Iran negotiator Ghalibaf rejects claim unfrozen funds will buy US goods

The denial contradicts the US administration, which said unfrozen funds will be spent on produce from American farmers.

By Heba Habib and Anadolu

Published On 25 Jun 202625 Jun 2026

Iran’s parliament speaker, who also heads the country’s negotiating team in talks with the United States, has rejected claims by US President Donald Trump that Tehran’s unfrozen assets would be funnelled exclusively into purchasing American agricultural exports.

“America falsely claims our unfrozen assets will buy their agriculture,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on social media platform X on Thursday.

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“The only crop we’re harvesting is what you [the US] planted: decades of mistrust. It’s organic, abundant, and homegrown.”

He added that Washington “only exports GMO soybeans, broken promises and trash talk”.

The rebukes follow Trump remarking that initial financial relief under the Pakistan-mediated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) would include $500 million in American goods.

Trump insisted that no direct cash would reach Tehran, promising the funds would instead be used to buy corn and wheat from US farmers to alleviate what he described as Iran’s “hunger problem”.

US Vice President JD Vance said if Iranian assets are unfrozen, “they’re going to go to make American farmers richer and feed the Iranian people”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking alongside Bahraini leaders in Manama on Thursday, said the US sought a deal that did not compromise security or prosperity for itself or its regional allies.

Iranian state and semi-official media have countered the US administration’s narrative, framing the framework agreement as a strategic victory rather than a concession.

According to reports from the semi-official Mehr News Agency, Ghalibaf described the memorandum during a diplomatic visit to Baku as a “declaration of US defeat”, asserting that the text does not contain any legal clauses mandating the purchase of US commodities.

On Monday, Iran’s central bank governor said funds released under the emerging agreement with the US will not necessarily be restricted to essential goods.

Tensions over the deal’s implementation come as both sides continue to negotiate the finer details of the Iran-US MoU.

The agreement, brokered by Pakistan, began on June 18 following electronic signatures from Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

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Israel kills three in Lebanon as Rubio praises progress in Washington talks

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reports three people have been killed in an Israeli attack on a car in Nabatieh.

By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and Reuters

Published On 25 Jun 202625 Jun 2026

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have continued despite a ceasefire, with three people killed during a strike on a car in the south of the country, as senior Israeli and Lebanese officials meet for a final day of talks in Washington.

According to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA), three people were killed on Thursday, and one was wounded after the Israeli attack hit a car on the road between Zawtar and Mayfadoun in Nabatieh Governorate.

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NNA also reported that Israeli forces burned a number of houses in the town of Ain Arab, after issuing warnings forcing residents to evacuate the town before 5pm on Wednesday.

According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health, since the conflict began on March 2, 4,230 people have been killed and 12,179 others have been wounded.

Reporting from Nabatieh, southern Lebanon, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr said the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah remains “fragile” as the Israeli army continues to target “anyone or anything in front-line villages”.

“[These are ] villages on the outskirts [of the] city of Nabatieh, which lie along the area which is under Israel’s occupation,” Khodr explained. “So the message is they don’t want people to approach that area, there’ve been drone strikes, they’ve dropped stun grenades … people killed.

“Those villages, the Israeli army was not able to occupy them during weeks of fighting and it wants to still be able to control them by fire because the more territory you control, the more leverage you have in negotiations,” she said, adding that officials from Lebanon and Israel are discussing the possible and gradual handover of territory.

Ceasefire talks

Israel and Lebanon have been discussing a United States-backed proposal for the past three days, with the talks wrapping up in Washington, DC, on Thursday. The negotiations have been focused on Israeli forces handing over some of the territory they occupied during the fighting with Hezbollah to Lebanon’s military.

A US State Department official told the Reuters news agency that Israel had taken a “concrete step” towards the proposal, which had been part of the latest round of talks, by pulling back from a part of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

However, a senior Israeli defence official denied that there had been any pullback, adding that Israel would not be withdrawing from its buffer zone.

Moreover, a senior Lebanese military official also told Reuters that developments on the ground in recent days had shown the “opposite of a pullback”.

Still, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that Israel and Lebanon were making good progress towards a “commitment of intent”.

“I think we are very close in our hopes of getting a commitment of intent between the two countries,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Bahrain.

“It’ll be a process, it’ll take some time, it’ll take a lot of work, but I can tell you that for the first time in 30 years, the sovereign government of Lebanon is speaking to the government of Israel directly.”

Under US pressure, Lebanese officials began direct talks in April with Israel in Washington.

Hezbollah, however, has condemned the Lebanon-Israel talks, demanding the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon first.

F-15E Shootdown: Iran’s Product 358 Faces Scrutiny as Strike Eagle Pilot Recounts Unusual Drone Activity

Thursday, June 25, 2026


F-15E Shootdown: Iran’s Product 358 Faces Scrutiny as Strike Eagle Pilot Recounts Unusual Drone Activity

By Sumit Ahlawat



For months, U.S. aviation experts and intelligence officials have been debating a pressing question: How did Iran manage to detect and strike a U.S. F-35 Lightning II fighter, the first time the stealth jet has ever been hit in its nearly decade-long combat history?

