Cia ‘deception Campaign’ Bought Time For Rescue Of Downed Airman

As American special forces raced to locate a U.S. airman stranded inside Iran after the downing of his fighter jet on Friday, U.S. intelligence officers mounted a bold plan to prevent Tehran from getting to him first.

The CIA spread word inside Iran that U.S. forces had already found the airman and were exfiltrating him out of the country by ground, according to two senior administration officials.

The feint bought time for the CIA to locate the downed airman and quietly relay his precise whereabouts to the White House and Pentagon, added the two officials, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media.

U.S. special forces ultimately managed to find and rescue the airman late Saturday, in what President Donald Trump hailed in a social media post early Sunday morning as one of “the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History.” The airman — a weapons systems officer — had been in Iran nearly two days.

“We have rescued the seriously wounded, and really brave, F-15 Crew Member/Officer, from deep inside the mountains of Iran … An AMAZING show of bravery and talent by all!” Trump said in another post on Sunday, noting there were no U.S. casualties in the operation.

The high-stakes rescue operation prevented the Iranians from capturing the airman in what would have been a significant political embarrassment for the Trump administration — and a powerful bargaining chip for Tehran as the war stretches into its second month.

The airman had been missing since Friday, when Iranian forces downed an F-15 fighter jet, the first time a U.S. jet was brought down inside Iran since the start of the war. While U.S. forces quickly rescued the pilot of the F-15, the weapons systems officer was unaccounted for for days, setting off a scramble between the U.S. and Iran to get to him first.

Trump said in his post that before the U.S. operation, the Iranian military was “looking hard, in big numbers, and getting close” to capturing him.

The New York Times reported Sunday that hundreds of special operations forces were involved in the rescue operation, which took place under the cover of night. But the U.S. forces triumphed after the military sent “dozens of aircraft” armed with “the most lethal weapons in the World” to retrieve the airman, Trump’s post said.

In addition to the deception campaign, the CIA helped locate the airman’s precise location and feed it to the Pentagon and White House before the rescue operation, said the two senior administration officials.

It was “the ultimate ‘needle in a haystack’” mission, the first official said.