Locating and rescuing the pilot whose plane was shot down in Iran was “a daunting challenge,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said at a White House press conference alongside President Donald Trump.
It was a mission “comparable to searching for a grain of sand in the middle of the desert,” the US intelligence chief was quoted as saying by CNN.
“Invisible to the enemy, not to the CIA”
“It was also a race against time because it was crucial to locate the downed airman as quickly as possible, while at the same time misleading the enemy,” Ratcliffe said, adding that the CIA ran “a campaign of deception” to confuse the Iranians.
The CIA director said the agency discovered and confirmed the pilot was alive early Saturday morning using “human and technical means.” The CIA passed the information to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who informed President Trump, thus triggering the rescue operation
“Because the US military has a unique tradition of leaving no one behind, this was a mission where failure was not allowed,” the CIA chief said.
According to him, the soldier was “hidden in a crevasse in the mountain, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.”
An operation that took place over the course of two days
The U.S. Air Force officer whose fighter jet was shot down in Iran on Friday was rescued by U.S. special operations forces on a risky mission Saturday night that took commando troops deep into enemy territory, U.S. President Donald Trump said shortly after the US media reported that the serviceman had been extracted.
The NYT notes that the rescue operation was a life-and-death race between US and Iranian forces that spanned two days to reach the wounded officer, current and former US officials told the US publication.
Eventually, US Navy SEAL Team 6 managed to rescue him. After the end of the mission, there were no casualties among the rescue team, and all the soldiers who participated in the operation and the wanted one left Iran, a senior US military official said. Rescue planes transported the injured pilot to Kuwait for medical treatment.
