Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
Updated ,first published
Washington: US forces have staged a daring rescue of an airman caught behind enemy lines after Iran shot down his F-15 fighter jet, resolving a crisis for President Donald Trump as he weighs escalating the war, now in its sixth week.
“WE GOT HIM!” Trump said in a Truth Social post early on Sunday. “Over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History.”
The rescue is a bright spot for the United States in a war that has killed thousands, sparked an energy crisis and threatens lasting damage to the world economy after Iran virtually shut the vital Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said the rescue mission in Iran’s mountains involved dozens of US military aircraft. The airman, a weapons system officer who Trump said held the rank of colonel, was injured but would be “just fine”.
He was the second member of a two-person crew of an F-15 that Iran said on Friday had been brought down by its air defences.
Trump said the US didn’t confirm the first rescue to avoid jeopardising the second operation.
Iranian officials had called on citizens to help locate the remaining American, hoping to gain leverage against Washington in the war launched by the US and Israel on February 28. Iranian media reported Tehran had offered a reward of about $US66,000 ($96,000) if the airman was captured alive.
The downing of a US aircraft and the search for the crew member had pierced the aura of invincibility that Trump has sought to project as he tries to stave off the increasing political risks of the war.
Trump has repeatedly claimed dominance over Iranian airspace and used maximalist rhetoric to suggest the US has won and that Iran’s military capability has been eliminated in an effort to calm markets and an American public that is strongly opposed to the war.
Analysts have said the downing of the jet cast doubt on Trump’s claim of air supremacy over Iran.
Trump did not provide details on the rescue but said it was the first time in memory that two US pilots had been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory.
The high-stakes rescue effort encountered fierce resistance from Iran.
Reuters reported on Friday that two Black Hawk helicopters involved in the search effort were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace. In a separate incident, a pilot ejected from an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft after it was hit over Kuwait and crashed, the officials said, though the extent of crew injuries was unclear.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said several “flying objects” were destroyed during the US mission, after the regime’s police command announced an American C-130 aircraft had been downed in the south of Isfahan.
Still, Trump was triumphant.
“The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a SINGLE American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again, that we have achieved overwhelming Air Dominance and Superiority over the Iranian skies,” he said in his statement.
US air crews are trained in what to do if they go down behind enemy lines, measures known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), 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 to date, with more than 300 wounded, according to the US Central Command.
Earlier this weekend, Trump threatened to unleash “all hell” on Iran as early as Monday (Washington time), saying the 10-day deadline for the country to make a peace deal with the US was running out. Iran has shown little sign of accepting Trump’s demands for peace and has laid out its own conditions – most of them unacceptable to the US and Israel.
The president has warned that if Iran doesn’t agree to his terms and open the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic out of the Persian Gulf, the US would bomb the country’s civilian energy infrastructure – strikes that could constitute a war crime under international law.
Iran announced on Saturday that Iraq, a major oil producer, would be exempt from its shipping restrictions in the strait, allowing through as much as 3 million barrels a day of Iraqi oil. An Iraqi official struck a cautious note, saying the outflow depended on whether shipping companies were willing to risk entering the strait.
Tehran continued its barrage of attacks on its neighbours over the weekend. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said on Sunday that its headquarters caught fire after a strike by unmanned drones. The damaged building also houses the emirate’s oil ministry. There were also drone attacks on two power and distillation plants that resulted in “significant material damage”, Kuwait News Agency reported, citing an electricity ministry spokesperson.
Bahrain’s Interior Ministry reported on Sunday that its civil defence was “taking measures to control a fire in a facility as a result of the Iranian aggression”, without citing the location and type of facility. The United Arab Emirates’ Defence Ministry also said on Sunday that its systems were actively engaging with missiles and drone threats.
The Israeli military said it hit a petrochemical complex in south-western Iran on Saturday, claiming it produced military substances. Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency said five people died in the attack and 170 were injured.
Other attacks targeting the perimeter of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant left one security staff member dead, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. The main sections of the facility, where Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom has workers, were unaffected, Tasnim said.
More than 1900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, while more than 1400 people have been killed in Lebanon. In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died. Nineteen people have been reported dead in Israel and 10 Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon.
Reuters, Bloomberg, AP
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