WASHINGTON (AP) – A U.S. service member who has been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued, President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post early Sunday.<\/p>\n
A frantic U.S. search-and-rescue operation unfolded after the crash of the F-15E Strike Eagle jet on Friday, as Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in the \u201cenemy pilot.\u201d \u201cThis brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
A second crew member was rescued earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
Trump said that the aviator is injured but \u201cwill be just fine,\u201d adding that the rescue involved \u201cdozens of aircraft\u201d and that U.S. had been monitoring his location \u201c24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fighter jet was the first U.S. aircraft to have crashed in Iranian territory since the conflict in late February.<\/p>\n
Trump said last week that the U.S. had \u201cdecimated\u201d Iran and would finish the war \u201cvery fast.\u201d Two days later, Iran shot down two U.S. military planes, showing the ongoing perils of the bombing campaign and the ability of a degraded Iranian military to continue to hit back.<\/p>\n
The war began with joint U.S.-Israel strikes on Feb. 28 and has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and spiked fuel prices. Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.<\/p>\n
The other jet to go down was a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft. Neither the status of the crew nor exactly where it crashed was immediately known.<\/p>\n
Trump renews threat<\/p>\n
Trump renewed his threats for Iran to open up the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway for global energy shipments that has been choked off by Tehran, by Monday or face devastating consequences, writing Saturday in a social media post: \u201cRemember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out \u2014 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doors of hell will be opened to you\u201d if Iran\u2019s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi with the country\u2019s joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump\u2019s renewed threat, state media reported. In turn, the general threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.<\/p>\n
But 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 after Islamabad last week said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials \u201chave never refused to go to Islamabad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were working to bring the U.S. and Iran to the negotiating table, according to two regional officials.<\/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. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door diplomacy.<\/p>\n
A second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in the Middle East on Friday, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation. It wasn\u2019t clear if the aircraft crashed or was shot down, or whether Iran was involved.<\/p>\n
Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iran\u2019s defense forces.<\/p>\n
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait<\/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.<\/p>\n
The strait, 32 kilometers (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
\u201cWhich countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?\u201d Qalibaf wrote.<\/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 more than 1 million people have been displaced. Ten Israeli soldiers have died there.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samy Magdy from Cairo. 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
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) – A U.S. service member who has been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,801,232336,250111,250112,3,942,210369,21,19,22,20,25,250110,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-565454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-iran-conflict","11":"tag-iran-shot-down-fighter-jet","12":"tag-missing-us-pilot-rescued","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-president-donald-trump","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-us-service-member-missing","22":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}