Wreckage of American planes blown up by US special forces during raid to rescue second missing F15 pilot is revealed 

A US service member who has been missing since Iran shot down a fighter jet has been rescued, President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post early Sunday.

A frantic US search-and-rescue operation unfolded after the crash of the F-15E Strike Eaglejet on Friday, as Iran also promised a reward for anyone who turned in the ‘enemy pilot.’

A second crew member was rescued earlier.

Trump wrote that the aviator is injured but ‘will be just fine,’ adding that he took refuge ‘in the treacherous mountains of Iran.’

Trump added that the rescue involved “dozens of aircraft” and that the US had been monitoring his location ’24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue.’

A Unified Command of Iranian armed forces spokesperson on Sunday said that the ground assessment showed that two C-130 planes and two blackhawks helicopters were downed south of Isfahan.

Bahrain’s Defence Force says it has intercepted 466 drones and 188 missiles coming from Iran since the start of the war.

Just today, fire broke out at one of the country’s Gulf Petrochemical Industries Co’s operational units as well as at an oil tank at one of the state-owned company Bapco Energies’ storage facilities due to two separate attacks.

Both fires were extinguished.

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta, far from the border with Israel, killed seven people on Sunday, including a family of six, a source from the Lebanese civil defence said.

The Israeli military had ordered the evacuation of the town.

The source said the family, lacking a car and already displaced from a town further south, was waiting for a relative to come pick them up.

That man was also killed in the strike.

US special forces had to destroy two of their own planes as they completed an audacious rescue of an airman trapped behind enemy lines.

The airman, alongside a pilot, had been in an F-15 fighter jet which was shot down over a remote area of Iran on Friday.

The pilot had safely ejected and was rescued by two military helicopters the same day, but the second crew member had remained missing.

The Israeli military has directed residents from a neighbourhood in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to leave their homes in advance of an attack.

‘To everyone present in the building marked in red as shown on the map and the adjacent buildings: You are located near a facility affiliated with Hezbollah’, Arabic language spokesman Avichay Adraee said, without providing evidence.

In a post on X, Adraee shared a map of the Ghobeiry neighbourhood, with a building highlighted in red.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, has raised the alarm over the safety of nuclear facilities in Iran following US-Israeli strikes close to the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

The attack ‘is a stark reminder: a strike could trigger a nuclear accident, with health impacts that would devastate generations.

‘With every passing day of this escalating conflict, the stakes and threats are raised higher and higher’, Tedros said on X.

Yu Jing, spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in India, shared the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ message stating that the US-Israeli military operations against Iran violate international law.

Responding to a query, over China’s stance after US President Donald Trump claimed that the US air strikes destroyed an Iranian civilian bridge to pressure Iran into negotiations, the Chinese MFA said: ‘The US-Israeli military operations against Iran have no authorisation of the UN Security Council and violate international law.

‘China opposes attacks against civilian facilities. Relevant parties should stop the military actions at once, return to the track of political and diplomatic settlement, and avoid an even worse humanitarian disaster.’

Critical infrastructure across the Gulf came under attack from Iran on Sunday, with damage reported at civilian facilities in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi said on Sunday they were battling fires at a petrochemical plant in Ruwais Industrial City on the UAE’s northwest coast.

‘Authorities are responding to multiple fires in the Borouge petrochemicals plant, caused by falling debris following successful interceptions by air defence systems,’ the Gulf emirate’s media office said.

‘Operations at the facility have been immediately suspended while damage is assessed. No injuries have been reported,’ it added after the United Arab Emirates’ defence ministry earlier said it was responding to missile and drone attacks.

Iran’s army earlier said it was targeting ‘aluminium industries’ in the UAE and US military infrastructure in Kuwait, the official IRNA news agency reported on Saturday.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly threatened civilian infrastructure in the Gulf countries, as US-Israeli attacks in Iran have also hit targets that are key to the Islamic Republic’s economy.

Iran’s internet blackout, first imposed well over a month ago, is now the longest nationwide shutdown on record, according to NetBlocks, a monitoring group.

‘Iran’s internet blackout is now the longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record in any country, exceeding all other comparable incidents in severity having entered its 37th consecutive day after 864 hours,’ NetBlocks said in a post on X.