iran said the US had targeted the cities of Jask and Sirik, and Qeshem – an island in the Gulf.

Centcom released the statement saying the mission was “completed” just over three hours after it announced an initial wave of strikes triggered by the downing of the US helicopter on Monday.

US officials are yet to comment on reports of attacks on its bases and it is unclear if there has been any damage. However, an air raid alert was issued in Bahrain, according to local authorities who said Iranian attacks had been repelled.

US President Donald Trump said earlier on Tuesday the downed helicopter had been patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping channel that was effectively closed days after the US launched its first strikes on Iran in late February.

“There were two pilots involved, both are safe and uninjured,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.”

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 gonna have to take care of this business”.

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.”

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 helicopte 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.

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 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.

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US President Donald Trump abruptly walked out of an interview with NBC after being repeatedly challenged on several claims by the show’s presenter Kristen Welker.

During the interview, which aired on Sunday’s Meet The Press, the president claimed both the current primary elections in California and the 2020 presidential election were “rigged”.

When pressed for evidence on California’s vote by Welker, he said: “All I have to do is look, and I listen.”

After the presenter replied “that’s not evidence”, Trump accused the media of being “crooked”, before ending the interview: “Sorry, let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough.”

The president has had a fraught relationship with traditional media outlets, often accusing them of bias against him.

The interview, set in a barn as Trump appeared at an event with farmers in Wisconsin, was delayed repeatedly due to technical difficulties and rain hitting the metal roof. NBC reported that he walked out 50 minutes after sitting down for it on Friday.

Much of the interview involved Welker questioning Trump over the conflict with Iran, with him insisting the US needed to act to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and that it would not be “an endless war”.

“We’re there for a few months and the threat is largely over,” he said.

Around six minutes before he left the set, the pair discussed the “anti-weaponisation” fund, a now-dropped plan to create a $1.8bn (£1.3bn) fund to compensate individuals who claim they were unfairly targeted or investigated by the government.

The plan drew strong criticism from Democrats and some Republicans, who argued it could result in payments to people prosecuted over the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.

The pair then moved onto discussing that riot, and Trump was challenged after he repeated his unsubstantiated claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

Trump turned to the California primary elections, where votes are still being counted to determine which two candidates in a series of races – including governor of the state – will be on the ballot in November’s midterm elections.

He said the results had not been called after four days, adding: “They’re cheating on the election.”

“Do you have evidence to support that?” Welker responded.

“All I have to do is look, and I listen,” the president replied.

“But that’s not evidence,” she interjected.

Full results have not yet been called in the state where delays are common due to a particularly meticulous vote-counting process and broad use of mail-in ballots. Mail-in voting has long irked the president.

“They’re crooked,” he continued, “just like you’re crooked.”

Welker said: “To be fair, I’m not crooked. But let’s continue.”

Trump then told Welker “you’re either crooked or you’re stupid”, and after a further exchange said: “Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you darling, have a good time.”

Welker attempted to continue the interview, but Trump interrupted: “I’ve sat in the rain with you for an hour, on and off in the rain, and I’ve given you enough time.

“You ought to straighten out your press, because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest press.”

He then gestured to people behind the camera, saying “come on, let’s go”, before standing up and walking off the set.

After the interview was broadcast, Welker said: “I spoke with President Trump on Saturday and we both acknowledged the complications during the interview posed by the rain. He agreed to sit down with me for another Meet the Press interview.”

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Iran still has “21, 22 per cent” of its missiles left, US President Donald Trump said Friday, in a week in which Tehran fired dozens of them toward regional neighbours, despite a sputtering ceasefire.

“They still have capacity. They have some missiles, they have some drones. I would say, percentage wise, maybe 21, 22 percent of their missiles,” Trump told NBC News in an interview.

That figure for Iran’s missile stockpile is higher than one of 18 per cent Trump gave in May. He has often claimed to have completely destroyed Iran’s war-fighting capacity.

Iran’s military said Friday it had fired “warning missiles” at two US destroyers in the Gulf of Oman — a claim promptly denied by the US military. Two days earlier, Kuwait said it had intercepted 30 ballistic missiles fired as part of “heinous Iranian aggression.”

AFP