Although the F-35 managed to land at a friendly airbase in the Gulf region and the pilot was safe, the incident sent shockwaves through the U.S. military and intelligence community. For many, it shattered the long-held perception that the stealth fighter was nearly invisible to enemy radars.

kt note: From Wiki: On 27 March 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia amid the Kosovo War, a Yugoslav Army unit shot down a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth ground attack aircraft of the United States Air Force (USAF) by firing a S-125 Neva/Pechora surface-to-air missile. It was the first ever shootdown of a stealth aircraft. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued eight hours later by USAF Pararescuemen conducting search and rescue.[1][2]

The F-117 had entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1983. It was believed its stealth technology would protect it from relatively obsolete Yugoslav air defenses.[3] The wreckage was mostly intact, creating fears that the sensitive technology would be disseminated. The US military initially prepared F-15E fighters to destroy the wreckage, but claimed to abort the strike due to civilians at the site. It later claimed that it considered the F-117's technology outdated. Russian officials examined the wreckage, potentially contributing to the development of the Sukhoi Su-57 fighter and under development Tupolev PAK DA bomber.[4] China also allegedly purchased wreckage parts, contributing to the Chengdu J-20 fighter

However, the reported account from the downed F-15 fighter jet pilot, which was shot down over Iran on April 3, has, at least for the moment, overshadowed the debate over the shooting of the stealth F-35 fighter jet.

According to CNN, the pilot of the downed F-15 jet described a shocking sight before ejecting from his aircraft: multiple Iranian drones hovering in the air, moving as one, in a formation that resembled a jellyfish, according to four sources familiar with the matter.

During a post-mission debrief, the pilot reportedly told intelligence officials he observed several drones, hovering in the air, moving together in a pattern resembling a “jellyfish,” sparking debate within the US intelligence community.

If the pilot’s account is accurate, it would indicate a significant advancement in Iran’s drone technology, which has already made its mark by developing cheap one-way kamikaze drones.

Iran’s cheap, mass-produced, and highly attritable Shahed drones have been widely copied, first by Russia, which fields them as the Geran, and more recently by the United States.

The U.S. version, known as LUCAS (Low-cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System), was directly inspired by reverse-engineered Shahed designs and was used extensively against Iranian targets during the recent war.

USAF F-15E crashing in Kuwait on March 1, 2026. File Image.


“Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” one of the sources familiar with the pilot’s witness account told CNN. “Real alien sh*t.”

Another source told CNN the pilot described witnessing a “minefield of drones” in the air.

While the exact cause of the F-15E downing is still being investigated, initial reports indicated that it was possible the drone formation had in some way enabled Iran to shoot down the American jet, according to two of the sources.

Notably, this was the first time in more than two decades that an American fighter jet was shot down by enemy fire. Earlier, an A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) was shot down by an Iraqi surface-to-air (SAM) missile over Baghdad in 2003.

The pilot’s fascinating account has sparked a fierce debate within the U.S. intelligence community over what could be behind it.

Possible Explanations Behind the “Jellywish-like Formation”

The first possibility is that the F-15 pilot’s reported description suggests that Iran has developed a capability that could be called “one-to-many meshed networking,” or “swarm capability,” according to the sources.

Mesh networking allows an operator to command several interconnected drones simultaneously. The drones are not just connected to an operator; they are also connected to one another via data links that allow them to communicate.


Further, these interconnected drones could also act autonomously, adapting and dynamically shifting shape according to the emerging situation on the ground.


Prior to this pilot report, there were no credible public reports of Iran fielding advanced meshed-network drone swarms.

Iran’s drone program has so far focused on mass production of low-cost one-way attack drones and saturation attacks combining drones, ballistic, and cruise missiles. If Iran has indeed developed meshed networking, it would be a qualitative jump, moving from “lots of cheap drones launched together” to “coordinated, resilient, potentially semi-autonomous swarms.”

While assistance from Russia or China, both of which have developed advanced drone-swarm capabilities, cannot be ruled out, Iran has repeatedly surprised observers with its technological ingenuity in this war.

For instance, before the war started, Western intelligence believed that Iran’s longest-range ballistic missiles had a reach of only 2,000 km.

However, during the war, Iran surprised the US by attacking the joint US-UK base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which lies over 4,000 km from the Iranian mainland.

Similarly, Iran surprised Israel by launching hypersonic missiles that flew at incredible speeds and made sharp turns at the last moment, making them almost impossible to stop. These super-maneuverable missiles repeatedly struck targets in Israel.

Dada Shastoni

@DadaShastoni

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A failed attempt to intercept an Iranian Fatah-1 hypersonic ballistic missile using 12 anti-aircraft missiles in the skies above Israel.

