Mail Wake

The United States received the clearest warning yet on Friday that the war against Iran, despite promises from President Donald Trump, is far from over and Tehran remains a formidable opponent, observed El País.

For the first time in five weeks of conflict, the Islamic Republic shot down two American military planes on Friday, “despite claims by U.S. Defense Minister Pete Hegseth and other officials that the United States had gained dominance over Iranian skies,” Axios emphasized.

The first aircraft downed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards was an F-15 fighter jet with two crew members on board, who managed to eject in time. “One of the two was rescued a few hours later by American helicopters, but the whereabouts of the second remains unknown,” according to El País.

“The U.S. forces are actively searching for the missing pilot, just like the Iranian forces, who have offered a ‘generous reward’ for any information leading to locating him, and have ‘sealed off an area in the southwestern province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, where they suspect [the American] was ejected,'” The Times of Israel reported.

The second aircraft, an A-10 Warthog attack plane, “crashed near the Strait of Hormuz almost at the same time as the F-15E, and the pilot was recovered safe and sound,” The New York Times cited two American officials.

“They did not specify the cause of the aircraft’s crash,” but the Iranian military claimed it was hit by their air defense systems. “U.S. officials did not specify in which country the aircraft had crashed,” the American newspaper noted.

The developments “contradict earlier claims by the Trump administration that American forces had acquired aerial superiority over Iran, and raise immediate questions about the extent of the arsenal the country still possesses after a month of targeted strikes on regime’s military installations,” The Washington Post remarked.

“The Pentagon declined to comment and Donald Trump remained brief on Friday night in his communications with the media.” NBCNews reported that when he was asked over the phone if the events on Friday would have “an impact on negotiations with Iran,” the president replied: “No, not at all. No, this is war. We are at war.”

“And in another brief phone interview with The Independent, Mr. Trump ‘refused to specify what his course of action would be’ if the missing pilot ‘was captured or injured’ by the Iranians. ‘I cannot comment on this because we hope it will not happen,’ ” he said.

“The search and rescue operations in combat are among the most perilous missions conducted by the U.S. military,” The Washington Post highlighted. “Helicopters and planes used for these missions remain vulnerable to enemy fire,” the newspaper explained.

Indeed, two American search and rescue helicopters were also hit by Iranian fire on Friday, injuring American personnel on board. But both aircraft returned safely to their base, the capital’s newspaper reported.

In Tehran, far from American silence, irony was wielded, and the President of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, did not hesitate to “ridicule the event,” mocking President Trump’s multiple claims that the United States had won the war, as noted by Le Soir.

On his X account, one could read: “After defeating Iran 37 times in a row, the slogan of this brilliant strategy-less war they have launched has now shifted from ‘regime change’ to ‘Haha! has anyone seen our pilots? Please?'”