Iran-US war latest: US and Tehran race to find missing American pilot after fighter jet shot downnewsline24

The Israeli military said on Saturday that its air force struck ballistic and and anti-aircraft missile storage sites in Tehran.

It said the strikes a day earlier included weapons manufacture sites as well as military research and development facilities in the Iranian capital.

It said the strikes are part of an ongoing phase to increase damage to Iran’s “core systems and foundations.”

As the US and Tehran race to find the missing American pilot from the downed US fighter jet, Iran is reportedly offering locals around £50,000 to anyone who hands over the missing pilot alive.

Iran also reportedly hit an A-10 attack plane in the Persian Gulf region on Friday, which made it to Kuwaiti airspace, where the pilot ejected and the aircraft crashed, officials said.

The International Monetary Fund urged the Bank of Japan to continue raising ⁠interest rates, even as the Middle East war posed “significant new risks” to the country’s economic outlook.

The proposal comes amid market expectations the BOJ will raise interest rates as soon as April in the face of mounting inflationary pressure from the conflict-induced spike in oil prices, and higher import costs blamed on the weak ⁠yen.

While growth is expected to moderate, due partly ​to ⁠the Iran war, gradual wage gains will underpin consumption, the IMF said in a statement issued from Washington on Friday after the conclusion of its policy consultation with ⁠Japan.

“Risks to the outlook and inflation are broadly balanced” with inflation expected to converge to ​the ⁠BOJ’s 2% target in 2027, the IMF ‌said.

In the statement, the IMF said its executive board commended Japan’s “strong ec”KLonomic resilience” to global shocks and agreed the BOJ was appropriately withdrawing monetary accommodation.

“They noted that as underlying inflation ‌converges toward the BOJ’s target, gradual rate hikes toward neutral ‌should continue” in a flexible, well-communicated and data-dependent approach, the statement said.

“Directors stressed the importance of maintaining a flexible exchange rate as a credible shock absorber,” it added.

“War is not a game show; peace-making is not a real estate deal; the world is not a casino”, said Mr Fletcher, who worked for three former British prime ministers: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

Read more from our political correspondent Millie Cooke here:

An Iranian drone attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh last month caused far more damage than Saudi officials initially disclosed, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing US officials.

Two drones struck the American compound in the Diplomatic Quarter on 3 March, breaching a secure area where hundreds of employees would typically work and severely damaging three floors, including the CIA station. Saudi officials had described it as a minor fire with limited damage, but US officials told the WSJ the fire burned for hours and caused significant, irreparable damage. Later that night, a drone appeared to target the residence of the top US diplomat in Saudi Arabia, only a few hundred feet from the embassy, while debris from intercepted drones landed near a preschool.

Iran has executed two more members of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq group, bringing the total number executed since the start of the war to six, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency said today.

Abul-Hassan Montazer and Vahid Bani-Amirian were hanged after being convicted of “being members of a terrorist group”. Activists and rights groups say Iran routinely holds closed-door trials in which defendants are unable to challenge the accusations they face.

US congressman Ro Khanna has accused Donald Trump of threatening war crimes by targeting electricity plants and civilian infrastructure in Iran.

“Trump is threatening war crimes. You cannot strike electricity plants. You cannot strike civilian targets. We don’t do that as a United States of America. We are supposed to follow international law. That’s the type of things that Vladimir Putin does. That’s the war crimes that Netanyahu committed,” Khanna told CNN.

The Democrat also warned that Mr Trump’s escalatory rhetoric was putting the missing service member and all US troops in the region at greater risk of retaliation.

In a brief Friday phone interview with The Independent, the president declined to say what his course of action might be if Iranian forces get to the downed airman — the first American aviator to be shot down over enemy territory since an A-10 “Warthog” pilot ejected into Iraq after being struck by a surface-to-air missile in April 2003, just weeks into Operation Iraqi Freedom.

• The US military confirmed it received notification of “an aircraft being shot down” in the Middle East, according to a Pentagon email obtained by AP
• Iranian state media claimed Iran’s military shot down a US F-15E Strike Eagle over southwest Iran; the F-15E carries a two-person crew — a pilot and a weapons system officer
• One crew member has been rescued, according to one US and one Israeli official; the status of the second crew member is unknown
• A second US Air Force combat aircraft — identified by Iranian state media as an A-10, known as the Warthog — also went down on Friday; it is a single-seat aircraft
• Israel has halted airstrikes in areas “relevant” to the rescue effort and is assisting with intelligence, though is not involved in any on-the-ground rescue
• The White House called a “lid” at 4pm EST, indicating Mr Trump would not be making any public appearance; Mr Trump told NBC News the incident would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: “It’s war”
• Four US military aircraft had already gone down during the war before Friday, including three F-15Es hit by friendly Kuwaiti fire and a refuelling tanker that crashed in Iraq, killing all six crew members