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The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played a crucial role in the rescue of the weapons systems officer of the F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet that was shot down by Iran, as revealed this Sunday by the CBS News network, partner of the BBC in the United States.
According to the report, the CIA tracked down the colonel by detecting his thermal signature in the rocky terrain, employing what sources from the administration described as unique and exquisite capabilities, comparable to finding "a needle in a haystack."
The agency transmitted the exact coordinates to the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and the White House in real-time, but its contribution went beyond just locating the target: the CIA simultaneously launched a deception campaign within Iran, spreading false information that U.S. forces had already found the colonel and were evacuating him by land, aiming to confuse Iranian forces and buy critical time for the actual extraction.
A senior official at the White House confirmed to CBS News that it was President Donald Trump who ordered the immediate rescue once the exact location was received.
"At my order, the United States Army sent dozens of aircraft, armed with the most lethal weapons in the world, to recover him. 'He was injured, but he will be fine,' the president wrote on Truth Social."
Trump announced early this morning that the crew member, a colonel whose name has not been revealed, had been rescued and was "safe and sound" after spending more than 36 hours hidden in a crevice of the mountains in southwestern Iran.
The operation was of enormous magnitude. Nearly a hundred members of special forces participated, including SEAL Team 6 and rescue teams from the Air Force, along with dozens of aircraft and helicopters, including HH-60s, A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, MC-130J Commandos IIs, and MQ-9 Reaper drones.
U.S. forces used bombs, artillery fire, and drones to keep Iranian troops away from the colonel, while there were direct exchanges of gunfire with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Iran had mobilized civilians, local tribes, and units of the Revolutionary Guard in a massive search, offering rewards for the capture of the colonel.
"The Iranian army was intensively searching for him, with a significant deployment of forces, and was getting closer," Trump acknowledged.
The colonel, injured during the ejection, was finally evacuated to Kuwait for medical treatment.
The operation incurred a high material cost. Two MC-130J Commando II special operations aircraft, valued between 90 and 110 million dollars each, were immobilized on Iranian soil and were deliberately destroyed to prevent their capture.
At least two helicopters were damaged by Iranian fire, and an A-10 was hit during parallel operations, forcing its pilot to eject; he was rescued in Kuwait.
Including the downed F-15E itself, the total material losses could exceed 200 million dollars.
The governor of the Iranian province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Abbas Beheshti, stated to the state agency IRNA that five civilians were killed and eight were injured in attacks during the operation: "In the attack on the Kakan area, two people died, and in the attack on Vezg, three."
The Revolutionary Guard also claimed to have shot down a U.S. drone in the province of Isfahan, a claim that Washington has not confirmed.
This rescue was the second in less than 48 hours: the pilot of the same F-15E had been recovered on Friday, hours after the shootdown, in a separate operation. Trump did not publicly confirm it at the time to avoid compromising the second rescue.
"This is the first time in military memory that two pilots from the United States have been rescued, separately, deep in enemy territory," stated the president, who described the mission as "one of the most daring search and rescue operations in U.S. history."
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