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US-Israeli strikes on Iran

US shifts focus from 'regime change' to search for pilots — Majlis speaker

The Iranian Armed Forces General Staff said earlier that a US F-35 fighter jet had been shot down on Friday morning over central territory of the Islamic Republic

TUNIS, April 3. /TASS/. The US has lowered its stakes in the military operation from "regime change" in the Islamic Republic to searching for the missing pilots of a downed US F-35 fighter jet, according to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Majlis, Iran’s parliament.

"This brilliant no-strategy war they started has now been downgraded from 'regime change' to 'Hey! Can anyone find our pilots? Please?'" he wrote on X.

Earlier, the Iranian Armed Forces General Staff said that a US F-35 fighter jet had been shot down on Friday morning over central territory of the Islamic Republic. The NourNews agency reported that the IRGC had located the pilot during a search operation and detained him. Later, state TV in Iran’s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province announced that anyone who captures the pilot of the downed US F-35 fighter jet alive will receive a reward.

For its part, the Axios news website, citing sources, reported that the US military had launched a search and rescue operation to recover the two pilots of the downed fighter jet. However, according to the Tasnim news agency, the effort was a total failure.

The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.

US-Israeli strikes on Iran

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