A US fighter jet went down in Iran, one crew member was rescued, officials said – nationally

One crew member was rescued after the U.S. plane went down in Iran, according to a U.S. official and an Israeli official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the ongoing military operation.

The rescue took place while the US military was conducting a search and rescue operation, according to three people familiar with the incident who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitivity of the situation. Israel is assisting the United States with search and rescue operations.

White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in a statement that US President Donald Trump had been informed but did not provide further details.

It was the first time that the US has lost aircraft in Iranian territory and this shows a dramatic escalation of the war since it began five weeks ago. It was not clear whether the plane was shot down or crashed.

Iran opened fire on the Mideast on Friday, as Tehran kept up pressure on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors, despite US and Israeli insistence that Iran's military might have been destroyed.

Iran's attack 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 flows in peacetime, have rattled stock markets, sent oil prices soaring, and threatened to raise the cost of many basic goods, including food.

Images on social media showed US drones, helicopters and helicopters flying over a mountainous area where Iranian state-run television said on Friday that at least one pilot had rescued a military aircraft.

A broadcaster on the station urged residents to hand over any “enemy driver” to the police and promised a reward to anyone who did so. The station is located in Kohkilouyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, a rural and mountainous region covering more than 15,500 square kilometers (5,900 square miles).

Authorities also urged the public to search for the pilot in the neighboring province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari.

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The number of crew on board was not yet known. The Pentagon and US Central Command did not immediately respond to several messages seeking comment.

Throughout the war, Iran has made a series of claims about shooting down enemy drones that were unproven. Friday was the first time Iran appeared on television urging the public to look for the suspected missing pilot.

The screen grab earlier urged the public to “shoot them on sight,” referring to social media broadcasts of what appeared to be American planes in the area. The station showed scrap metal on the back of the truck while making the announcement but did not provide any other immediate details.

The claim came after Kuwait's Mina al-Ahmadi refinery was attacked by Iran, and Kuwait Petroleum Corp.

Kuwait also said the Iranian attack had caused “material damage” to its desalination plant. Such plants are responsible for much of the drinking water in the Gulf states, and have been the main victims of the war.

Sirens were also heard in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed several Iranian planes, and Israel reported incoming missiles.

The authorities in the United Arab Emirates closed the gas station after the missiles were intercepted and it was reported that debris rained down on it and started a fire.

Activists reported strikes around Tehran and the central city of Isfahan, but it was not immediately clear what had been struck. A day earlier, Iran said the US had hit a major bridge, which was still under construction, killing eight people.

In Lebanon, where Israel has waged its war with the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, an Israeli military strike on worshipers leaving Friday prayers near Beirut killed two people, according to the National News Agency.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes. In an update released on Friday, Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a US-based group, said it found casualties were concentrated in security strikes and government-linked areas “rather than indiscriminate bombing” of urban areas.

More than 22 people died in the Gulf states and the West Bank was attacked, it was reported that 19 people died in Israel, and 13 in the US died.

More than 1,300 people have been killed and more than a million displaced from Lebanon. Ten Israeli soldiers also died there.

World leaders have struggled to end Iran's stranglehold on the crisis, which has had far-reaching consequences for the world economy and has proved to be the biggest gain of all in the war.

It is expected that the UN Security Council will address this issue on Saturday.

Trump has played down America's role in the crisis, threatening Iran if it doesn't open the waterway and telling other nations to “go get your own oil.” On Friday, he wrote on social media, “With more time, we can easily open the HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE OIL, MAKE OURSELVES RICH.”

Brent crude prices, the international standard, were around US$109 on Friday, up more than 50 percent since the war began, when Iran began restricting traffic over the crisis.

The former Foreign Minister of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif – a diplomat with long experience in negotiating with Western countries who is still close to the working class of the Iranian leadership – wrote on Friday in a foreign affairs magazine that the time has come to end what he calls stabilization.

The US and Iran have proposed de-escalation plans, and Zarif's proposal includes both elements on the part of the Iranian leadership that may be willing to negotiate.

Iran “must offer to limit its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions — a deal Washington would not have accepted before but may now accept,” he wrote.

It's unclear how much to read into the proposal by Zarif, who has no official position in the Iranian government, but who likely wouldn't have published such a piece without the approval of at least the top leadership.