JERUSALEM — As President Donald Trump prepared to hold a White House news conference to celebrate the rescue of the crew of a F-15E fighter shot down in Iran, his escalating threats to bomb power plants and bridges suggested rising frustration that Tehran has shown no willingness to surrender after more than five weeks of an increasingly expensive, dangerous and politically unpopular war.
At the 1 p.m. news conference, Trump is expected to share details of the U.S. operation that rescued the F-15 crewman who ejected in a remote mountainous region after being shot down. “WE GOT HIM!” Trump said Sunday in social media posts, describing the operation as “miraculous” and “an AMAZING show of bravery and talent by all” as the Iranian military was “looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close.”
The successful rescue operation averted what could have been a politically catastrophic situation for the White House had Iran taken the crewman as a prisoner of war. But the downing of the F-15E and another U.S. military jet, an A-10 attack whose pilot navigated into Kuwait airspace before ejecting, raised questions about Trump’s exuberant claims of U.S. air dominance and the destruction of Iran’s air defenses.
Trump repeated those claims in his triumphant post about the rescue. “WE WILL NEVER LEAVE AN AMERICAN WARFIGHTER BEHIND!” he declared. “The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies.”
The extraction operation was extremely risky, with U.S. C-130s and rescue helicopters flying low and slow over Iran’s mountainous terrain to locate the missing airman. Two of the rescue helicopters that had been searching for the missing F-15 crew member took ground fire from Iran during the operation. Some of the service members on board were injured, but all returned safely to base, U.S. officials said.
U.S. forces also had to blow up two C-130 cargo planes and at least two MH-6 “Little Bird” helicopters — equipment worth tens millions of dollars — after the aircraft got stuck in the terrain of a makeshift airstrip. Overall the incident showed U.S. forces engaged in increasingly dangerous operations, even as Iran so far has rejected Trump’s demands, reiterated on Sunday, to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
In a profanity-laden message Sunday, Trump escalated his threats against Iranian power plants and bridges, warning that Tuesday would be an unprecedented day of strikes in Iran if the Tehran didn’t open up strait, a vital passageway for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply.
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform. “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell — JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Iran on Monday refused to back down and continued to reject a 15-point U.S. ceasefire proposal, with Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei saying at a news conference that Iran has already articulated its stance clearly, according to Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim News Agency. Baqaei has previously called the Trump administration’s 15-point plan to end the war “excessive” and “unreasonable.”
On Monday Baqaei said ceasefires often serve to create mere pauses, allowing the United States to regroup and strategize for future attacks, Tasnim reported. Baqaei said that a U.S. deadline would not deter Iranian defensive actions, the news agency reported.
Israel, which assisted in the rescue operation by providing intelligence, announced Monday that it had killed Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, the head of intelligence for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Khademi’s death was confirmed by Iranian news agencies. “Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being hunted,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “We will continue to hunt them down, one by one.”
As some analysts said the following through on Trump’s threats against Iranian civilian infrastructure could amount to war crimes, the president signaled that he was still looking to reach some kind of deal. Trump told Fox News that he thinks negotiators could reach an agreement before Tuesday.
Trump has set deadlines for Iran previously only to postpone them as Tehran refused to bow to his demands, particularly in regard to the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for energy supplies that Iran has effectively closed to cargo vessels with a threat of retaliatory strikes.
Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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