8:56 AM · Apr 4, 2026

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Iran also used large numbers of cheap cluster munitions delivered by drones and missiles. These missiles launched hundreds of small bombs over wide areas, damaging airfields, radar sites, and infrastructure on the ground.

Rerum Novarum // Intel, Breaking News, and Alerts

@officialrnintel

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- Incredible footage of Iranian cluster munitions over central Israel. Many impact sites reported.

Rerum Novarum // Intel, Breaking News, and Alerts

@officialrnintel

- Iranian missile launches to Israel.

9:10 AM · Mar 23, 2026

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Iran also shocked the US by successfully tracking and targeting its stealth F-35 fighter jet.

Arya Yadeghaar (Backup)

@AryJeayBackup

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The IRGC also published footage of the tracking and targeting of an American F-35 yesterday, with Iranian air defenses, after it violated Iranian airspace, south Iran. While the F-35 successfully fled the attack, Iran can succesfully track and lock the stealth F-35.

Arya Yadeghaar (Backup)

@AryJeayBackup

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The IRGC published footage showing the successful interception of an American MQ-9 drone, yesterday.

Last edited5:23 AM · May 27, 2026

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While the probe is still ongoing, analysts believe that Iran might have targeted the F-35 by using its loitering drone and SAM hybrid, product 358. Sometimes, it is also called a “drone-based air defense” system. After launch, it can patrol or circle in designated airspace while autonomously searching for targets, then dive in to intercept.

Product 358.


These instances show that Western intelligence has often failed to take into account the real progress Iranian drone and missile technology has made in recent years.

However, there are other possible explanations of what the downed F-15 fighter pilot is reportedly describing.

Another possibility could be that Iran put some sort of drone screen, that is launching multiple loitering drones in close vicinity, along a known route used by American fighter jets.

Furthermore, US fighter jets often made shallow incursions into Iran to avoid Iranian air defense systems.

Once the routes of such low-altitude incursions became known to the Iranians, they could have deployed dozens of loitering drones along them.

Basically, a fighter pilot would fly into this drone screen and crash his jet. Or these drones could be detonated in close proximity to the enemy aircraft.

Notably, such a tactic would match the description provided by the downed F-15 fighter pilot, and no real swarm capability would be required.

For the F-15 pilot, who would have seen this drone screen for only a few seconds, this could have appeared like a drone swarm, acting and moving in unison, even if the drones were not interconnected.

This could be described as a “barrage drone” tactic, deployed to protect high-risk facilities from aerial threats.

Notably, if Iran has launched multiple Product 358 loitering drones in an area, then this could have given the F-15 fighter pilot an impression of a drone swarm.

Another possibility is that what the F-15 pilot witnessed were not Iranian drones but multiple Israeli drones acting in unison to surveil Iranian territory for targeting and suppressing their air defense systems.

However, it must also be noted that the CNN report is not based on the pilot’s testimony but on sources describing the pilot’s comments.

The veracity of the report should be treated with caution, especially given the high-stress, fast-evolving situation.

In such high-stress situations, fighter pilots often suffer from optical illusions due to the fog of war.

Notably, this was his second time being shot out of the sky during the Iran war: he had also been among the pilots downed in a friendly fire incident by Kuwaiti forces early in the conflict, according to two of the sources.

The two shootings and ejections, within a span of one month, might have colored his memory of that fast-evolving situation.

In fact, the intelligence officials conducting the debrief also said something to the effect of: “Are you sure you saw what you are saying you saw?”

Fighter pilots have long reported encountering strange and often unexplained visual phenomena during missions.

While many of these sightings can be attributed to optical illusions, high-stress environments, spatial disorientation from G-forces, or the general “fog of war,” some incidents involve observations that defy conventional explanation, even when evaluated against current scientific and technological understanding.

For instance, during the Second World War, fighter pilots from both Allied and Axis powers witnessed Foo fighters.

Foo fighters were mysterious glowing aerial phenomena. They appeared as fast-moving, glowing orbs or balls of light, typically red, orange, white, or green, that seemed to follow aircraft, often in formation, at high speeds.

They performed maneuvers that pilots described as intelligent or evasive.

To this day, there is no consensus on what these Foo fighters were.

Possible explanations include natural or atmospheric phenomena.

For instance, a glowing corona discharge from aircraft in strong electric fields could appear as balls of light near wingtips.

Furthermore, rare and glowing, floating spheres of plasma could move erratically and persist for seconds to minutes.

However, even during the Second World War, reports circulated of a secret Nazi weapon, but no such evidence ever emerged.

Fighter pilots have also often described various kinds of UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) that are often linked with alien technology.

Sometimes these are just optical sightings for which there are no credible scientific explanations.

Notably, even in the F-15 pilot testimony, one of the sources described the alleged Iranian technology as “real alien sh*t.”

For now, all that can be said is that the F-15 pilot’s testimony will be hotly debated in the aviation and intelligence community, and many more details are yet to emerge as to how Iran managed to shoot down the F-15 fighter jet.

Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.