Iran-U.S. War: Second American F-35 fighter jet shot down over central parts of country, claims Tehran

Iran-U.S War: Iran on Friday said that it's forces have shot down second U.S. F-35 fighter jet over central parts of the war-torn country. An American fighter pilot ejected from their aircraft over southwestern Iran, according to claims made by a local channel of Iranian state television on Friday. The anchor on the channel read the following announcement: “If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police, you will receive a precious prize.” An on-screen crawl separately urged the public to “shoot them if you see them,” referring to social media footage circulating of what appeared to be U.S. aircraft in the area. The channel provided no other immediate details. U.S. Central Command, the Pentagon and the White House are yet to issue statement in this regard.


The claim came as the war in the Mideast neared the end of its fifth week, and Iran fired on targets across the region, damaging a desalination plant and setting a refinery ablaze in Kuwait. American and Israeli airstrikes, meanwhile, hit the Islamic Republic.



President ​Donald Trump ​on Friday said the U.S. ‌can ⁠open ⁠the ​Strait of Hormuz with ​a little ​more time. "With a ⁠little ‌more ​time, ​we ⁠can easily OPEN THE ​HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE ​THE OIL,& MAKE A ‌FORTUNE," Trump said ​in ​a ⁠post on Truth Social.


Tehran has kept the pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, despite U.S. and Israeli insistence that Iran’s military capabilities have been all but destroyed. In a sign that part of Iran’s theocracy could be willing to negotiate, the country's former top diplomat published a proposal for ending the conflict in an influential American magazine.


Iran’s attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and its tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas transits in peacetime, have roiled stock markets, sent oil prices skyrocketing, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.


Iran's ability to wreak havoc in the global economy has proved a major strategic advantage, and world leaders have struggled to figure out how to reopen the waterway. The U.N. Security Council was expected to look at a new proposal.


More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war. In a review released Friday, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a U.S-based group, said they found that civilian casualties were clustered around strikes on security and state-linked sites “rather than indiscriminate bombardment” of urban areas.


More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.


More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than 1 million displaced in Lebanon, where Israel has launched a ground invasion in its fight with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militant group. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.