US fighter jet down in Iran: 1 crew member rescued as search continues, officials say
(WASHINGTON) — A U.S. fighter jet appears to have been shot down by Iran over Iranian territory, American officials confirmed to ABC News, marking a new and potentially dangerous point in the conflict.
One crew member aboard the downed two-seater F-15E has been rescued, according to a U.S. official. The status of the other crew member is unknown, according to the official.
Combat search and rescue missions have become relatively rare for U.S. forces after more than a generation of near-total air dominance, with American aircraft typically operating with limited threats to aircraft in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The early indications that the U.S. fighter was brought down by enemy fire would mark the first time Iran has successfully downed a manned American aircraft in the war, which started in February.
There are photos of the fighter that were released by Iranian state media and could not be independently verified by ABC News.
President Donald Trump has been briefed on the matter, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
In late March, an American F-18 fighter jet narrowly dodged an Iranian surface-to-air missile, according to a U.S. official. Earlier that month, an American F-35, the Pentagon’s most advanced stealth fighter jet, had to make an emergency landing after being struck by Iranian fire. Three F-15s were also brought down over Kuwait in a friendly fire episode earlier in the war, though all six pilots ejected safely, according to U.S. officials.
The incident comes after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other U.S. officials have said that Iran’s military capabilities have been severely crippled and that the U.S. has “total air dominance” over Iran.
Trump, in a primetime address to the nation earlier this week, said the U.S. was “nearing completion” of its military objectives and that Tehran’s anti-aircraft abilities had been decimated.
“We’ve done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten,” Trump said in his speech on Wednesday night.
“They have no anti-aircraft equipment,” Trump added in his remarks. “Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force.”
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has made a number of false claims about US aircraft being downed but the US has pushed back on those.
Iran has maintained at least some ability to continue with attacks targeting U.S. facilities in the Middle East and other countries in the region, wounding more than 300 U.S. service members, according to U.S. officials. The number of wounded has increased at a relatively steady rate each week, data reviewed by ABC News shows. Thirteen service members have been killed in action since the war began five weeks ago, according to U.S. Central Command.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
U.S. Navy, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), F/A-18E/F, November 13, 2025. (Photo by Paige Brown/US Navy via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump on Friday said that a second American aircraft carrier will be “leaving very soon” to the Middle East to put pressure on Iran.
As he departed the White House for a trip to North Carolina, Trump told reporters that he’s ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Middle East in case “we don’t make a deal” as negotiations between the U.S. and Iran continue over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Those talks are taking place amid Trump’s threats to take military action against Iran isn’t willing to make a deal.
“Well, in case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it, and if we don’t have a deal, we’ll need it. If we have a deal, we could cut it short. It’ll be leaving — it’ll be leaving very soon. We have one out there that just arrived. If we need it, we will — we have it ready. A very big force,” Trump said.
When asked how confident he is that negotiations will go well, Trump showed confidence, but said that if they don’t go well, Iran would face consequences.
“I think they’ll be successful and if they’re not, it’s going to be a bad day for Iran. Very bad,” he said.
Later, when asked whether he has a deadline for Iran, Trump remained coy, saying: “In my mind I do, yeah.”
The Ford carrier strike group is expected to leave the Caribbean and head toward the Middle East in the coming days, according to three U.S. officials.
The deployment of the Ford and the three destroyers accompanying it will mean that there will be two aircraft carriers in the Middle East as it joins the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group.
The deployment comes after Trump said earlier this week in an interview with Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the Middle East if talks with Iran about its nuclear program did not succeed.
The crew of the carrier and the supporting ships were told on Thursday about the new deployment to the Middle East, according to the officials.
The New York Times first reported the Ford’s new deployment to the Middle East.
The Ford is now expected to return to its home port in Norfolk around late April or early May, according to one U.S. official. The carrier had left Norfolk in late June for what was to be a seven-month deployment to Europe, but in late October it was redirected towards the Caribbean as part of the Trump administration’s large buildup of military forces to counter South American drug cartels.
A U.S. Southern Command spokesperson has issued provided a statement to ABC News saying that “While force posture evolves, our operational capability does not.” It adds that “SOUTHCOM forces remain fully ready to project power, defend themselves, and protect U.S. interests in the region.”
The carrier strike group will once again cross the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for a deployment that could now last as long as 10 months.
The Ford is the world’s largest carrier and its presence in the Caribbean was seen as putting pressure on then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his government.
Some of the aircraft aboard the carrier participated in the Jan. 3 raid in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas that led to Maduro’s capture.
Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, takes part in the Munich Security Conference. (Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russian forces could recover their pre-war capabilities within three to five years in the event of a peace deal in Ukraine, according to Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of the NATO Military Committee and the principal military adviser to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“They will be busy on that battlefield for as long as is necessary — we hope very, very shortly that it will come to a point. Right after that, I think that they will rebuild,” Dragone told ABC News during an interview on the sidelines of the Chatham House think tank’s Security and Defense 2026 event in London on Wednesday.
