An Air Force officer whose fighter jet had been shot down in Iran was rescued by US Special Operations forces in a Saturday night mission that took commandos deep into enemy territory, President Donald Trump said on Social Truth Sunday.
The US had been monitoring his location "24 hours a day, and diligently planning for his rescue," reads the post by Trump.
Trump also mentioned that senior military officials monitored the airman’s movements around the clock, assessing threats and identifying a narrow window to act.
Plans were finalised for a high-risk extraction deep behind enemy lines as the situation grew more urgent.
The missing F-15 airman would have been trying to hide for as long as possible from the Iranian military and potentially seeking to transmit their location relative to a known secret point in the hope that US special forces coming in via helicopter would be able to rescue them, military pilots told The Guardian.
The rescue followed a life-or-death race between US and Iranian forces that stretched over two days to reach the injured airman, who is a weapons system officer, current and former US officials said.
Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos extracted the officer in a massive operation that involved hundreds of special operations troops, other military personnel, dozens of US warplanes, helicopters, and cyber, space and other intelligence capabilities.
SEAL Team 6 is one of the United States’ secretive military operations. It was created in October 1980 for “no-fail” missions, often devoted exclusively to counter-terrorism. They are behind the assassination of Osama bin Laden.
The New York Times has referred to the team as, “a global manhunting machine,” and “one of the nation’s most mythologized, most secretive and least scrutinized military organizations.”
The US air force used low-flying Pave Hawk helicopters and specialist C-130 Hercules transport for the rescue operation.
Several "flying objects" were destroyed during the US mission to find a stranded airman in Iran, the Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday according to Tasnim news agency.
"During a joint operation (Aerospace, Ground Force, Popular Units, Basij and Police command), enemy flying objects were destroyed," the group said after Iran's police command announced an American C-130 aircraft had been downed in the south of Isfahan.
"Israel provided intelligence assistance to the United States during an operation to rescue a stranded US airman in Iran and halted its attacks in the area to facilitate the mission," an Israeli security official said.
The two crew members of the F-15E Strike Eagle, the first lost to enemy fire in the month-long war, had both ejected from the cockpit on Friday after Iran’s military struck their plane.
The jet’s pilot was rescued, but its weapons systems officer could not be found, setting off an urgent search with major consequences for Trump and the war that the United States and Israel launched February 28.
Finding the downed airman, who had been hiding behind enemy lines with little more than a pistol as defence, had been the US military’s highest priority over the past 48 hours.
After ejecting from the F-15E, the officer hid in a mountain crevice, his location initially unknown to either Americans trying to rescue him, or Iranians trying to capture him, according to a The New York Times report.
The CIA initiated a deception campaign to try to confuse Iranian forces, and convince them the airman had already been rescued and was moving out of the country in a ground convoy, a senior administration official told The New York Times.
The agency also ultimately found the airman’s hiding place, passing the information on to the Pentagon, which mounted the rescue operation, the senior administration official said.
The airman evaded Iranian forces for more than 24 hours, at one point hiking up a 7,000-foot ridgeline, a senior US military official said.
US attack aircraft dropped bombs and opened fire on Iranian convoys to keep them away from the area where the airman was hiding. As US commandos converged on the downed airman, they fired their weapons to keep Iranian forces away from the rescue site, but did not engage in a firefight with the Iranians, a US military official said.
The airman was equipped with a beacon and a secure communication device for coordinating with forces mounting the rescue. But the airman restricted the use of his beacon, because Iranian forces could have detected its signal as well.
A senior US military official called the mission to rescue the airman as one of the most challenging and complex in the history of US special operations given the mountainous terrain, the airman’s injuries and Iranian forces rushing to the location.
In a final twist after the weapons officer was rescued, two transport planes that would carry the commandos and the airman to safety got stuck at a remote base in Iran.
Commanders decided to fly in three new planes to extract all the US military personnel and the airman, and they blew up the two disabled planes rather than have them fall into Iranian hands.
The F-15E fighter jet was shot down in a region of Iran where there is significant opposition to the Iranian government. As a result, the airman may have been able to rely on locals for shelter and assistance.
The crash also drew the attention of Iranian military forces, who were reported to have been scouring the area. The Iranian government asked locals for help finding the downed airman, and had offered a reward for the airman’s capture.
The CIA often also plays a role in making contact with civilians willing to help vulnerable troops stay alive, a process known as “unconventional assisted recovery.”
Military analysts and officials quoted across US outlets noted that the mission combined nearly every element of modern warfare -- stealth intelligence, electronic tracking, air superiority operations, ground combat, and deception campaigns.
The rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search were hit by Iranian fire but escaped from Iranian airspace.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, but few are fluent in Persian and face a challenge in staying undetected while seeking rescue.
The conflict has killed 13 US military service members, with over 300 wounded, US Central Command said. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.
While Trump has repeatedly sought to portray the Iranian military as being in tatters, they have repeatedly been able to hit US aircraft.
Reuters reported on US intelligence showing that Iran retains large amounts of missile and drone capability. Until just over a week ago, the US determined with certainty that it had destroyed about one-third of Iran's missile arsenal.
The status of about another third was less clear, but bombings probably damaged, destroyed or buried those missiles in underground tunnels and bunkers, Reuters sources said.