This was the rescue operation of the F-15 crew in Iran

After ejecting from the fighter, the combat systems officer “continued his training and entered the dangerous mountainous terrain, beginning to climb to a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to avoid capture.” With his face stained with blood, according to Trump, the colonel treated his wounds and shared his coordinates.

The director of the CIA, John Ratcliffereturned to the events in the same press conference and stressed that the officer with the rank of colonel remained “hidden in a crevice of the mountain, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.” He lasted more than a day without changing his position.

Ratcliffe acknowledged that finding it was “comparable to searching for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.” “An overwhelming challenge and also a race against time, because it was essential to locate the downed airman as quickly as possible, while keeping our enemies confused,” he noted.

As soon as he learned that the fighter had “gone into hostile territory” and that its pilot and weapons systems officer had ejected safely, Ratcliffe let the Pentagon chief know, Pete HegsethHegseth to Trump, and Trump ordered the rescue mission to be carried out despite the disagreements of the military leadership.

“Not everyone agreed,” the president confessed. “They told me it was a very dangerous mission. I understood.”

According to his version, there were certain “very professional soldiers who preferred not to do it” because of the victims that the mission could cause. “There were people within the Armed Forces who said it was not sensible. Hundreds of people could have died,” conceded the Republican president, who exonerated the always faithful Hegseth and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine. No one objected.

The search and rescue operation — “one of the most audacious in American history,” as Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform — involved, according to the president, up to 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 ​​refueling tanker planes, 13 rescue aircraft and other Air Force assets.

When Trump asked Caine midway through the press conference how many people had been part of the operation, Caine responded that he would “love to keep that a secret.” Even so, the president commented with a laugh that “hundreds” of military personnel participated.

The Army also carried out a diversion operation to prevent Iranian security forces from finding the pilot’s whereabouts. They spread the message that the US forces had already found him and were trying to remove him by land, as the digital had reported. Axios. “We wanted them to search different areas. So we spread out everywhere,” Trump boasted.

Hegseth put a religious counterpoint to the appearance, and compared the rescued American officer to Jesus Christ: “Shot down on a Friday: Good Friday. Hidden in a cave, in a crevice, all day Saturday. And rescued on Sunday. Taken out of Iran by plane while the sun was rising on Easter Sunday.”

The Pentagon had avoided revealing what type of munition shot down the fighter, but Trump confessed that it was a missile. He didn’t mind sharing the information.

However, he was outraged by the leak about the rescue. “The operation became much more difficult because a mole leaked information,” lamented the Republican president, who made it known that the Pentagon was “very intensely searching for that mole”: “We are going to go to the media outlet that published the information and we will tell them: national security, hand him over or go to jail.”

Trump announced in Truth that the second rescued officer had suffered injuries, “but he will be fine.” Now, the Air Force colonel and pilot are receiving medical care at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a military hospital in Germany, according to Reuters.