TEL AVIV\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. military pressed ahead Saturday in a frantic search for a missing airman over a remote area in Iran, a day after the Islamic Republic shot down a U.S. warplane and promised a reward for whoever turns in the crew member.<\/p>\n
The plane, identified by Iran as a F-15E Strike Eagle, was one of two attacked Friday, with one airman from each aircraft reportedly rescued. It was the first time the United States lost aircraft in Iranian territory during the war, now in its sixth week, and could add pressure on the Trump administration to end the fighting.<\/p>\n
The war, which began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28, has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and sent fuel prices soaring. It shows no signs of slowing as Iran responds to airstrikes with attacks across the region.<\/p>\n
The downing of the American planes came two days after President Trump said in a national address that the United States has \u201cbeaten and completely decimated Iran.\u201d The U.S. and Israel had boasted that Iran\u2019s air defenses were obliterated.<\/p>\n
But on Saturday, an apparent Iranian drone damaged the headquarters of U.S. technology company Oracle in Dubai. Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets and infrastructure in the war.<\/p>\n
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said that an airstrike hit near its Bushehr nuclear facility, killing a security guard and damaging a support building. It\u2019s the fourth time the facility has been targeted. The head of Russia\u2019s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said that 198 workers were being evacuated.<\/p>\n
Prospects for talks<\/p>\n
Iran, meanwhile, indicated its willingness to join talks to end the war. Speaking of Pakistan\u2019s announcement last week it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that officials in his government \u201chave never refused to go to Islamabad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told the Associated Press that his government\u2019s efforts to broker a ceasefire are \u201cright on track.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt are working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table in Pakistan, according to two regional officials. They said that they were working on a compromise to bridge the gap between the two sides\u2019 demands to stop the war and reopen the crucial Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
The proposed compromise includes a cessation of hostilities to allow a diplomatic settlement, according to a regional official involved in the efforts and a gulf diplomat briefed on the matter. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.<\/p>\n
The U.N. Security Council is expected to take up the matter of reopening the strait Saturday. And Trump reminded Iran of his Monday deadline to open the strait or make a deal, warning on his social media platform of \u201c48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,\u201d apparently meaning \u201crain down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran hunts for \u2018enemy pilot\u2019<\/p>\n
The search for the U.S. airman focused on a mountainous region in Iran\u2019s southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad.<\/p>\n
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon released information, but in an email from the Pentagon, obtained by the AP, the military said that it received notification of \u201can aircraft being shot down\u201d in the Middle East, without further details.<\/p>\n
A U.S. crew member was rescued. But the Pentagon notified the House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member wasn\u2019t known.<\/p>\n
In a telephone interview with NBC News, Trump said that what happened wouldn\u2019t affect negotiations with Iran.<\/p>\n
Separately, Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by its defense forces. A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation said that it wasn\u2019t clear whether the aircraft crashed or was shot down. The crew\u2019s status was not known, officials said, although the U.S. military had said earlier that the sole airman had been rescued. <\/p>\n
An anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents to hand over any \u201cenemy pilot\u201d to police. It was the first time in the war that Iran has shot down an American aircraft. Iran previously made claims about shooting down piloted aircraft that turned out not to be true.<\/p>\n
Oracle\u2019s offices hit in Dubai<\/p>\n
An apparent Iranian drone damaged the Dubai headquarters of Oracle after Iran\u2019s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened the firm. Video verified by the AP outside the United Arab Emirates showed a large hole in the building\u2019s southwestern corner.<\/p>\n
The sheikhdom\u2019s Dubai Media Office, which speaks for its government, noted a \u201cminor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception that fell on the facade,\u201d saying there were no injuries.<\/p>\n
Oracle Corp., founded in California by Larry Ellison, now a Trump ally, and based in Austin, Texas, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The Revolutionary Guard has accused some of the largest U.S. tech companies of being involved in \u201cterrorist espionage\u201d operations against the Islamic Republic and called them legitimate targets. Amazon Web Services facilities in the UAE and Bahrain were hit in earlier drone strikes.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s veiled threat to disrupt second waterway<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, issued a veiled threat late Friday to disrupt traffic through a second strategic waterway in the region, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. <\/p>\n
The strait, 20 miles wide, links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. More than a tenth of seaborne global oil and a quarter of container ships pass through it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat share of global oil, LNG, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait?\u201d Qalibaf wrote, referring to liquefied natural gas. \u201cWhich countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.<\/p>\n
In gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed. In Lebanon, more than 1,400 people have been killed and there have been more than 1 million displaced people. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.<\/p>\n
Mednick, Magdy and Gambrell write for the Associated Press and reported from Tel Aviv, Cairo and Dubai, respectively. AP writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia; and Konstantin Toropin, Seung Min Kim, Will Weissert, Michelle L. Price, Lisa Mascaro and Ben Finley in Washington contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEL AVIV\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. military pressed ahead Saturday in a frantic search for a missing airman over a remote…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3763,1101,1567,394,34,2861,650,722,398,20869,3760,1219,20868,683,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-51702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-aircraft","9":"tag-ap","10":"tag-dubai","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-official","14":"tag-pakistan","15":"tag-president-trump","16":"tag-region","17":"tag-seaborne-global-oil","18":"tag-search","19":"tag-strait","20":"tag-u-s-warplane","21":"tag-u-s","22":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116347797730737260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51702","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=51702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}