1 crew member rescued, search underway for another as 2 U.S. military jets downed in Iran

ii U.S. Military machine planes were downed in divide attacks on fri, with 1 service member rescued and at least one missing, in a dramatic escalation since the war in the Middle East began nearly five weeks ago.

One fighter jet was shot down in Iran, officials said. A U.S. Crew member from that plane was rescued, but a second was missing, and a U.S. Military search-and-rescue operation was underway.

The downings come 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."

Neither the White House nor Pentagon released public information about the downed planes.

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.

Iranian state media said in a post on the social media platform X that the military shot down a U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle. The aircraft is a variation of the air force fighter jet that carries a pilot and weapons system officer.

In a brief telephone interview with NBC News, Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue efforts but said what happened would not affect negotiations with Iran. "No, not at all. No, it's war," he said.

Prior to word of the rescue, social media footage showed American drones, aircraft and helicopters flying over the mountainous region where a TV channel affiliated with Iranian state television said earlier that at least one pilot bailed out of the fighter jet.

U.S. Fighter jet shot down over Iran: Reuters

A TV anchor urged residents to hand over any "enemy pilot" to police and promised a reward. It was the first time the U.S. Has lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the conflict and could mark a new level of pressure on the U.S. Military.

Separately, Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defence forces.

A U.S. Official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation said earlier that it was not clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down or whether Iran was involved. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it went down was immediately known.

Those incidents came as Iran fired on targets across the Middle East on Friday, keeping 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.

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.

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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.

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 Israeli-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.

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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 United Nations Security Council is expected to take up the matter on Saturday.

Trump has vacillated on the U.S.'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 about $109 US on Friday, up more than 50 per cent since the start of the war, when Iran began restricting traffic through the strait.

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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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