Mena Today

The United States on Tuesday launched strikes against Iran after President Donald Trump said Tehran had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz, deepening doubts about prospects for peace between the two countries. 

Iran's national football team will travel to the United States by charter flight on June 14 — just one day before their opening World Cup match against New Zealand in Los Angeles, the Iranian Football Federation confirmed Tuesday.

The ousted head of Turkey's main opposition party on Tuesday urged lawmakers to resist what he called a bid to eliminate it, while its court-appointed new leader pledged at a rival meeting to "cleanse the party of dirt", deepening an opposition crisis.

Peru's presidential race tightened overnight with candidates now separated by less than 0.1% as overseas ballots are swinging the race back to conservative Keiko Fujimori, giving markets an early boost on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday Iran had shot down a U.S. Apache helicopter that was patrolling the Strait of Hormuz overnight and vowed to respond, but gave no other details.

The rescue of two U.S. Army helicopter crew members by a Navy drone has spotlighted Task Force 59, the U.S. Navy's first dedicated unmanned systems unit, based in Bahrain and part of Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), which oversees U.S. naval operations in the Middle East. 

Israel struck the historic port city of Tyre in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, killing at least eight people, in an escalation that adds strain to efforts to broker a peace deal to end the wider Middle East war.

President Donald Trump declared early Tuesday that US diplomacy was in the "final efforts" of securing a deal with Iran to end the conflict in the Gulf, suggesting an agreement could be reached within days.

Tehran will turn the naval blockade established by the United States into another defeat for the "enemy", Iran's top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said in a message posted on his Telegram channel on Monday. 

In launching renewed strikes on Iran on Monday in apparent open defiance of Donald Trump, Israel has tried to make its case to have a say at the peace negotiating table, where it has so far been kept at arm's length by the U.S. president.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi called on Iran on Monday to "re-engage" with him so inspections can resume at sites the U.S. and Israel bombed a year ago, as the U.S. led a push for a resolution to that effect at the agency's board.

Iran's military announced on Monday that its first wave of attacks on Israel since a ceasefire in April was now over, although it threatened to resume the strikes if Israel continued attacks on Lebanon.