Iran continues to fire missiles and drones at Arab Gulf states and Israel. Dubai authorities reported that debris from an aerial interception fell on the facade of an Oracle Corp. building in Dubai Internet City on Saturday morning. They also reported debris falling on a building in the nearby Dubai Marina area. No fire or injuries were reported.<\/p>\n
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Iranian media reported more missiles strikes against Israel the same day.<\/p>\n
The downing of the US jet came after US President Donald Trump said in a primetime speech on Wednesday that Iran had \u201cno anti-aircraft equipment.\u201d His military commanders, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have previously touted US air superiority over Iranian territory.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first known combat loss of a US or Israeli plane since the two countries began attacking Iran on Feb. 28. Still, three US aircraft were downed by friendly fire in Kuwait early in the war, with others destroyed or damaged at airbases by Iranian drone and missile strikes.<\/p>\n
The US rescued one of the F-15 crew members, according to an American official who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive information. The status of the second person is unclear and Iranian media said Tehran offered a reward of about $66,000 to citizens who \u201ccapture the pilot alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump declined to discuss the search-and-rescue operations in an interview with NBC News on Friday. He said the events wouldn\u2019t affect any peace negotiations with Iran, according to a reporter who spoke to him on a call.<\/p>\n
The lone pilot of the second plane \u2014 an A-10 Warthog \u2014 was safely rescued, the New York Times reported.<\/p>\n
Iran has continued to hit key energy infrastructure in the past two days.<\/p>\n
The UAE\u2019s largest natural gas processing facility, Habshan, suspended operations after debris from a projectile interception sparked a fire. A drone attack set ablaze Kuwait\u2019s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, which can process almost 350,000 barrels a day of crude.<\/p>\n
The United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a member, said it detected 69 projectiles fired from Iran on Friday, including 47 drones and 18 ballistic missiles. That was the highest number of projectiles since March 8, according to data published by UAE authorities. The UAE, like other Gulf states and Israel, has intercepted the vast majority of Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s military said it hit air defense sites and missile storage facilities in a wave of airstrikes on Tehran on Friday. Iran said US-Israeli strikes hit a petrochemical zone in Mahshahr, in the southwestern Khuzestan province on Saturday. Authorities ordered the evacuation of all personnel and said any potential pollutants don\u2019t pose a risk to nearby cities, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Iran has shown little sign of accepting Trump\u2019s demands for peace and has laid out its own conditions \u2014 most of them unacceptable to the US and Israel.<\/p>\n
The New York Times, citing US intelligence reports, said Iranian personnel have been digging out underground missile bunkers and silos struck by American and Israeli bombs and returning them to operation hours after attacks. That casts doubt on the US and Israel\u2019s ability to destroy Iran\u2019s missile capability \u2014 one of their key war goals.<\/p>\n
Trump signaled this week he may be willing to pull US forces out of the conflict in two to three weeks, even if the Strait of Hormuz is still effectively shut.<\/p>\n
US allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia are stepping up efforts to ensure the waterway \u2014 through which one fifth of the world\u2019s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies normally flow \u2014 is reopened soon.<\/p>\n
More than 40 of them met virtually on Thursday to discuss plans, in a signal to Trump of their concern about the crisis triggered by the closure, with prices of energy and other commodities soaring in the past month.<\/p>\n
The group was clear any ceasefire talks with Iran needed to include a solution for Hormuz, people familiar with the discussions said. Still, the meeting showed the coalition of countries deem it necessary to begin preparations for having to reopen the strait without the US.<\/p>\n
Nations such as France and the UK have said military options are unlikely to work until there\u2019s a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Bahrain, supported by Jordan and Arab Gulf states, is proposing a United Nations Security Council resolution aimed at helping re-open Hormuz, according to the UAE. It would provide \u201ca clear legal basis for all states to mobilize and support safe passage,\u201d the UAE said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s unclear when a vote on the resolution will take place.<\/p>\n
Russia, an Iranian ally, pushed back on the initiative, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying it would \u201clegitimize aggression against Iran.\u201d The comments signal Moscow may use its veto power, as one of five permanent members of the Security Council.<\/p>\n
Iran appeared to tighten its grip on the strait on Thursday, when its media reported that the government is drafting a protocol with Oman to monitor traffic. That would require shippers to pay tolls to Iran, according to its deputy foreign minister.<\/p>\n
The passage is officially in international waters and any attempt by Iran to assert control over traffic will be opposed strongly by Western powers and Gulf Arab states.<\/p>\n
A trickle of ships is managing to pass through. A French container ship and a Japanese-owned tanker have crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the past two days, in what appear to be the first such transits since the war in Iran shuttered the crucial waterway.<\/p>\n
Trump has swung between casting diplomatic efforts with Iran as productive, and threatening further destruction. Earlier this week, he vowed to target Iran\u2019s energy facilities and perhaps water desalination plants if the strait stays shut \u2014 a move that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.<\/p>\n
He previously said Iran has until April 6 to reopen Hormuz or have its power plants destroyed. It\u2019s unclear if that deadline is still in place.<\/p>\n
The president is under increasing pressure from Americans to ease the energy shock, which has seen gasoline pump prices in the country jump to more than $4 a gallon on average. That\u2019s the highest in almost four years and carries political risks for Trump and his Republican Party as the November midterm elections approach.<\/p>\n
US benchmark oil prices, or WTI futures, closed above $111 a barrel last week and have almost doubled this year.<\/p>\n
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, almost three-quarters of them in Iran, according to government organizations and the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Just over 1,300 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting a parallel war against Iran-allied Hezbollah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran continues to fire missiles and drones at Arab Gulf states and Israel. Dubai authorities reported that debris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[20818,7226,177,7696,20819,5084,12468,49,39,201,20820,36],"class_list":["post-51467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-built-structure","tag-city","tag-conflict","tag-damaged","tag-destruction","tag-horizontal","tag-lebanon-country","tag-middle-east","tag-persian-gulf","tag-photography","tag-rescue-worker","tag-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116346763529270022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}