U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday (June 10, 2026) that the U.S. would continue to “attack Iran very hard”, after a tit-for-tat exchange in which the U.S. launched airstrikes following the downing of an American military helicopter over the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran retaliated with attacks on U.S. bases in the region.
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“We are gonna be attacking them, attacking them very hard,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We hit them hard yesterday, and we are going to hit them again hard today.” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s Parliament Speaker, said any attack on Iran would be met with “immediate and decisive response”.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump warned that Iran would have to pay a price for not reaching a deal with the U.S. “Iran’s military is a complete and total mess. Much of it, like their Navy and Air Force, doesn’t even exist any more — they have been completely defeated. Iran is all talk and no action,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post. “The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price.”
Mr. Trump had said on Tuesday (June 9, 2026) that Iran shot down “one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz” and that the U.S. would respond to the attack. U.S. air strikes followed.
The U.S. forces struck “Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz with precision munitions,” U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Wednesday. “The operation was a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.”
Iran, which neither confirmed nor denied that it downed the Apache Helicopter, responded with missile and drone attacks at U.S. bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan.
“In response to the military aggression and the violation of Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the country’s ‘powerful armed forces’ struck U.S. bases and assets in the region that were the origin of these aggressions,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
According to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet headquarters and the Sheikh Isa air base in Bahrain, Al-Azraq base in Jordan and Ali al-Salem base in Kuwait were the sites targeted by Iranian missiles and drones.
The IRGC also claimed that it “intercepted and destroyed” an American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the city of Jam in Bushehr province.
“During the ongoing aerial engagements in the Strait of Hormuz, an MQ-9 drone that intended to approach and intervene in the battle zone from the skies over the northern Persian Gulf was struck and destroyed in the skies over the city of Jam in Bushehr Province,” the IRGC said.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that U.S. strikes destroyed two water reservoirs in Bamani Sirik. The attack affected drinking water supply for about 20,000 people, according to a report in Press TV.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Wednesday that any act of aggression against the Islamic Republic “will be met with an immediate and decisive response”. In a message released to commemorate the the 12‑day war of June 2025, Mr. Ghalibaf said: “The imposed wars, the first, second and third, have shown the world that the path of victory and triumph passes through steadfastness and martyrdom.”
The U.S.-Iran exchange of strikes followed a similar exchange of fire between Iran and Israel earlier this week. Iran launched missiles at Israel, the first direct attack on Israel since the April 8 ceasefire was announced, in retaliation for Israeli strikes at Beirut, and Israel responded with air strikes. President Trump then asked both sides to stop “shooting” at each other, and said the U.S. and Iran were still close to reaching an agreement.
Over the past two months, Mr. Trump had said several times that a deal was within reach. But tensions persisted in the Strait of Hormuz, which remains under Iran’s control. The U.S. has a blockade on Iran’s ports on April 13, after direct negotiations in Islamabad failed to make any breakthrough.
Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. blockade is fully effective. “Nothing gets through unless we want it to. It is a steel wall! Iran is doing zero business, not paying their military, or any of their bills, and quickly becoming a failed nation! Lots of oil is getting out,” he wrote in a social media post.
Published – June 10, 2026 06:11 pm IST
