FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
A coordinated intelligence and military intervention operation thwarted Iranian efforts to find him.
An American airman stranded in the mountains of Iran for 36 hours was rescued thanks to a CIA-led disinformation campaign and a daring military operation that thwarted Iranian efforts to locate him.
US officials confirmed to FOX News that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted an extensive disinformation campaign as part of the mission to rescue a downed American airman after his F-15 jet was shot down by Iranian forces in southeastern Iran.
The pilot, whose identity has not yet been released, was one of two crew members on the F-15. A US military team rescued the pilot later that day, while the second crew member was stranded for 36 hours in mountainous terrain before being rescued by US forces.
The CIA campaign involved spreading information inside Iran that US forces had already found the aviator and were transporting him overland for evacuation, misleading Iranian forces and leaders in their search for the missing man.
While Iranian forces were dealing with this false information, American intelligence was able to help locate the aviator in Iran and support a US special forces mission to extract him.
“This was a typical ‘needle in a haystack’ scenario,” a U.S. official told Fox News. “A brave American hiding in a mountain crevice, undetectable by conventional methods, but identified through CIA intelligence.”
Rescue mission
In addition to the CIA intelligence campaign, the rescue operation involved hundreds of special forces troops, dozens of US fighter jets and helicopters, according to a report by The New York Times.
US special forces teams were deployed to Iran on Friday and Saturday as part of the search and rescue effort. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sent units to search for the missing airman. To thwart these efforts, US Air Force aircraft carried out strikes on Iranian forces to prevent them from reaching the area, according to sources cited by Axios.
Two officials familiar with the operation told The New York Times that, as US forces managed to locate the aviator and were approaching to extract him, an armed clash with Iranian forces broke out.
A senior US military official described the mission as "one of the most difficult and complex in the history of US special operations."
During the operation, US forces set up a temporary air base for the search mission. According to the Wall Street Journal, two MC-130J aircraft were stranded during the operation.
MC-130Js are aircraft specially equipped for covert infiltration and extracting troops from areas behind enemy lines.
Because these planes could not move, three more planes were sent for the final extraction, The New York Times reported, and American forces decided to destroy the remaining planes before leaving the area.
After the successful completion of the operation, Iranian forces discovered the remains of the MC-130J aircraft and falsely claimed that their military had shot them down.
"According to the IRGC Public Relations Department, thanks to a divine favor, the hostile American drone that was pursuing a downed pilot south of Isfahan was shot down," the IRNA agency reported in a post on social media, referring to the MC-130J aircraft.
Lini një Përgjigje