US President Donald Trump confirmed the successful rescue of the second crew member from an F-15 fighter jet that Iran claimed was shot down by its air defenses on Friday. Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: “This brave Warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies. He sustained injuries, but he will be just fine.” The airman, allegedly holding the rank of colonel, was the second member of a two-person crew.
Al Jazeera’s Jon Hendren, reporting from Washington, DC, cited a US official stating that US forces had encircled and were moving in on the downed airman, who had managed to evade Iranian units for about two days. Hendren reported: “And then a firefight broke out. This happened in daylight. Generally, special operations troops would go in for a rescue operation like that, and they would try to extract someone very quickly in the darkness. This went on for hours, we were told.”
Separately, Iran’s Fars news agency reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down a US aircraft searching for the missing officer in the southern province of Isfahan. Fars posted a photo on its Telegram channel showing thick smoke rising from a field, with the caption: “Trump’s desperate attempt to cover up a huge defeat.” The aircraft was purportedly a C-130 class plane, destroyed by a police commando unit called the Faraj Rangers.
The high-stakes US rescue effort, involving dozens of military aircraft, encountered fierce resistance from Iran. In a separate incident, an A-10 Warthog fighter crashed after being hit over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, though the degree of injuries among the crew remained unclear. Trump was triumphant, stating: “The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations, without a single American killed, or even wounded, just proves once again that we have achieved overwhelming air dominance and superiority over the Iranian skies.”
Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said there had been no confirmation or denial from the Iranians regarding the pilot’s rescue. He noted: “Over the past 24 hours, we have witnessed continuous air strikes on the location where the fighter jet was downed.” The rescue resolves a crisis for the White House as the conflict with Iran enters its sixth week, following the earlier rescue of the first crew member, which triggered high-stakes searches by both Iran and the US for the remaining airman.
Source: www.aljazeera.com