The complex rescue operation involved hundreds of military personnel and agents from the American and Israeli secret services. Instead of going to play golf, as he does every Saturday, Donald Trump watched everything from the White House Crisis Room
Hiding alone in a mountain crevice behind enemy lines, the injured American airman knew exactly what to do: survive and escape.
For more than a day, the airman whose F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down inside Iran avoided capture by approaching Iranian forces.
At one point, he climbed the rugged terrain to a summit 2,000 meters above sea level, equipped with little more than a pistol, a communications device and a homing beacon.
It was in the high mountains that a team of American commandos, accompanied by US planes dropping bombs to clear the area, was launched to locate the officer and bring him to safety.
Two US officials later described the details of the risky operation. It involved hundreds of American military and intelligence agents, including the special operations forces who carried out the successful rescue mission, and CIA agents who previously mounted a campaign of deception to mislead potential Iranian captors.
And it had several twists and turns, including a pair of damaged American special operations planes that the US had to blow up on Iranian soil during the operation.
“We caught him!” on social media, after spending Saturday following the operation from the White House. “During the past few hours, the United States Military has carried out one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US history.”
After the fighter jet was shot down on Friday, the race to find and recover the soldier – responsible for the weapons system – occupied the entire administration.
The , but the White House and the Pentagon refused to confirm the rescue, as a more prolonged , was underway to find his crewmate.
Both had ejected from the plane when it was hit, but the whereabouts of the weapons systems officer were unknown. After suffering injuries during the ejection, he hid in the crack to avoid detection by Iran, whose leaders had given a reward for his capture.
At that time, he contacted the military. But his communications were sporadic as he tried to avoid detection by Iranian forces.
In Washington, Trump spent Friday in the West Wing, moving between the Oval Office and the adjacent dining room to receive an update on the mission to find the official.
The downing of the F-15E, along with Iran’s ability to attack another plane – an A-10 Warthog – and an American helicopter assisting in the search and rescue mission, its administration’s claims of air dominance over Iran.
Trump did not go to the golf course on Saturday, remaining at the White House while the operation to enter Iran and find the downed airmen took place.
At the same time that military strategists were rushing to mount the operation, the CIA was developing a parallel effort. American intelligence attempted to circulate information in Iran that the two crew members had been recovered, to confuse members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who were urgently searching for the downed officer.
Meanwhile, Israel has postponed some planned strikes in Iran so as not to interfere with search and rescue efforts, an Israeli official told CNN, and offered, according to two Israeli sources.
It was the CIA that ended up identifying the officer’s exact location and shared the information with the military. “This courageous warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being pursued by our enemies who were getting closer, but he was never truly alone,” Trump wrote.
As American special operations forces converged on the mountainside where the officer had hidden, US planes carried out strikes in the area to ensure that Iranian forces could not get there first.
Trump was watching everything from the Crisis Room.
At a remote airstrip in Iran, two MC-130J special operations transport planes were waiting to fly the rescued commandos and airmen out of the country. But they had become damaged at some point during the operation. The military decided to send new planes and rather than run the risk of them falling into Iranian hands.
In one, Trump said he would speak to journalists about the remarkable operation at a press conference in the Oval Office at 1 p.m. (6 p.m. in mainland Portugal).
The president also gave some new details about the crew member, who he described as “severely injured” and “very brave” and said was rescued “from deep in the mountains of Iran.” Trump called the operation “an astonishing spectacle of bravery and talent by everyone!”
*CNN’s Tal Shalev and Betsy Klein contributed to this report
