Eric Schmitt, Helene Cooper, Greg Jaffe and Julian E. Barnes
Washington: An air force officer whose fighter jet had been shot down in Iran was rescued by US Special Operations forces in a risky Saturday night (Tehran time) mission that took commandos deep into enemy territory, President Donald Trump said on social media on Sunday.
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.
In the end, Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos extracted the officer in a massive operation that involved hundreds of special operations troops and other military personnel.
There had been no US casualties among the rescue team, Trump said. All the commandos and the weapons officer returned safely. Rescue planes flew the injured airman to Kuwait for medical treatment.
“WE GOT HIM!” Trump exclaimed in the social media post. “This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour.”
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 quickly rescued, but the weapons systems officer could not be found, setting off an urgent search with major consequences for Trump and the war that the US and Israel launched on February 28.
Finding the downed airman, who had been hiding 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.
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 said. The agency also ultimately found the airman’s hiding place, passing the information onto the Pentagon, which mounted the rescue operation, the senior administration official said.
The mission to save the crew member employed hundreds of special forces troops and other military personnel, dozens of US warplanes, helicopters and cyber, space and other intelligence capabilities.
The airman had evaded Iranian forces for more than 24 hours, at one point hiking up a 2100-metre 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 co-ordinating 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 described 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 were to 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 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 his 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”.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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