US President Donald Trump on Saturday said Tehran had 48 hours left to cut a deal or face "all Hell" if it didn't open the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping.

However, Iran's central military command on Saturday rejected Trump's threat, with General Ali Abdollahi Aliabadi saying Trump's threat was a "a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action".

The development came as US and Iranian forces scrambled to find a downed American airman

Tehran said on Friday it had shot down an F-15 warplane and US media reported United States special forces had rescued one of its two crew members, with the other still missing.

Iran's military also said it downed a US A-10 ground attack aircraft in the Gulf, with American media saying the pilot of that plane was rescued.

Meanwhile, a strike near Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant on Saturday killed a guard and led Russia, which partly constructed the facility and helps operate it, to announce it was evacuating 198 workers from the facility.

Bushehr is considerably closer to Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar than it is to the Iranian capital.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that continued attacks on the plant on the southern coast could eventually lead to radioactive fallout that would "end life in GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) capitals, not Tehran". (AFP)



Edited by Tony Sabine