Iran says it has shot down US fighter jet
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai and at 16GMT on Friday the 3rd of April, these are our main stories. Iran says it has shot down a US fighter jet over the west of the country. There's been no official confirmation from the Pentagon, but an unnamed US official is being quoted as saying that a search is underway for the crew.
What happened when Iran claimed to have shot down a US fighter jet?
It comes as Iran has also continued its attacks on its Gulf neighbours, striking critical infrastructure in Kuwait after President Trump threatened to further escalate the American bombing campaign. Also coming up in this podcast, Burkina Faso's leader tells people that they can forget about democracy and has rolled back on plans to hold elections. And we also look at South Sudan's rapidly worsening security and humanitarian crisis. Over 540 children have been registered by UNICEF and protection partners as being unaccompanied, so separated from their families. And then we have this issue of abduction, which is terrifying for mothers who lose their children and mothers overall. We begin the podcast with the latest in the Middle East.
Iran says it has shot down a US fighter jet over the west of the country. At the time of recording, there's been no official confirmation from the Pentagon, but an unnamed US official is being quoted as saying that a search is underway for the crew. If the incident is confirmed, it would be the first time since the beginning of the war that a US jet has been shot down over Iran. Mikey Kay, host of the Security Brief on BBC News, gave Tim Franks this update. This first came to light on some very credible open source intelligence channels about the claims of Iran shooting down an aircraft. It was originally reported that it was what's called an F-35, fifth generation fighter. But on looking at the debris on open source intelligence, it's quite clear that the symbology and the markings on a specific part of the wreckage, which was the top end of the tail fin, the tail fin, Tim,
An F-15E basically has two tail fins, and the markings from the livery, which is basically a red strip, through to a badge, which is USAF in Europe badge, that basically aligns that debris, the striking similarity between that debris and an F-15 strike eagle from the 494th Fighter Squadron, which is part of the 48th Fighter Wing, based at RAF Lake and Heath near Cambridge. And how many crew would there be on board, typically? Let me just talk to you about what the F-15 is. It's a strike eagle. It's a pretty large jet, but it is air to air and air to ground capable, which means that it's being used. And there has been user generated footage that have seen the F-15 doing what's called drone cap, which is drone combat air patrol.
So basically F-15s airborne looking for Shahed 136 drones coming across the Iraqi border. We know they've been doing that. We know that three F-15s have also been shot down earlier on in Operation Epic Fury by friendly fire. So we know that those F-15s from the 494th are in the region and they're on combat operations every day. But I think it's important to... to note here that whilst there are three US officials basically confirming that there has been a shoot down, we don't know why it's been shot down or how it's been shot down. We don't know if it's from enemy fire. We don't know if it's from friendly fire. We don't know if there was a technical fault. And the geolocation of the debris has not been corroborated yet.
But where I go back to open source channels, there is suggestion from open source that it's Kazakhstan province. which is a province in Iran, which is literally right up to the Iraqi border. So when you start joining the dots on this type of investigative work, the dots do kind of make sense. There's also been combat search and rescue that have been put up and looking for the crew that would have likely ejected. In another development, officials in Kuwait say an Iranian missile has damaged a power and desalination plant.
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