The CIA was heavily involved in a precarious operation that successfully rescued a U.S. military member who was shot down over Iran last week.
The intelligence community sprang into action after it was revealed on Friday that Iran shot down the F-15 fighter jet, which held two crew members. The pilot was rescued alive on Friday, with President Donald Trump later saying he was saved “in broad daylight, also unusual, spending seven hours over Iran.” But the second, a weapons system officer, according to Axios, remained stranded.
In order to rescue the officer, the CIA ran a deception campaign to manipulate Iranian forces trying to capture the downed American. The CIA successfully “leaked through multiple sources that they were trying to move a valuable package out of the country through a maritime exfil,” U.S. officials told Fox News’s Trey Yingst and other outlets, in order to draw Iranians away from the area where the crew member was located. The Iranians were closing in on the crew member when the U.S. swept in, according to Washington.
The CIA had confirmed the crew member’s location by Saturday morning. But concerns remained that “despite the beacon signal, it was an Iranian trap.” The final decision to launch the rescue operation within Iran came from Trump, according to NBC News.
“Within eight hours, we had planes in motion. Within almost 12 hours, we were on the ground in Iran,” the official told Yingst. “There was a lot at stake here.”
The weapons system officer evaded capture in the mountains for more than a day before he was rescued by the U.S. in a Saturday operation that was conducted by a specialized commando unit with a high volume of air cover, per Axios. Trump identified the crew member as a “highly respected colonel” who was “being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour.” The president said he was injured but stable.
A U.S. official told NBC News that “While the Iranians were confused and uncertain of what was happening, the Agency used its unique, exquisite capabilities to search for — and find — the American.”
“This was the ultimate ‘needle in a haystack,’ but in this case it was a brave American soul inside a mountain crevice, invisible but for the CIA’s capabilities,” the official said.
The president celebrated the recovery of both crew members on Sunday.
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“The rescue was an Easter Miracle. The enemy was large and violent. The rescuers were brilliant, strong, decisive, and as cool as anyone can be. The Iranians thought they had him, but it wasn’t even close, and remember, we got two, but couldn’t talk about the first in that it would have highlighted that there was a second,” he said.
Several other U.S. military aircraft were fired at by Iran as they launched a search and rescue mission for the two pilots, according to multiple reports. Iran shot down one of them, an A-10 Thunderbolt attack plane, though the pilot safely ejected and was rescued.
