Iran war: One downed US fighter jet pilot rescued

We're continuing our coverage of the search and rescue operations for the missing crew member of the US fighter jet downed over Iran here, along with other headlines in the US-Israeli war with Iran.

In his first statement since a US fighter jet was shot down over Iran on Friday, US President Donald Trump declined to share details with NBC News about the search and rescue operation.

He said the loss of the F-15E would not affect talks with Iran. "No, not at all. No, it's war."

In a separate brief conversation with The Independent, Trump remained tight-lipped about how the US might respond if the missing crew member were harmed.

When asked what he would do if Iranian forces reached the pilot, he responded, "We hope that's not going to happen."

Two US aircraft were downed on Friday, prompting an ongoing mission to rescue one of the two crew members who remains unaccounted for:

• An F-15E fighter jet belonging to the US was downed over Iran
• The F-15E had two crew on board, one of whom was reportedly rescued
• An A-10 Warthog belonging to the US was also reportedly downed in the Persian Gulf region
• The lone pilot of A-10 was reportedly also rescued
• A US search and rescue operation is underway to find the second crew member from the F-15E
• Iranian authorities have offered a bounty for the missing US officer

Meanwhile, the conflict has shown little sign of deescalation:

• The UN Security Council postponed a vote on a resolution to reopen the Strait of Hormuz until Saturday
• Mediation efforts led by Pakistan have reportedly reached a dead-end
• Israel conducted strikes on southern Lebanon
• The US Embassy in Beirut urged Americans to leave Lebanon

The New York Times reported Friday that a second US aircraft — an A-10 Warthog — also went down in the Gulf region on Friday, in addition to the F-15E fighter jet that went down over Iran.

The newspaper reported that the lone pilot had been safely rescued, citing two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff previously said that A-10 Warthogs were being used to attack Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

A search and rescue operation is still underway for the second crew member of the F-15E.

After a large convoy of Iraqis crossed into Iran this week, observers worried they would join Iran's war effort against the US and Israel. But, experts say, Iraq's situation is way more complicated than that.  

Find out why analysts believe it is unlikely that Iraq is going to be dragged into the war in this report by DW's Cathrin Schaer.

Efforts to reach a ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran have reached a dead-end, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The latest round of mediation efforts by other countries in the region was led by Pakistan. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran told mediators it was not willing to meet US officials in Islamabad in the coming days.

Iran also said US demands were unacceptable, according to the report.

Iranian officials have previously said that they would only agree to a ceasefire if the US paid war reparations, withdrew from its Middle Eastern bases, and issued a guarantee not to attack Iran again. 

Meanwhile, on Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin also discussed the conflict during a phone call. They both called for an immediate ceasefire, the Kremlin said.

The US Embassy in Beirut urged Americans to leave Lebanon on Friday while commercial flights remain available.

"The security situation in Lebanon is volatile and unpredictable," the embassy said in a statement.

"Airstrikes, drones and rocket attacks occur throughout the country, especially in the south, the Beqaa, and parts of Beirut," it said.

The embassy also said that "Iran and its aligned terrorist militias may intend to target universities in Lebanon," citing Iranian threats against American universities in the region.

In its statement, the embassy did not mention numerous Israeli strikes that have hit Beirut and other parts of Lebanon (see entry below).

The downing of a US jet in Iran showed that Tehran still had the ability to damage US interests in the Middle East, military expert Emma Salisbury told DW. 

Despite the US Air Force having newer and more capable aircraft than Iran, she said Iranian drones and missiles remained a significant threat.

"A lot of the damage that we've seen to both aircraft and ships that has been done by the Iranians has all been drones and missiles," she said. "Ultimately, the US does not have air superiority over Iran, and this is something that I don't think it will be able to achieve anytime soon."

Iran's supply of drones and missiles is also difficult for US and Israeli airstrikes to destroy, she added.

"The Iranians do have huge stocks of drones and huge stocks of missiles, and they are able to fire those from so many locations within Iran that it is really very difficult to attack that kind of capability," Salisbury said. 

Salisbury, a senior fellow at the US-based nonpartisan think tank Foreign Policy Research Institute, spoke to DW shortly before US and Israeli media reported that one of the F-15's two crew had been rescued.

A search-and-rescue operation is ongoing to find the jet's navigator. 

"There are a couple of US Air Force planes conducting a search and rescue operation at the moment," Salisbury said. "It is risky for these planes to be flying so low over hostile land, but it's very important to the US military that they never leave anyone behind." 

One of the two crew members aboard a US fighter jet that was downed over Iran has reportedly been rescued, according to US and Israeli media. The individual is reportedly alive.

US broadcaster CBS News reported the development, citing two anonymous US sources.

Israel's public broadcaster Kan cited Western security sources and online outlet Walla quoted an Israeli security source making similar comments about the pilot's fate. 

US media reported that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the situation. There has not yet been an official response from the White House or the Department of Defense to requests for comment on the fate of the jet's crew members.

A search-and-rescue operation to find the jet's navigator continues. 

The Israeli military (IDF) said on Friday it ‌was carrying out strikes on what it ​called "terror infrastructure" in the ​Lebanese capital, ​Beirut.

Correspondents from the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported hearing loud explosions echoing across the city.

Local media said the strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs, hours after Israel's army issued an evacuation warning for the area. 

The densely populated neighborhoods in the city's south are considered a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. Hundreds of thousands of residents have fled the district to escape the Israeli attacks. 

Also on Friday, the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on Tehran, alongside the strikes in Lebanon's capital.

"In addition to the strikes in Beirut, the IDF has begun a wide-scale wave of strikes targeting infrastructure of the Iranian regime in Tehran," it said.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon says three peacekeepers were injured when an explosion hit one of its positions in the country's south on Friday.

