Will continue ‘very hard attacks’, says Trump as U.S., Iran trade fire

Will continue ‘very hard attacks’, says Trump as U.S., Iran trade fire

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. would continue to “attack Iran very hard”, after a tit-for-tat exchange in which Washington launched air strikes 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.

“We are going to be attacking them, attacking them very hard,” Mr. Trump told presspersons 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”. In a message to commemorate 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.”

‘Pay the price’

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump warned that Iran “will have to pay the price” for taking “too long” to negotiate a deal.

“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,” he said.

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 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.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported that U.S. strikes destroyed two reservoirs in Bamani Sirik. The attack affected drinking water supply for about 20,000 people, according to a report in Press TV.