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Thirty-two years separate the Battle of Mogadishu from the Iranian Zagros Mountains, yet the operational architecture of both rescues is surprisingly similar: pilots downed in hostile territory, aircraft lost during the attempt to recover them, and the ongoing tension between the imperative of leaving no one behind and the human and material costs of fulfilling that mandate.
On October 3, 1993, a 60-minute capture operation against lieutenants of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Mogadishu turned into an 18-hour nighttime battle. Three Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by RPG-7 rocket launchers: Super 61, whose pilots CW3 Cliff Wolcott and CW3 Donovan Briley died on impact, and Super 64, whose pilot CW4 Michael Durant was left with a broken right femur and crushed vertebrae.
The sergeants of Delta Force Gary Gordon and Randall Shughart requested permission three times to insert into the Super 64 site and defend Durant. When they were finally authorized, they fought until they ran out of ammunition and were killed. Both were awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, the first to receive it since the Vietnam War.
Durant was captured, showcased in a video widely circulated and released 11 days later to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The UNOSOM II rescue convoy did not arrive until 1:55 AM on October 4, under constant fire, with Pakistani M48 tanks, Malaysian Condor armored vehicles, and U.S. troops from the 10th Mountain Division. The final toll: 18 U.S. soldiers dead and 73 wounded, a strategic defeat that accelerated the complete withdrawal of UN forces from Somalia by early 1995.
The echo of Mogadishu resonated this Sunday in the Zagros Mountains of southwestern Iran. On April 3, the 36th day of the Epic Fury Operation, an F-15E Strike Eagle from the 494th Fighter Squadron was shot down by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard near Dehdasht. The first crew member was rescued on the same day using HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, although the aircraft came under Iranian fire and sustained serious damage.
The second crew member, a colonel specialized in weapon systems, remained hidden for over 36 hours in a mountain crevice, injured, evading massive searches by the Revolutionary Guard, militias, and civilians mobilized with rewards, applying the SERE training —survival, evasion, resistance, and escape— that the crew members also used in Somalia.
The rescue operation conducted on the night of April 4-5 involved SEAL Team 6, along with rescue teams from the Air Force, MQ-9 Reaper drones, A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft, F-15, F-35, and MC-130J Commando II. At least two MC-130J, valued between 90 and 110 million dollars each, were deliberately destroyed by U.S. forces to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands, according to The Wall Street Journal, echoing the aircraft losses in Mogadishu. The total material losses exceed 200 million dollars.
The doctrinal parallels are precise: in both cases, combat rescue protocols were activated immediately after the downing; in both instances, additional aircraft were lost during the rescue; in both, the original mission transformed into one of the most daring in the military history of the United States, surpassing all initial planning. "Before any operation, there is always a combat rescue plan."
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