It is the third such incident in a week.

"This afternoon, an explosion inside a UN position near El Adeisse injured three peacekeepers, two seriously. They are all currently being evacuated to hospital," a statement from the force, known as UNIFIL, said.

"We do not yet know the origin of the explosion," the statement added.

The peacekeeping mission called on all parties to respect their obligations to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel "by avoiding combat activities nearby that could put them in danger."

UNIFIL is deployed along the border area between Lebanon and Israel, where fighting between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah has intensified over the past month. 

Lebanon was dragged into the Middle East war in early March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel following the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a US-Israeli attack in Tehran. Israel responded with airstrikes across Lebanon and a ground operation.

On Sunday, a UN peacekeeper was killed when a projectile hit a position near Adchit al-Qusayr in southern Lebanon.

A day later, two Indonesian peacekeepers were killed when an explosion destroyed the vehicle they were traveling in.

UNIFIL said both incidents are under investigation. UN peacekeepers have been monitoring the border region between Israel and Lebanon since 1978.

Iran says it has deployed troops and offered a bounty in its search for US Air Force personnel who were reportedly shot down over southwestern Iran on Friday.

"Military forces have launched a search operation to find the American fighter pilot who was hit earlier today," the state-run Fars news agency said, calling on inhabitants of the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province to help in the search.

"If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police and military forces, you will receive a valuable reward and bonus," said an Iranian television reporter on an official local channel.

US Central Command (CENTCOM), responsible for military operations in the Middle East, did not immediately respond to requests for comment from international media.

But The New York Times and Reuters news agency cited US and Israeli officials who reportedly acknowledged the incident and said a search-and-rescue operation has been launched in an attempt to beat the Iranians to any survivors. The Wall Street Journal and Axios have also reported on the search operation.

The UN Security Council has pushed back a vote on using force to reopen the Strait of Hormuz from Friday until at least Saturday.

The resolution, put forward by Bahrain and backed by other Gulf monarchies, would authorize the use of "defensive" force to protect shipping from Iranian attacks.

The Associated Press reported that the proposal had been watered down after opposition from three veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council: China, France and Russia.

A previous draft reportedly sought to authorize "to use all necessary means" — potentially opening the door to military intervention.

Earlier, on Thursday, China's envoy, Fu Cong, told the Security Council that "legitimizing the unlawful and indiscriminate use of force, which would inevitably lead to further escalation of the situation and lead to serious consequences." 

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, told reporters on Friday that reopening the Strait of Hormuz using force was "unrealistic."

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has cautioned the United Nations Security Council against taking what he called "provocative action."

The number of ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz reportedly increased for three consecutive days this week, according to a report by the data firm Windward.

Windward said 16 cargo ships transited the largely blocked strait on Wednesday, compared with 11 on Tuesday and fewer still on Monday — but the traffic is still a fraction of what was traversing the key sea-route before Israel and the United States began launching attacks on Iran at the end of February.

Windward said most of the ships sailed close to the Iranian coast past the island of Larak, allowing Iran to maintain a "permission-based, selective blockade." However, three ships also reportedly passed closer to the coast of Oman avoiding the corridor controlled by Iran.

One of the ships, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Sohar, is thought to be the first LNG tanker to have passed through the strait since the outbreak of the war, while a French container ship has reportedly also passed through and left the Persian Gulf (see post below).

US President Donald Trump has threatened to take control of the Strait of Hormuz by force. Thousands of US troops have been deployed to the region.

On Friday, Trump wrote on social media: "With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A 'GUSHER' FOR THE WORLD???"

He didn't elaborate on exactly how the US would achieve this or what oil he was referring to.

The narrow streets of East Jerusalem's Old City should be bustling with crowds of pilgrims during Catholic Easter celebrations. But Israeli restrictions due to the US-Israeli war with Iran have kept shops and most holy sites closed. After Ramadan, the war is now casting its shadow over Easter and Passover.

As night fell on Wednesday evening, the Passover festival began for Jews worldwide. On Holy Thursday, Christians began Easter celebrations.

Normally, on Good Friday, tens of thousands of Palestinian and Christians from abroad would be making their way through the narrow streets of the Old City in Israel-annexed East Jerusalem to follow the Via Dolorosa. 

This year, however, only a small group of Franciscan monks was permitted to hold a symbolic procession along the route, which is believed to be the path Jesus took on the way to his crucifixion in Roman Jerusalem.

The procession ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the most significant Christian churches, where Jesus is believed to have been buried and resurrected.

Journalists were only allowed to film the small congregation for a few meters; Israeli police cited the lack of shelters in the area as the reason for the restrictions, in case an Iranian missile alert sounded.

“It's very sad, to see this. Obviously, Good Friday is a sad day, as Jesus was suffering carrying the cross, but with all that is happening, it is important to carry on with our traditions. But it’s sad to see there are no pilgrims here," Issa Kassasieh, a local Christian from the Old City, told DW. "I can just pray that this war will stop soon."

Palestinian Old City inhabitants questioned the Israeli authority’s security concerns and called them a double standard. While the Old City is completely closed off, a few meters away in West Jerusalem, cafes and shops are open.

"We were given orders just to open for takeaway things as we don’t have shelters in the Old City," a coffeeshop owner told DW, who requested to stay anonymous. "But even that doesn’t make sense, there are almost no people here."

The procession only stopped briefly at each of the 14 stations of the Via Dolorosa, with the participants praying for a short while before quickly moving on. Catholic Easter will be followed by Greek-Orthodox Easter next week, another major holy holiday in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

While some church leaders here in Jerusalem have decried the sadness of the current situation, they pointed out that many Christians in the region are struggling much more, particularly those in neighboring Lebanon, where civilians are facing heavy bombardments and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.