Search Intensifies for Missing US Crew Member as Iran Downs Fighter Jet

·         Trump: With time, we’ll open Strait of Hormuz, take oil, make fortune

·         Oil prices may hit $150 per barrel, JP Morgan warns

Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja with agency report

A United States fighter jet has been shot down over Iran and search-and-rescue efforts ‌have so far recovered one of two crew members who ejected, a United States official revealed yesterday, in the first known incident of its kind in the nearly five-week-old war.

This comes as President Donald Trump yesterday suggested that the U.S. was looking to seize Iran’s oil industry, appearing to argue that more time was needed for the war.

It also emerged yesterday that the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Randy George, has been fired by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Three U.S. defense officials disclosed his sack to Reuters, a major staffing change that comes as the U.S. military fights a major war in the Middle East.

Oil prices could top $150 per barrel if energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted by the middle of May, investment bank, JP Morgan warned yesterday.

On the fighter jet that was shot down, Pentagon and U.S. Central Command did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.

The prospect of a U.S. pilot being alive and on the run inside Iran raises the stakes for the United States in a conflict that, according to opinion polls, has struggled to win popularsupport among Americans.

It also presents a challenge to the U.S. military, which faces the twin goals of trying ⁠to save the life of an American behind enemy lines while safeguarding anyone involved in perilous rescue missions.

Iranian officials called on civilians tobe on the lookout for survivors and have flooded social media with images that purport to show wreckage from the aircraft.

Two U.S. officials said the aircraft was an F-15E fighter jet, which has two seats: one for a pilot and the second for a weapons systems officer. It was unclear which of the two was recovered, and the U.S. official who confirmed the recovery did not offer any details on how it took place.

William Goodhind, a forensic imagery analyst with Contested Ground, said images of the plane’s tail fin seen in photos posted on social media were consistent with that of an F-15E Strike Eagle, which carries two crew.

The governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province said anyone who captured or killed the crew “would ‌be specially ⁠commended,” Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA reported.

The incident follows threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to bomb the country back to the “Stone Age,” including to attack Iran’s energy infrastructure and desalination plants, as he presses Tehran to end the war on U.S. terms.

So far, 13 U.S. military service members have been killed in the conflict and more than 300 have been wounded, according to the U.S. Central Command. No U.S. troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.

While Trump has repeatedly ⁠sought to portray the Iranian military as defeated, Reuters has reported on U.S. intelligence showing Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability.

As of last week, the United States could only determine with certainty that it has destroyed about one-third of Iran’s missile arsenal. The status of about another third was less clear, but ⁠bombings likely damaged, destroyed, or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.

The U.S. and Israeli war with Iran has spread across the Middle East, killing thousands of people and hitting the global economy with soaring energy prices that are fuelling fears of inflation in ⁠countries around the world.

Meanwhile, Trump has suggested that the U.S. was looking to seize Iran’s oil industry, appearing to argue that more time was needed for the war.

“With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE,” the US president wrote in a social media post yesterday.

According to Al Jazeera, it was not clear how the US would open Hormuz, which Iran effectively blocked early in the conflict, sending energy prices soaring.

Trump has been promising for weeks that the US will reopen the strait soon. One month ago, he said that US Navy ships would accompany oil ships through the strategic waterway.

But the US military has said that it was “not ready” to escort slow-moving vessels in the narrow strait, where its ships could become an easy target for Iranian drones and missiles.

Trump’s assertion that the US would “take” Iran’s oil marks an escalation in his rhetoric.

Under the international law doctrine of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1962, oil and minerals belong to the countries where they are located.

“The free and beneficial exercise of the sovereignty of peoples and nations over their natural resources must be furthered by the mutual respect of States based on their sovereign equality,” the resolution says.

In the meantime, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Randy George has been fired by Hegseth, three U.S. defense officials ‌told Reuters, a major staffing change that comes as the U.S. military fights a major war in the Middle East.

Even as Hegseth, a former Fox News host, has moved quickly to reshape the department, firing the head of a military branch during wartime is extremely rare.

The Pentagon confirmed that George, who had more than a year left in his term, “will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately.”

Two of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Hegseth has also fired General David Hodne, who leads the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and ⁠Major General William Green, head of the Army’s Chaplain Corps.

George’s removal adds to recent upheaval at all levels of leadership at the Pentagon, including the firing last year of the previous chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, as well as the chief of naval operations and Air Force vice chief of staff.

However, oil prices could top $150 per barrel if energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz remain disrupted by the middle of May, investment bank, JP Morgan warned.

Prices are headed to $120-$130 per barrel in the very near term, the investment bank said in a note carried by Reuters.

At Thursday’s close, oil prices surged, with the U.S. benchmark WTI Crude soaring past Brent Crude and settling at $111.50 per barrel. 

The international benchmark closed at $109 a barrel on Thursday, the last trading day of this week, as markets were closed on Good Friday.

JP Morgan’s base-case assumption was that the energy flows would ultimately resume flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, where vessel traffic has collapsed since the beginning of March.

Iran selectively allows certain ships to transit the world’s most critical oil chokepoint, through which 20 per cent of daily global oil and LNG passed before the war.

Even if the Strait of Hormuz were to open unconditionally to all traffic today, the global oil production and refining supply chains would take at least three to six months to normalise to pre-war levels, said June Goh, Senior Oil Market Analyst for Sparta Commodities, in an analysis last week.

This week, the UK hosted a virtual meeting of more than three dozen countries to discuss pathways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to free vessel traffic.

The countries discussed ideas, including sanctions and increased international diplomatic pressure, including through the UN, “to send clear and coordinated messages to Iran to permit unimpeded transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz and to comprehensively reject the imposition of tolls on vessels which seek to pass through,” said the UK Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who chaired the meeting.

Yet, there are no signs of imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which prolongs the period of choked supply to the market.

Earlier this week, energy consultancy FGE NexantECA said that oil prices could jump to $200 per barrel and even higher if the Strait of Hormuz remains near-closed as it is at the moment for six more weeks.

Last week, analysts at Macquarie Group warned that oil prices could hit a record $200 per barrel if the war in the Middle East drags on through the entire second quarter.