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A U.S. fighter jet was shot down in Iran and one of two crew members was rescued, officials said Friday, the first aircraft downed since the war began nearly five weeks ago.
The whereabouts of the second crew member was unknown.
The downing marked a major escalation in the conflict just two days after U.S. President Donald Trump said in a national address that the U.S. has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast.”
The rescue occurred as the U.S. military was conducting a search operation, a U.S. official and an Israeli official said. Three people familiar also confirmed that a search had been underway.
All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitivity of the situation.
No official details were released.
The Pentagon notified the House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member is not known.
The circumstances that downed the plane were at first unclear.
But in an email from the Pentagon obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. military said it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East, without providing more details.
Separately, a second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in the Middle East on Friday, according to a U.S. official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation.
It was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down or whether Iran was involved.
Neither the crew’s status nor where the aircraft went down was immediately known. The New York Times earlier reported that the second aircraft went down.
A U.S. fighter jet was shot down over Iran and a search-and-rescue operation to find any survivors is underway, a U.S. official told Reuters on Friday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not offer further details.
Abu Dhabi worker killed in Iran strike attempt
Those incidents came as Iran fired on targets across the Mideast on Friday.
One Egyptian citizen was killed and four people suffered minor injuries after debris from an intercepted attack fell on Abu Dhabi’s Habshan gas facilities, Abu Dhabi’s media office said.
The Egyptian was killed during the evacuation of the site, while four others — two Egyptians and two Pakistanis — sustained minor injuries, the media office said.
“Significant damage has occurred at the facilities and an assessment is ongoing,” it added.
Tehran has kept the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbours, despite U.S. and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed.
Iran’s attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have roiled stock markets, sent oil prices skyrocketing, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.
Iran has responded with defiance to U.S. President Donald Trump’s national address in which he promised to bomb Iran ‘back to the stone age.’ Iran’s parliamentary speaker said any attack would be met by a nation ‘locked, loaded and standing tall. Bring it on.’
Iran targets desalination plant, refinery
Iran also attacked Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery and the state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. said firefighters were working to control several blazes.
Kuwait also said an Iranian attack caused “material damage” to a desalination plant. Such plants are responsible for most of the drinking water for Gulf states, and they have become a major target in the war.
Sirens also sounded in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian drones and Israel reported incoming missiles.
Authorities in the United Arab Emirates shut down a gas field after a missile interception reportedly rained debris on it and started a fire.
Rising death toll
Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it wasn’t immediately clear what was hit. A day earlier, Iran said the U.S. hit a major bridge, which was still under construction, killing eight people.
In Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group, an Israeli drone strike on worshippers leaving Friday prayers near Beirut killed two people, according to the state‑run National News Agency.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes. In a review released Friday, the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data group said it found that civilian casualties were clustered around strikes on security and state-linked sites, “rather than indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.
More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, 19 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than one million displaced in Lebanon. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
As the war in the Middle East enters its second month, an estimated one million people in Lebanon have been displaced, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Lebanon and Syria are facing a ‘triple emergency’ from direct damage to infrastructure and basic necessities, rising oil prices and broader geopolitical repercussions, says David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee.
Iran keeping chokehold on Strait of Hormuz
Meanwhile, world leaders have struggled to end Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has had far-reaching consequences for the global economy and has proved to be its greatest strategic advantage in the war.
The UN Security Council was expected to take up the matter on Saturday.
Trump has vacillated on America’s role in the strait, alternately threatening Iran if it doesn’t open the waterway and telling other nations to “go get your own oil.” On Friday, he said in a post on social media that, “with a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE.”
Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, were around $109 US on Friday, up more than 50 per cent since the start of the war, when Iran began restricting traffic through the strait.
Andrew Chang explains why a U.S. military takeover of Kharg Island — one of Iran’s most critical energy assets — could lead to heavy losses, with uncertain gains.
Images provided by The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images
Former top diplomat suggests terms to end war
Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif — a diplomat with long experience negotiating with the West, who remains close to a pragmatic wing of Iran’s leadership — wrote on Friday that the time has come to end the suffering.
“Prolonged hostility will cause a greater loss of precious lives and irreplaceable resources without actually altering the existing stalemate,” Zarif, who helped negotiate Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine.
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, dismantling Iran’s nuclear facilities and limiting its missile production in exchange for sanctions relief. But no signs of progress were apparent in the diplomatic effort.
Iran’s initial five-point counterproposal, aired by hardline state television, included recognizing Iran’s sovereignty over the strait, the removal of U.S. bases from the region, compensation for war damage and a guarantee against further aggression — all things likely unpalatable to the Trump administration.
Zarif’s proposal included elements of both of the plans.
Iran “should offer to place limits on its nuclear program and to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an end to all sanctions — a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now,” he wrote.
Tehran and Washington were in talks about Iran’s nuclear program when the U.S. and Israel began bombing on Feb. 28 — the second time under Trump that the U.S. has attacked while in negotiations.
It’s not clear how much to read into Zarif’s proposal. While he has no official position in Iran’s government, he helped get reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian elected and would likely not have published such a piece without at least some authorization from senior leaders.
But it also remains unclear who in Iran has the authority to negotiate, since many leaders have been killed in the war. Immediately after the piece came out, Zarif wrote he had been “torn” about it — a sign he may already face pressure at home.
What’s more, it’s not clear how Trump will respond. Thousands of U.S. marines and paratroopers have been ordered to the region, raising speculation that there could be a ground offensive.
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