DUBAI: A US fighter jet was shot down in Iran on Friday and one crew member was rescued, officials said, the first aircraft downed since the war began nearly five weeks ago.
It marked a major escalation in the conflict just two days after President Donald Trump said in a national address that the US has “beaten and completely decimated Iran” and was “going to finish the job, and were going to finish it very fast.”
A channel affiliated with Iranian state television claimed Friday that a US fighter pilot ejected from their aircraft over southwestern Iran. The US military launched a rescue operation after the media report.
Social media footage showed American drones, aircraft and helicopters flying over the mountainous region where the Iranian channel said at least one pilot bailed out of the fighter jet.
President Donald Trump has been briefed about the downing of a US warplane in Iran that has triggered a major search and rescue operation for the crew, the White House said Friday.
Iran fired on targets across the Mideast on Friday, as Tehran kept the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, despite US 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.
The anchor on the Iranian channel urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police and promised a reward for anyone who did. The channel is in Kohkilouyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, an intensely rural and mountainous region that spans over 15,500 square kilometers (5,900 square miles).
Authorities also urged the public to search for the pilot in neighboring Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down piloted enemy aircraft that turned out not to be true. Friday was the first time that Iran went on television urging the public to look for a suspected downed pilot.
An on-screen crawl earlier urged the public to “shoot them if you see them,” referring to social media footage circulating of what appeared to be US aircraft in the area. The channel showed metal debris in the back of a pickup truck while making the announcement but provided no other immediate details.
