As search for missing U.S. airman continues, Trump again issues threat over Strait of Hormuz
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
- A U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran, marking the first American aircraft lost in Iranian territory during the six-week conflict.
- Iran is calling on its citizens to locate the missing pilot and offering a reward.
- The incident could pressure the Trump administration to pursue a ceasefire, as Pakistani mediators work to broker talks between the U.S. and Iran.
TEL AVIV — President Trump on Saturday again warned Iran to open the crucial Strait of Hormuz by his Monday deadline, and Tehran called his threat “unbalanced and foolish.” The search for a missing U.S. airman continued for a second day in a remote part of the Islamic Republic.
Trump has called Tehran “beaten and completely decimated” in the war, now in its sixth week, but the downing of two U.S. warplanes Friday and Iran’s call to find the “enemy pilot” have cast doubt on the president’s claims while raising the stakes.
“The doors of hell will be opened to you” if Iran’s infrastructure is attacked, Gen. Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi of the Iranian joint military command said late Saturday in response to Trump’s renewed threat, state media reported. The general in turn threatened all infrastructure used by the U.S. military in the region.
The war, which began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, has killed thousands, shaken global markets, cut off key shipping routes and sent fuel prices soaring. Both sides have threatened, and hit, civilian targets, bringing warnings of possible war crimes.
“We will continue to crush them,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday. Israel’s military confirmed that it struck a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr, Iran, that Netanyahu said helps to fund the war. Five people were killed and 170 injured, Iranian state media reported, citing a provincial security official.
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’s the fourth time the facility has been targeted.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, which helped build the Bushehr site, said that 198 workers were being evacuated.
Prospects for talks
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Tahir Andrabi, told the AP that his government’s efforts to broker a ceasefire are “right on track.” Late last month, Pakistan said that it would soon host talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said that Iranian officials “have never refused to go to Islamabad.”
Mediators from Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt were 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’ demands to stop the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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.
Trump reminded Iran of his deadline in a social media post. “Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out — 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them,” the president wrote, apparently meaning “rain down.”
Missing U.S. airman
The search for the U.S. airman focused on a mountainous region in Iran’s southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad. An anchor on a channel affiliated with Iranian state television urged residents to hand over any “enemy pilot” to police.
In an email from the Pentagon, obtained by the AP, the military said it had received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East. It was the first time in the war that Iran has shot down an American aircraft.
A U.S. crew member was rescued. The Pentagon notified the House Armed Services Committee that the status of a second service member wasn’t known.
Trump told NBC News that what happened wouldn’t affect negotiations with Iran.
A second U.S. Air Force combat aircraft went down in Iranian territory Friday, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military situation. The sole airman was rescued.
Iranian state media said a U.S. A-10 attack aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf after being struck by Iran’s defense forces. The U.S. official said it wasn’t clear whether the plane was shot down nor whether Iran was involved.
Oracle’s Dubai headquarters hit
The Dubai headquarters of Oracle were hit after Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened the company. Video verified by the AP outside the United Arab Emirates showed a large hole in the building’s southwestern corner.
The sheikhdom’s Dubai Media Office, which speaks for its government, noted a “minor incident caused by debris from an aerial interception that fell on the facade,” saying there were no injuries.
Oracle Corp., founded in California by Larry Ellison, now a Trump ally, and based in Austin, Texas, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Revolutionary Guard has accused some of the largest U.S. tech companies of being involved in “terrorist espionage” 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.
Bab el-Mandeb Strait
Iran’s 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.
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.
“What share of global oil, LNG, wheat, rice, and fertilizer shipments transits the Bab el-Mandeb Strait?” Qalibaf wrote, referring to liquefied natural gas. “Which countries and companies account for the highest transit volumes through the strait?”
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began.
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.
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.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
In this episode, we bring you the update on how an Altadena resident and her neighborhood are coming along, plus a re-run of the two-part series we did on the Poppyfields people back in June.
California once bet big on offshore wind to help power its clean-energy future, but the Trump administration is now paying developers billions to walk away from their projects. As California’s remaining offshore-wind leases hang in the balance, the state is fighting back in court.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
