President Donald Trump is not yet ready to say what the U.S. will do if a missing crew member shot down over Iran is harmed, The Independent reported Friday, citing a brief interview with him.

Trump said he could not comment on what his course of action might be if Iranian forces get to the downed airman, The Independent said.

"We hope that's not going to happen," Trump said.

Iranian and American forces were racing each other early Saturday to recover the crew of the first U.S. fighter jet to go down inside Iran since the start of the war.

Tehran said it had shot down the F-15 warplane, while U.S. media reported American special forces had rescued one of two crew members.

A second U.S. combat aircraft has gone down near the Strait of Hormuz, compounding a rapidly escalating series of incidents after an earlier F-15 was downed over southern Iran, according to U.S. officials and multiple media reports.

Two U.S. officials told The New York Times that an A-10 Warthog crashed around the same time as the F-15 incident, with the pilot successfully rescued.

The war erupted more than a month ago with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, triggering retaliation that spread the conflict throughout the Middle East, convulsing the global economy and impacting millions of people worldwide.

U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the loss of the F-15, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: "The president has been briefed."

Trump told NBC the F-15 loss would not affect negotiations with Iran, saying: "No, not at all. No, it's war."

A spokesperson for the Iranian military's central operational command said, "An American hostile fighter jet in central Iranian airspace was struck and destroyed by the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Aerospace Force's advanced air defense system.

"The jet was completely obliterated, and further searches are ongoing."

An Iranian television reporter on a local official channel said anyone who captured a crew member alive would "receive a valuable reward."

The U.S. military has announced the loss of several aircraft during Iran operations, including one tanker that crashed in Iraq and three F-15s shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire.

Fresh strikes hit Israel, Iran, Lebanon, and Gulf countries, and large blasts rocked northern Tehran, an AFP journalist said. Israel said it had launched a wave of strikes in the Iranian capital, alongside parallel attacks in Beirut.

Earlier, Israel's military reported a new missile salvo from Iran, activating its air defenses.

Strikes by all sides have increasingly targeted economic and industrial sites, raising fears of wider disruption to global energy supplies.

In the area around a bridge west of Tehran that was targeted by the United States, an AFP reporter saw a villa and residential buildings with blown-out windows, but no military installations.

According to the Martyrs Foundation of Alborz Province, cited by the official IRNA agency, the attack killed 13 civilians and wounded dozens.

In Abu Dhabi, Iran's neighbor across the Gulf, metal giant Emirates Global Aluminium said it could take up to a year before it can resume full production after its site was damaged by Iranian strikes.

Writing in the U.S. journal Foreign Affairs, Iran's former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said Tehran should make a deal with Washington to end the war by offering to curb its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran has virtually blocked the key waterway since the war began, where one-fifth of the world's oil and natural gas normally passes.

Of the few ships that have managed to cross, most have had links to Iran, with 60% of commodity-bearing ships crossing the strait either coming from Iran or heading there, an AFP analysis of maritime data showed.

In the first known transit by a major European shipping group since March 1, the Maltese-flagged Kribi, belonging to the French maritime transport group CMA CGM, crossed the strait to exit the Gulf on Thursday, according to Marine Traffic data analyzed by AFP.

Three other ships, including one co-owned by a Japanese company, crossed Thursday.

Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that Iran would increase its own attacks on energy sites in the region in response to threats from Trump of attacks on infrastructure.

A drone attack on a refinery owned by Kuwait's national oil company on Friday sparked fires at several of its units, state media said.

Later, an Iranian attack damaged a power and desalination complex, Kuwait's water and electricity ministry said.

In Abu Dhabi, a gas complex shut after a fire broke out, following an attack that resulted in "falling debris" upon interception, the government media office said.

The Israeli military said Friday it had struck more than 3,500 targets across Lebanon in the month since fighting with Iran-backed Hezbollah began.

It added that it would attack two bridges in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa region "in order to prevent the transfer of reinforcements and military equipment."

Lebanese state media later reported that Israel destroyed one bridge in the region.

Lebanon's health ministry said Thursday that 1,345 people had been killed and 4,040 wounded since the start of the war.

Hezbollah has so far not announced its losses.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeeping force said a blast of unknown origin wounded three peacekeepers Friday, the third such incident in a week.

AFP and Reuters contributed to this report.