The Israeli military said one of its F-35 fighter jets had shot down a crewed Iranian Yak-130 fighter over the Iranian capital of Tehran on Wednesday. The Iranian government has not commented so far.
Israel’s military released a video on Thursday that showed an Iranian fighter jet being shot down by the Israeli Air Force over Tehran. The Times was able to verify the location of the footage.
Israel said it was the first time one of its F-35 fighter jets, known as an Adir, had downed another crewed fighter aircraft.
Both Israeli and American warplanes have conducted numerous bombing sorties over Iran since Saturday while facing little apparent resistance from Iran’s aerial defenses. They have struck thousands of targets, according to the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
Experts say Iran’s air force is one of the weakest parts of its military, as it has long been hobbled by international arms embargoes. Many of its aircraft are decades-old designs from the 1960s and 1970s, when the U.S. and Iran were allies, while others were Soviet-built.
That means Iran’s planes are little match for the top-line American and Israeli fighters streaking through the skies over Tehran. The F-35 jet that Israel used was originally designed in the United States and is one of the most sophisticated stealth fighters in the world.
And while Iran has acquired sophisticated Russian-made air defense arrays in the past, analysts say successive Israeli assaults have severely degraded those capabilities over the past two years.
On Monday, Qatar said it had also shot down two Soviet-made Su-24 bombers “coming from the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It was unclear whether they were shot down in Qatari airspace or elsewhere.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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