How US commandos carried out 36-hour mission to rescue airman from deep inside Iranian mountains | EUROtoday

US particular forces carried out a daring rescue mission to carry again an airman stranded 200 miles behind enemy strains after Iran shot down a $31m fighter jet on Friday.

Donald Trump stated on Sunday that dozens of army plane had raced to rescue the lacking weapons-system officer of a two-seat F-15E after the pilot ejected and was rescued below hearth.

The president stated the injured second airman was caught “in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour”.

In a unprecedented feat, US commandos despatched to his rescue slipped into Iran below the duvet of darkness, scaled a 2,100 metre ridge and took the specialist again to security, transferring him towards a secret rendezvous level earlier than daybreak on Sunday.

The rescue mission encountered fierce resistance from Iran, with the Iranian army claiming to have taken down a number of American warplanes whereas the CIA targeted on distracting them with a focused deception marketing campaign.

Trump stated no casualties had been reported from the mission, which he described as the primary time in US army historical past that two pilots had been rescued, individually, deep in enemy territory.

The announcement got here simply hours earlier than the president doubled down on his threats to strike Iranian infrastructure as quickly as Tuesday in an expletive-laden rant on social media, earlier than negotiators hashed out a brand new proposal for a right away ceasefire.

On Monday, Trump and his prime defence aides additional detailed the dangerous mission throughout a information convention on the White House, with the president outlining how the US relied on dozens of plane, tons of of personnel, secret CIA know-how and a dose of subterfuge.

He additionally once more repeated his warnings to Iran, threatening to ship the nation “back to the stone ages” with a barrage of assaults on civilian targets if his ultimate deadline to make a deal on opening the Strait of Hormuz isn’t met.

Here’s what we all know in regards to the rescue missions to this point:

How did it occur?

The F-15E Strike Eagle – an all-weather jet designed for air-to-ground and air-to-air missions – was shot down by Iranian defences on Friday morning, in response to Iran.

Two crew members had been on board the jet, callsign ‘Dude 44’, when it was downed: a pilot and a weapons-system officer within the again, chargeable for choosing targets and ensuring the weapons are correctly calibrated to targets.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya joint army command stated it used a brand new air-defence system on Friday, which focused a US fighter jet, three drones and two cruise missiles.

“The enemy should know that we rely on new air-defence systems built by the young, knowledgeable, and proud people of this country, unveiling them one after another in the field,” a spokesperson stated.

What did the rescue mission contain?

Dozens of American warplanes had been despatched in direction of Iran to hold out the daring rescues of each the pilot and the weapons-system officer.

The pilot safely ejected and was rescued by two army helicopters on Friday. One helicopter was hit by small arms hearth, wounding crew on board, however escaped, in response to CBS, citing US officers.

“We didn’t play up the first one, because then they would have found out about the second one,” Trump informed the Wall Street Journal after the second rescue on Sunday. “So by not talking about the first one, it took them a day and a half to find out there was a second one.”

The misplaced airman was trapped some 200 miles inside Iran with solely a handgun to defend himself, in response to US officers. US air crews are educated in Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) strategies if downed behind enemy strains, however few are fluent in Persian and face a problem in staying undetected whereas searching for rescue.

Trump informed the WSJ that the colonel, regardless of having sustained accidents, was capable of climb up right into a crevice to await extraction as Iran started their very own hunt. One US official informed Reuters he had sprained his ankle – a fortunate escape from bailing on a transferring jet.

The airman radioed in “God is good” upon reaching the ridge, a message that was reportedly met with suspicion in Washington, fearing an Iranian entice. Reuters’ supply stated the airman later established contact with the US army and authenticated himself – a essential step to make sure rescue forces weren’t strolling right into a entice.

A senior Trump administration official informed NBC that the rescue was made attainable by the assist of the CIA, alerting the Pentagon and the White House to the airman’s location. Israel, too, provided intelligence assist and halted assaults to clear the way in which.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe stated the spy company used “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service” possesses to find the aviator, describing the search and rescue operation as “comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert”.

At the identical time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead Iranians who additionally had been looking for him, reportedly spreading false info that the airman had already been discovered and recovered.

The US army in the meantime jammed electronics and hit key roads close by to cease folks getting shut, as Iranian state media reported on a supposed $60,000 bounty for the airman’s seize alive. According to stories, American B-1 bombers would drop almost 100 2,000lb satellite-guided bombs through the rescue mission.

MQ-9 Reaper drones protected the crew member by putting Iranian military-aged males considered a menace who had been inside 3km of the airman, an individual conversant in the operation informed Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The plane finally despatched to extract the airman and rescue forces had been a lot smaller turboprop plane, able to touchdown on small airfields and comparatively gentle, in response to Reuters.

Protected by an “air armada” of drones, strike plane and extra, rescuers moved in on Sunday to select up the weapons officer and convey him house.

Many of the handfuls of plane that had been a part of the operation had been there for deception, Trump stated. “We were bringing them all over, and a lot of it was subterfuge,” he stated. “We wanted to have them think he was in a different location.”

Back in Washington, nationwide safety officers coordinated on a name, retaining the telephone line open for almost two days straight. “From the moment our pilots went down, our mission was unblinking,” Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said. “The call never dropped. The meeting never stopped, the planning never ceased.”

How it nearly came undone

The rescue had unfolded with near‑perfect precision, as US commandos slipped into Iran and moved the stranded airman toward a secret rendezvous point before dawn on Sunday.

The rescue mission hit a snag as two MC-130 aircraft that had ferried some of the roughly 100 special operations forces into rugged terrain south of Tehran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off, a US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Their commanders made a high-risk decision, ordering additional aircraft to fly into Iran to extract the group in waves, a decision that left the elite commandos waiting for a couple of tense hours.

“If there was a ‘holy s***’ moment, that was it,” said the official, who credited quick decision-making with saving the day.

The rescue force was pulled out in stages, and US troops destroyed the disabled MC‑130s and four additional helicopters inside Iran rather than risk leaving sensitive equipment behind.

How did Trump respond?

Trump announced on Sunday morning that the second airman had been recovered and was “safe and sound”.

He wrote on Truth Social that the “highly respected Colonel” had “sustained injuries, but he will be just fine”.

He also said that not a single American was killed or wounded in either operation to rescue the airmen.

Trump added that US forces had been monitoring the officer’s location constantly during the rescue, which he said involved dozens of US aircraft armed with “the most lethal weapons in the world”.

The president said the mission showed the US had air superiority in the conflict with Iran. He said the US would never leave a US “warfighter” behind.

How has Iran reacted?

Iran’s joint military command said that new air defences had shot down the F-15E fighter jet over Iran.

The elite Revolutionary Guard claimed that several aircraft were also destroyed during the rescue mission. They said nomadic tribes living in the country’s mountains shot two Black Hawk helicopters during the initial operation.

An Iranian army spokesperson additionally stated a C-130 army transport aircraft and two Black Hawk helicopters had been among the many destroyed craft.

Iranian officers had urged residents to assist discover the lacking officer, hoping to achieve leverage in opposition to Washington. Had Tehran captured the airman, it could have put extra strain on Trump to finish a battle already unpopular within the US.

The battle has killed 13 US service members, with greater than 300 wounded, US Central Command says. No US troops have been taken prisoner by Iran.