TEHRAN, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, the unified command of the Iranian armed forces, said on Sunday that four U.S. military aircraft were shot down in Iran's central airspace during the U.S. mission to rescue a pilot in Iran.
Ebrahim Zolfaghari, the headquarters' spokesman, made the announcement, saying the aircraft included two C-130 Hercules military transport planes and two Black Hawk helicopters, according to the official news agency IRNA.
He added they were targeted during joint operations by the forces of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), army, voluntary Basij and law enforcement south of the central Isfahan province.
Zolfaghari said the U.S. so-called rescue operation, "which had been planned as a deception and escape operation under the pretext of rescuing the pilot of its downed plane at an abandoned airport south of Isfahan," ended in complete failure with the Iranian armed forces' timely presence.
He noted that U.S. President Donald Trump "is trying to justify his army's bitter defeat and failure by creating confusion for public opinion."
The IRGC said on Friday its air defense systems had shot down a U.S. F-35 fighter jet in central Iranian airspace, adding the fate of the pilot or pilots was unknown.
The U.S. later claimed it had rescued one of the downed fighter jet's pilots, adding that rescue operations were underway to find and recover the other one.
On Sunday, Trump, in a post on social media platform Truth Social, claimed that U.S. forces had carried out "one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history," adding the second pilot was rescued and is "safe and sound."
On Feb. 28, Israel and the United States launched joint attacks on Tehran and several other Iranian cities, killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with senior military commanders and civilians. Iran responded by launching waves of missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and U.S. bases and assets in the Middle East. ■