“We are expecting a strong, resilient — because they demonstrate that now they are resilient — conventional force,” Dragone said of the Russian military NATO is preparing to face down along its eastern flank in the years and decades to come.
This week marked the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, a so-called “special military operation” — in the words of the Kremlin — that Russian officials expected to succeed within days.
The opening stages of the war were characterized by Russian tactical and strategic failures, ultimately prompting Russian forces to abandon swaths of territory captured in the north, northeast and south of the country.
“Their capabilities were way below what we expected at the very beginning,” Dragone said. “But in four years, they reconstituted. They lost a lot of soldiers, but they are able to reconstitute, rebuild and recruit again,” the NATO commander continued. “They are a force which is experienced and trying to modernize as much as they can.”
Four years on, Russia is still struggling to make significant gains and is — according to a mix of Ukrainian, Western and independent analysis — sustaining massive casualties.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to frame Moscow’s grinding advance as inevitable, and demanded that Kyiv cede the entire eastern Donbas — made up of Luhansk and Donetsk regions — as part of any future peace deal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his foreign backers, though, have challenged the characterization, pointing to Russia’s slow progress, mounting casualties and apparent economic strains.
Asked whether one side has the upper hand, Dragone said Russia is making “small gains on the terrain compared to the losses. In November-December, they had 35,000 casualties. This means that for one kilometer, they are losing thousands” of troops killed and badly wounded, Dragone said.
“This is something that they can handle — I don’t know up to when,” he continued. “That’s something that their system allows them to do.”
“They are not winning, except for these small gains,” Dragone said. “It’s an oxymoron to call something a ‘special military operation’ that lasts for five years. It’s nonsense, from the very beginning.”
“They will not be able, at this pace, to conquer the whole of Donbas, for example, by the end of this year,” Dragone said. “They are fighting this attrition war that is not leading anybody anywhere. And this is why it should be time that they sit and they start to find a negotiated solution.”
Moscow says different, though the glacial pace of its invasion is evident. Daily, the Defense Ministry in Moscow claims to have captured new settlements, villages and towns in the so-called “grey zone” all along the 750-mile line of contact. In December, Putin again claimed that his troops were “advancing on all fronts.”
The Kremlin appears fully committed to its war, marshalling the national economy onto war footing and further tightening its authoritarian grip on Russian society.
Moscow’s war-focused economic strategy “means something,” Dragone said. “More than 40% of the national budget is for the war,” he added. “Probably they will keep the war economy even after the war ends, just to rebuild this as soon as possible.”
Russia may seek to generate a military force of “150% of what they had when they invaded Ukraine, because from their point of view, they have to cope with their counterpart, which is NATO,” Dragone said. In the meantime, the admiral added, “They are testing us, of course. In these four years, they have been testing us on our reaction times, how we are able to respond.”
Dragone also acknowledged that Russia is already engaged in a hybrid war against its NATO adversaries. Allied leaders have accused Moscow of a wide range of surveillance, sabotage, assassination and other operations within NATO borders. Meanwhile, Russian drones and missiles targeting Ukraine have also violated the airspace of allied nations.
“We have been reacting” to the hybrid threat, Dragone said, noting that NATO nations have moral, ethical and legal “restraints” that do not bind Moscow.
“This is an unfair confrontation that we need to be ready to face. And this is what we could call a handicap situation, but that’s something that we want to be in place,” he added, stressing that the alliance should not seek to shed such restraints.
“They are more aggressive,” Dragone said. “We are reacting. Our reactions are appropriate. The issue is that we are a defensive alliance, so that’s our mindset.”
Asked whether NATO has been too hesitant, the admiral said such strategic decisions are made at the political level. “It’s up to them to tell us, give us the political direction, what effect they want to have — and we will be the ones who will produce this effect.”
Growing NATO-Russia tensions have, at times, prompted nuclear threats from Moscow. This week, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) accused Kyiv — without providing proof — of trying to obtain nuclear weapons with the assistance of the U.K. and France. Ukraine quickly denied the allegation.
Dmitry Medvedev — the former Russian president and prime minister now serving on the country’s Security Council — then threatened a “symmetrical response” from Russia using “any type of weapon, including non-strategic nuclear weapons.”
Dragone said that, though NATO remains “concerned” about Russia’s nuclear capabilities, “nothing has changed.”
A Palestinian mother hugs her child as eight children evacuated from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah Border Crossing during 2023 land attacks due to health issues return to Gaza after completing treatment, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, Palestine, on March 30, 2026. (Photo by Hani Alshaer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — When Sundus al Kurd and her daughter Bissan were separated at the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023, she wasn’t sure she’d see her again. Bissan was only a few days old when her mother allowed her to be medically evacuated from the Gaza strip to Egypt.
The premature baby’s life was saved, along with others, by the World Health Organization and Palestinian Red Crescent during the height of the conflict, but now the two have been reunited.
