USAF F-16A F-15C F-15E Desert Storm, US Air Force, Public domain

US officials had earlier confirmed the mission to FOX News, explaining that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had conducted an extensive deception campaign as part of the rescue effort.

The Airman, who hasn’t yet been publicly named, was one of two aircrew flying the F-15 when it was shot down. A US military team rescued the aircraft’s pilot later that day, but the second airman was stranded for 36 hours in mountainous terrain before being rescued by US forces.

The CIA campaign involved spreading word inside Iran that US forces had already found him and were moving him overland for exfiltration, confusing Iranian forces and leadership in their own search for the missing airman.

While Iranian forces grappled with misinformation, US intelligence was able to aid in locating the airman in Iran and assist in a US special forces extraction mission.

It was the ultimate “needle in a haystack” scenario, a US official told Fox News. “A courageous American hidden within a mountain crevice, undetectable by conventional means but revealed through CIA intelligence,” he said….

Foreign reports have claimed that Israeli commandos participated in the operation. However, an IDF source stated to the Post that these reports are completely false.

Note that the IDF denies that Israeli commandos took part in the actual rescue and extraction of the downed American, but did not say that Israelis played no part. In fact, an IDF source confirmed that Israel provided intelligence to the Americans. 

Isn’t it likely that Mossad helped supply information to the Americans about the situation on the ground near where the airman was located, such as what Iranian forces were in the area and whether Iranians collaborating with Mossad were also close by? Surely Mossad would also have helped spread inside Iran the false story about the Americans having already found the airman and were taking him overland out of the country. 

This led the Iranians to look for him in the wrong places, and to ignore the possibility of an extraction by air. I haven’t heard anyone in the IDF claim that Israel played “no part whatsoever in the rescue.” In fact, an IDF source confirmed that Israel did supply the Americans with useful intelligence, and also bombed certain Iranian sites as a diversionary tactic, but did not take part in the rescue itself.

During the operation, US forces reportedly established a temporary air base for their search mission, during which two MC-130J planes became stuck, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

MC-130Js are specially equipped aircraft used for covert infiltration and the extraction of troops from behind enemy lines.

Due to the planes being immobilized, three additional planes were reportedly sent in for final extraction, NYT reported, and US forces made the decision to blow up the downed planes before evacuating the area.

After the successful extraction mission, Iranian forces discovered the remains of the MC-130J planes and falsely claimed that their military had shot them down.

“According to the IRGC Public Relations Department, through divine favor, the hostile American drone that had been tracking a downed fighter pilot in the southern Isfahan was shot down.” IRNA news tweeted regarding the MC-130J aircraft.

The Iranians did not shoot down the two MC-130J aircraft, as they claimed. “Divine favor” of Allah had nothing to do with it. These very heavy planes had landed, got stuck on the inhospitable ground (mud? sand? rocks?), and could not take off. The decision was made to blow them up, to prevent them from falling intact into enemy hands. But Iranians are being told that Iran’s anti-aircraft fire brought them down. Very few people in Iran are still willing to believe the nonsense and lies their rulers disseminate.

What effect will this rescue have on Iranians? First, they will be mightily impressed with the ability of the American military to find this human needle in a haystack, somewhere in the mountainous wastes of western Iran. Second, they will again see that the Americans have beaten their blustering rulers to the punch — with aid in part from their indispensable ally, Israel — who got to the airman and extracted him by air, while Iranian forces had been tricked into going on a wild goose chase in western Iran, convinced by rumors that Mossad spread that the Americans had found the airman and were supposedly already taking him overland out of Iran.

Third, and perhaps most important, the Iranians can compare how the Americans will move heaven and earth to rescue one of their own, just as the IDF tried to rescue, at great cost, hostages kidnapped by Hamas, while the rulers in Tehran don’t give a damn about the safety of their people, and are willing to use their own civilians as cannon fodder in order to ensure that the regime itself remains in power. The latest example of this is the regime’s new policy, announced on March 26, to recruit children as young as twelve for “Homeland Defending Combatants” roles. 

They are assigned to help out in the war effort, manning urban checkpoints and handling security patrols in Tehran, amid severe manpower shortages. Recruiting children under 15 into armed forces or using them in hostilities is classified as a war crime under international law, as noted by the UN Treaty of the Rights of the Child.

After I wrote the above, more about Israel’s role in the rescue was made public, which included diversionary airstrikes by the IDF. More on what Israel did to help in the rescue can be found here: “IDF intelligence, strikes helped US rescue downed pilot, sources tell ‘Post,'” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, April 5, 2026:

The 48-hour mission, which a senior US official described as “the boldest and most courageous rescue operation in history,” relied also on Israeli intelligence and tactical support to ensure the pilots were extracted before they could be captured by Iranian forces.

According to sources who spoke with The Jerusalem Post, the IDF, acting in cooperation with US forces, launched a series of strikes against Iranian targets. These strikes were strategically designed to act as a diversion, drawing Iranian security forces away from the crash site and toward other areas.

In addition to the diversionary tactics, the IDF targeted specific Iranian assets with the intent to sabotage and disrupt Tehran’s race toward the pilots, blinding the Iranian military partially to the pilots’ location while the extraction team moved in.

Thank God Israel is on our side and we, thank God, are on Israel’s.