Iran claimed Saturday that a new air defense system was responsible for shooting down two American aircraft and will give Iran “full control” over its airspace, as U.S. and Israeli forces continued striking targets across the country.
Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya joint military command made the assertion on state media, Reuters reported, calling the system capable of decisively securing Iranian airspace against American and Israeli aircraft.
Analysts and military experts have offered competing assessments of exactly what brought down the U.S. planes. The New York Times reported Iran may have used the Third Khordad missile system — a mobile, medium-range surface-to-air platform — to shoot down the F-15E Strike Eagle. Other experts, citing ABC News reporting, suspect Iran employed passive infrared detection technology to track and target the aircraft, a method that does not emit radar signals and thus evades the jamming and detection systems U.S. jets are designed to counter.
The $31 million F-15E is believed to have gone down in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province in southwestern Iran, near the Iraqi border. Both pilots ejected. One was rescued following the Friday incident, but the second — the plane’s weapons systems officer — remains missing. During a subsequent rescue mission for the missing pilot, an A-10 Thunderbolt II “Warthog” attack aircraft was struck and sustained damage, ultimately crashing after reaching Kuwaiti airspace. That pilot safely ejected.
The losses mark the first confirmed downing of U.S. aircraft over Iran since the war began Feb. 28.
Despite the aircraft losses, the U.S. military has maintained an aggressive bombing tempo. American forces have struck more than 12,300 targets since the start of the conflict, and U.S. officials claim the sustained campaign has degraded Iran’s missile and drone capabilities by more than 90%.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
One Response
This proves how necessary this military action is. If so many targets were destroyed and, as reported, onlyb50% were destroyed, it shows how absolutely necessary this war was to fight., and win!