China strengthens Iran's air defenses and targets two US planes

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Friday, 14 Farvardin 1405, April 3, 2026. An American F-15 fighter jet was hit by air defenses over Iranian soil, probably over Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province, and was shot down. Of the two crew members on this flight, American helicopters went in and rescued one. They were fired on with light weapons, and it is said that people inside the helicopter were wounded, but in the end they managed to get back to their base, or ship, or aircraft carrier, or wherever. The second crew member, however, has not been found. He is said to have been the officer in charge of the

1:02 weapons systems, the so-called fire-control officer of the F-15. The governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad and local officials, as well as the people, are searching for him. Israel has said it has completely halted its attacks on this area, and many news agencies are suggesting that if the pilot or this crew member is captured by Iran, it could affect the escalation of the war. At almost the same time, an American A-10 aircraft was also hit over the Strait of Hormuz; its pilot was rescued. Many news agencies

2:01 have suggested that Iran's air defenses have been strengthened by new weapons the Chinese have provided to Iran, and that the Chinese are, in effect, testing the weapons they have built against American fighters and weapons this way. One might even say they have proven successful in their first tests. If this trend continues and America's absolute air superiority and the complete defenselessness of Iran's skies change as a result, there will be major changes in the balance of the war as well. Meanwhile, yesterday's attack on the bridge known as B1

3:03 in Azimiyeh, Karaj, which is said to be the tallest bridge in the Middle East because of the height of its piers, destroyed the bridge and killed 13 people and wounded 80. Many people in this area had come out of their homes for the Sizdah Bedar celebration and were out enjoying nature in these valleys and surrounding areas. After the bridge was hit, Mr. Trump posted a note on his Truth Social saying: we hit this bridge, and after the bridges, it will be the power plants' turn.

3:57 This open admission of hitting a transportation bridge, and the threat to hit other transportation bridges, is in fact a course aimed at disrupting the country's transportation. During the Iran-Iraq War, too, Saddam Hussein did such things when he had gained some air superiority, targeting transportation bridges, but even in those days the country's technical and engineering forces quickly put up temporary bridges and set about repairing them.

4:47 Mr. Netanyahu also claimed today that he has destroyed 70 percent of Iran's steel capacity. This is a lie, one of Mr. Netanyahu's baseless claims. Israel has targeted Mobarakeh Steel and Khuzestan Steel, where engineers and technicians are, of course, working hard to rebuild and restore production. They have said Khuzestan might take six months, but I hope Mobarakeh Steel, whose oxygen section was hit, will come back online sooner. These two complexes, with 7 million tons and 4.5 million tons of production, have at most

5:41 about 12 million tons of production, which, compared to the country's roughly 30 million tons of steel output, is nowhere near 70 percent, and dozens of steel plants across the country are still operating. Mr. Netanyahu has of course said that in this way we have hit their capacity so that they will no longer be able to build weapons and such, because steel plate is produced in particular at Mobarakeh Steel. But here, too, he is mistaken, because the capacity and ability to produce steel in various sections and forms in Iran's numerous factories, spread throughout the country, make it possible for production to continue.

6:39 Also, today Israel attacked the Pasteur Institute as well as Shahid Beheshti University, and yesterday it attacked the Tofigh Daru pharmaceutical company. These are places that it can in no way claim are military centers or sites where military work is carried out. In response, the Islamic Republic has announced that American universities in the region are on its agenda in retaliation for the attacks on Iran's universities. Among them, the American University of Beirut, which is considered one of the oldest universities in

7:30 the region, has warned its employees and personnel to evacuate and leave because it is currently in danger, and there are other similar places in the region. In addition, Iran has warned Israel that it will target Israel's pharmaceutical companies, which are one of Israel's important export sectors, because Israel supplies raw materials for pharmaceutical factories. If Iran succeeds in hitting Israel's pharmaceutical factories, it will probably affect drug prices around the world as well. As for Mr. Trump's speech on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. US time, it was a disjointed speech full of

8:28 Mr. Trump's usual rambling. It seemed his main purpose in this speech was, first, to convince the American people that this war was necessary: that Iran was a danger, that it was a threat, that it killed US Marines, that previous presidents should have done this, that they have been chanting "Death to America" for 47 years, and things of that sort. That is, to somehow convince American public opinion, which has seriously questioned this war and its necessity. Subsequent polls, however, showed that not only were people not convinced, but Mr.

9:24 Trump's popularity has dropped yet again. Depending on the organizations that constantly conduct polls, his popularity has been put at anywhere from 20 to thirty-some percent, the lowest among American presidents. Another point of his speech was his attempt to give assurances that oil will come back, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, and it will be over. He even said that in two or three weeks our job will be done and we will leave. But these words of Mr. Trump had no effect on oil prices either; in fact, oil prices went up afterward, hovering around 108 dollars and even 110 dollars. And the stock markets: right when Mr. Trump finished speaking, the East Asian markets, with

10:19 Japan, were open, and then gradually everywhere else as they opened. Not only did stock prices not rise, they actually fell, all the way to the New York Stock Exchange itself, which also dropped, with share values falling by several percent. In this incoherent speech, which more than anything shows the lack of strategy of Mr. Trump and the US government in this ruinous, aimless war, a war they were duped into by Israel, there was above all one sentence of his, in which he threatened that we will take Iran back to the Stone Age. On this matter, it must be said

11:13 that he bit off more than he can chew. This threat against an ancient civilization like Iran is a threat to which one must say: sit down where you belong. Destroyers far greater than you, like Genghis Khan the Mongol, attacked Iran, burned our cities, and laid waste to our towns and villages. Within 50 years they knelt before Iranian civilization, and their rulers came to adopt the customs, traditions, and religion of the Iranians. That is, not only will this civilization not go back to the Stone Age, it has tamed every barbarian invader and made them civilized. And to Mr.

12:09 Trump it must be said that back when his ancestors, who are apparently of German origin, were living in Germany in the Bronze Age, even at a pre-tribal stage, in the forests and up in the trees, 4,000 years ago Khuzestan was a cradle of civilization. The Elamite civilization in Iran, whose traces can be seen as far as Sialk in Kashan and in Kerman, had an empire, urban planning, writing, religion, and so on, as well as commerce and trade. Later came the Iron Age and agricultural and industrial production, and then the Achaemenid Empire, which in fact gave great gifts to the world, such as the postal system, a unified currency, administrative systems, and so on, and religious tolerance, and so forth.

13:09 Even if we go back 2,500 years, that same Germany had only just reached the tribal level, and had it not been for the sword of Julius Caesar and the Roman conquerors, they would have remained the same barbarians they had been before. In any case, he must be told that those far bigger than you could not turn back Iranian civilization, which stretched from the Indian subcontinent to the Mediterranean Sea, whose traces remain, and which is still influential. Rather, these irrelevant remarks he makes give hope for the victory of Iran and Iranians.