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• Tehran offers bounty for F-35 pilot • White House seeks $1.5tr defence budget as war drives costs
• Nato chief to meet Trump amid Iran tensions • Israel reports new missile salvo from Iran
• In response to Trump’s threats, Iran warns of increasing attacks on energy sites in the region
• One killed, four wounded after fire at Abu Dhabi gas complex
TEHRAN: Iran launched a hunt for the US crew whose jet Iranian media said had been shot down by the Islamic republic’s air defence systems on Friday, deploying troops and offering a bounty.
US media reported US special forces had rescued one of the two crew members, and a local official television station in southwestern Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province aired footage of what it said was wreckage of the downed plane.
President Donald Trump has been briefed about the downing of the US warplane in Iran. “The president has been briefed,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
The war started more than a month ago with US-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering a retaliation that spread the conflict throughout the Middle East, convulsing the global economy and impacting millions of people worldwide.
US Central Command (Centcom), responsible for military operations in the Middle East, did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment on what would be the first known loss of a jet inside Iran since Trump ordered the war.
“Dear and honourable people of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, if you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police and military forces, you will receive a valuable reward and bonus,” said an Iranian television reporter on the official local channel.
The report of the downed jet came as fresh strikes hit Israel, Iran, Lebanon and Gulf countries. Meanwhile, large blasts rocked northern Tehran, an AFP journalist said.
Israel said it had launched a wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, alongside parallel attacks in Beirut.
Blown-out windows
Earlier, Israel’s military reported a new missile salvo from Iran, activating its air defences. Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the US military “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!”, after US strikes damaged Iran’s tallest bridge.
In the area around the bridge, in Karaj, west of Tehran, a villa and residential buildings were seen with blown-out windows — but no military installations. According to the deputy governor of Alborz province, the attack killed eight civilians and wounded 95 others.
About 70 per cent of Iran’s steel production capacity has been taken out, Israel said on Friday.
In Abu Dhabi, Iran’s neighbour across the Gulf, metal giant Emirates Global Aluminium meanwhile said it could take up to a year before it can resume full production, after its site was damaged by Iranian strikes.
Ex-FM urges peace deal
Writing in the US journal Foreign Affairs, Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Tehran should make a deal with the United States to end the war by offering to curb its nuclear programme and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran has virtually blocked the key waterway since the war began, where in peace time one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passes through.
Of the few ships that have managed to cross, most have had links to Iran, with 60pc of commodity-bearing ships crossing the strait either coming from Iran or heading there, an analysis of maritime data showed.
Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that, in response to Trump’s threats to attack infrastructure, Iran would increase its own attacks on energy sites in the region. A drone attack on a refinery owned by Kuwait’s national oil company on Friday sparked fires at several of its units, state media said.
Later, an Iranian attack damaged a power and desalination complex, Kuwait’s water and electricity ministry said.
One person was killed and four others wounded after a fire at a gas complex in Abu Dhabi, caused by falling debris from an intercepted attack on Friday, the government media office said.
“One Egyptian national tragically lost his life during the evacuation of the site. In addition, four individuals sustained minor injuries: two Pakistani nationals and two Egyptian nationals,” it said on X.
It also reported “significant damage” at the facilities, the latest fallout of the war in the Middle East.
$1.5tr defence budget
President Donald Trump asked lawmakers on Friday to approve a massive $1.5 trillion defence budget for 2027, as the US faces rising costs from its war with Iran and mounting global security commitments.
The proposal would lift Pentagon spending by more than 40 per cent in a single year — the sharpest increase since World War II — as Washington seeks to sustain military operations and rebuild depleted weapons stockpiles.
The request highlights the growing financial pressure of a conflict now in its fifth week, and sets up a political battle in Congress over how to fund a dramatic expansion of military spending.
US media — citing closed-door congressional briefings — have reported that the Iran war could be costing as much as $2 billion a day, underscoring the scale of the burden even before longer-term reconstruction and resupply costs are factored in.
To offset part of the increase, Trump is proposing around $73bn in cuts to non-defense spending — roughly 10pc — “reducing or eliminating woke, weaponised and wasteful programs, and by returning state and local responsibilities to their respective governments”.
Democrats swiftly attacked the proposal, with the party’s Senate budget leader Patty Murray warning it prioritised military spending over Americans’ needs and accusing Trump of pursuing “reckless foreign wars”. “Donald Trump might be happy to spend more money on bombs in the Middle East than on families here in America — but I am not,” she said in a statement.
Rutte-Trump meeting
Nato chief Mark Rutte will meet Donald Trump next week on a visit to Washington, as the US president lashes out at the alliance over the Iran war, Nato said on Friday. Trump has suggested he is considering quitting the 77-year-old military alliance due to the response by European nations to his war.
The US leader has criticised Nato members for limiting access for American forces to bases on their territories and refusing to lead efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz.
Nato said that Rutte will meet Trump on April 8, and will also see Secretary of State Marco Rubio and defence chief Pete Hegseth. The alliance chief will give a speech on April 9 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute.
Former Dutch prime minister Rutte has been dubbed a “Trump whisperer” for his ability to keep the US leader onside throughout a string of crises since he returned to office last year.
Rutte has insisted that Trump has made Nato stronger by getting European countries to agree to ramp up defence spending.
Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2026