“After all this time, my daughter is finally back in my arms!” al Kurd, a young Palestinian mother, exclaims as she held her child for the first time in over two years.
“Every day, I lived with fear — fear that I might never hold her again, fear that she might forget me. But the moment I held her in my arms again, it felt like she had never been away. That moment was complete joy!” the 27-year-old al Kurd told ABC News.
Bissan, who has spent the last 2 1/2 years in Egypt, had been one of 33 premature babies trapped inside the Al Shifa hospital as the Israeli military laid siege to it in November 2023.
“Being reunited with my daughter is something I cannot fully describe. It is a mix of relief, love, and something deeper — like life returning to me after being paused for years,” al Kurd said.
“The first night we spent together was very emotional. I couldn’t sleep. I kept watching her, holding her, making sure she was really there beside me. I was afraid to close my eyes, as if it was all a dream that might disappear,” she said.
Bissan’s life had been in imminent danger in November 2023, doctors said. The neonatal unit she was in at Al Shifa hospital was running out of fuel and oxygen, cut off by the Israeli army, which had encircled the hospital, saying that Hamas had a hidden command center in its precincts, something both Hamas medical teams there strongly denied.
“They were meant to die without incubators, without oxygen, without water, but they survived every single stage of this terrible reality,” Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the former head of plastic surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, told ABC News.
Mokhallalati was one of the few doctors who remained at Al Shifa throughout the Israeli siege.
“Most of the doctors were surgeons, not even pediatricians, but we felt we had to do our best to keep these kids alive,” he said. “We felt these kids were like our own babies. Every morning, we would go just to make sure they were still alive.”
He said that the extreme danger of the situation forced some parents to abandon their babies.
“There were no parents because the hospital was bombed and people were forced to flee to save their other children,” Mokhallalati said. “In the calculus of survival, mothers fled with the children who could run and left behind those who could not, making an impossible choice.”
The premature babies were left fighting for their lives for days, with one doctor and six nurses caring for them in ever-worsening conditions, he said.
“We did not know their names, we did not know their parents. They had no one to take care of them. They were wearing only small wristbands, usually with their mothers’ names, and that was the only thing we knew about them,” Mokhallalati said.
Not all the babies survived those difficult days. Five died as the team struggled to keep them fed and warm, but Mokhallalati was amazed that so many of the babies made it.
“They were meant to die at many stages but they survived every single challenge,” adding, “They were the only feeling of hope we had in all of this chaos and destruction.”
On Nov. 19, 2023, they were rescued after the WHO and the Palestinian Red Crescent were given access to the hospital. They carried the precious cargo through a war zone to a hospital in Rafah, in southern Gaza, before taking them across the border to Egypt, officials said.
“Twenty-eight were evacuated to Egypt, but seven more died there due to the difficult conditions, leaving 21 survivors. Of those, 11 have now returned on March 30, while four others came back earlier when Rafah crossing opened, and six remain in Egypt with their families,” Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra, the head of pediatrics and neonatal care at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, told ABC News.
Among those returning was 2-year-old Azzhar Kafarna. Her mother, Heba Saleh, described the ordeal of their separation to ABC News.
“For two and a half years, I felt something missing all the time,” she said.
“I missed everything — her first smile, her first steps, even the little things that any mother waits for. I used to imagine her … how she looks now, how her voice sounds, and if she would recognize me when we finally meet,” Saleh said.
She was nervous about their reunion, “When I saw her again, I didn’t know what to feel. I just hugged her tightly. It felt like I was holding all the days we lost in that one moment.”
Al-Farra examined all the toddlers when they returned to Gaza this week.
“All of the children are in generally good condition, with normal weight and growth, but many are facing complications linked to extreme prematurity,” he said.
Al-Farra says many of them, “have vision problems and need glasses because their eye nerves were not fully developed,” like Bissan, who wears a bright red pair of spectacles.
However, not all of them have come back to happy reunions.
“I don’t think all of these children have parents to return to. Some of their families were likely killed during the war,” Al-Farra said.
“In one case, there is real confusion over the child’s identity, with more than one person claiming the baby. We are still trying to identify the family, but without access to DNA testing in Gaza, we cannot confirm who the child belongs to,” he said.
Fear returning to Gaza
Both the mothers ABC News spoke with were nervous about their children returning to Gaza.
“As a mother, I feel everything at once. I’m happy she’s finally with me … but at the same time, I feel guilty, even though I had no choice. I keep thinking about all the moments I wasn’t there for.” Saled said.
“And of course, I’m worried about raising her in Gaza. I want her to feel safe, to live a normal life, but the situation here is not easy,” Saled said.
That sentiment was echoed by al Kurd.
“I am also worried. My daughter has never heard the sound of bombing before. I am afraid of how she might react if she experiences it here in Gaza. This fear is always in my heart.”
“I wish for my daughter to have a better future, a life that is safer and more stable than the one we are living now,” al Kurd said.
