War in the Middle East
by Ronan McGreevy and Sarah Burns in The Irish Times
Main points
- A US fighter jet was shot down over Iran, and a search is underway for its crew, a US official has said.
- A drone strike in southern Iran hit a warehouse holding aid containers and emergency vehicles, a spokesperson for the IFRC said.
- U.S. President Donald Trump claimed the US could “easily” open up the Strait of Hormuz but needs “more time”.
Iran is offering $60,000 for US pilot to be handed over
Sky News international correspondent Diana Magnay has been discussing the situation facing the American military as one of its pilots remains missing.
“It shows the jeopardy of conducting an air war, at the scale at which the Israeli and American forces are conducting it.”
The F-15 fighter jet went down over Iran, with one pilot rescued and the other still missing.
“Obviously, Tehran and Washington are desperately keen to get their hands on him or her,” she says.
“And there’s a reward out on that pilot’s head with the local governors saying, you get $60,000 if you hand him over alive or her alive to police in the region.
“There is reporting that US special forces are on the ground. And they did manage to locate that first pilot pretty rapidly.”
This is a “very risky operation”, she says.
Fate of F-15E fighter jet crew unclear
The fate of the F-15 Eagle fighter jet’s crew was unclear, as US officials scrambled to mount a search and rescue operation before Iran could get to any survivors, officials said.
U.S. Central Command keeps multiple task forces set up near Iran for search and rescue operations if US warplanes are shot down, including in both Iraq and Syria, the officials said. But such an operation is highly difficult because Iran has demonstrated its ability to launch strikes, particularly at slow-moving helicopters that might be involved in such an operation.
The warplane was shot down the same day that President Donald Trump celebrated the US bombing of an Iranian highway bridge and warned on social media that there was “much more to follow.” The US attack on the B1 bridge between Tehran and the shores of the Caspian Sea killed eight people and wounded 95, Iranian news media reported.
A US military official said American forces had struck the bridge twice, eliminating what the official called a planned military supply route for Iran’s missile and drone forces.
On Wednesday night, Trump, in an address to the nation, said the US was on track to complete its military objectives in Iran soon, asserting that U.S. and Israeli military strikes had decimated the Iranian regime and military. He vowed another two to three weeks of intense bombing. — The New York Times’
‘Key moment in the conflict,’ says the professor
A search operation is reportedly continuing for a second crew member of the US jet shot down in Iran.
A University professor described the event as a key moment in the conflict.
Scott Lucas told Sky News it is a “huge symbolic victory” for Iran to show it can shoot down a US jet.
“If they were able either to show that they have killed the pilot or that they have captured the pilot, that will be used as well to magnify this idea that they have triumphed over the Americans,” he said.
Lucas, a professor of international politics, said the Americans had air superiority over Iran but “in a way this has been dented”. He said the US is looking vulnerable because the Iranians have been able to carry out retaliatory strikes.
The war, or at least according to Trump was won weeks ago. All objective achieved. Well that’s what he said.
Only issue is that this doesn’t seem to be the case. The Strait of Hormuz is still.choked off, Iran is pounding infrastructure all across the Gulf states. Oil tankers are being hit. Israel is being hit.
It very much looks like the US has got itself into a real mess and that Iran are exposing the US on the world stage as incompetent and not having achieved their objectives.
So what’s left now for the mafia Don. Bomb the best part of a 100 million people back to the Stone Age?
Seems so, because that’s what he has said. Take out all of the country’s power rendering everything from water to sewage to hospitals whilst destroying the country’s other infrastructure like inoperable power plants or the country’s roads and bridges.
Think about that — if every power plant in Scotland was destroyed. All the hospitals left without power. Everything in fact without power. And all the petrol and diesel supply chain destroyed. It’s a sobering thought. And this is the plan for nearly 100 million people.
Its scary stuff how worthless human life is. Truly astounding. But, and I jest not, the Don and a pastor were in public prayer yesterday asking for God’s help to enable them to destroy their enemy.
Thank goodness it’s not us. That’s all I have to say.