Iran shot down two US military planes in separate attacks late Friday night, with one service member rescued and at least one missing, in a dramatic escalation since the war began nearly five weeks ago.
It is the first time US aircraft have been downed in the conflict and came 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 we’re going to finish it very fast.” One fighter jet was shot down in Iran, officials said. A US crew member from that plane was rescued, but a second was missing, and a US military search-and-rescue operation was underway.
Neither the White House nor Pentagon released public information about the downed planes. 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.
Separately, Iranian state media said a US. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iranian defence forces. A US 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 US and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed.
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