What we know about the race to rescue downed US airman in Iran

US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday the dramatic rescue of a downed airman whose fighter jet crashed over Iran, but Tehran claimed the mission was “foiled”.

The facts remain shrouded in the fog of war, while social media was immediately flooded with misleading or fake images.

Here is what we know based on public statements and media reports:

– Who is the airman ? –

Little is known about his identity, but he was the weapons system operator sitting behind the pilot aboard the advanced F-15E fighter jet shot down last Friday.

The pilot was said by Trump to have been rescued by special forces in a daylight mission on Friday shortly after the crash in the rugged Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province of southwest Iran.

After ejecting, the missing weapons expert shouted “God is good” over the radio, apparently reflecting his firm religious beliefs, the Axios news site reported, citing Trump and US officials.

US aviators undergo so-called SERE training — Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape — in the event they have to land in hostile territory.

Their combat vests contain a radio/GPS-coded beacon to transmit their position, a communication device, as well as water, food, first-aid material and a pistol.

The airman was wounded after his ejection but could still walk, reportedly scaling a 2,100-metre (7,000-foot) ridgeline in the mountains before hiding in a crevice, according to The New York Times and Axios.

Trump wrote on Sunday that he had been “seriously wounded”. CBS News said he had been transported to Kuwait.

– How did the rescue mission unfold? –

Iranian authorities had immediately urged local people and tribesmen to join security forces in searching for the airman, realising the potential political and military value of capturing him alive.

That sparked a race over the weekend, with images posted on social media of US aircraft and helicopters flying low over Iran.

US intelligence agency the CIA played a key role in locating him and launched a “deception campaign” aimed at convincing Iranian authorities that he had already been discovered, The New York Times and The Financial Times reported.

The extraction operation launched overnight on Saturday-Sunday involved “dozens of aircraft”, according to Trump, and hundreds of special operations troops, including Navy SEAL Team 6 commandos, US media reports said.

The Navy commandos, best known for taking part in the 2011 operation to kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, were tasked with extracting the airman, while US attack aircraft provided cover, The New York Times added, citing unnamed officials.

The airman was rescued as Iranian forces converged on the spot, and US forces fired their weapons to keep them at bay, reports said.

Trump claimed no American lives were lost.

– What does Iran say? –

Although Iran’s military claims the US operation was “completely foiled”, it has not given a full account of events.

On Sunday evening, ISNA news agency carried a photo posted by the Revolutionary Guards purporting to show the “skull of an American soldier amid the debris of a destroyed airplane”.

The Guards gave no further information except to add “more proof of the humiliating defeat of the liar Trump”.

Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaghari told state media US forces had used an abandoned airport in southern Isfahan province, which lies to the northwest of the area where the airman ejected.

He said the aircraft had been taking part in “a deception and escape mission… under the pretext of recovering the pilot of a downed aircraft”.

Iranian state media broadcast images of the charred wreckage of what appears to be a plane in a desert area, while officials claimed that two C-130 military transport planes and two Black Hawk helicopters had been destroyed.

In the footage, two charred propellers and engines can be clearly seen, with specialised open-source geolocating experts claiming the images were taken about 50 kilometres (30 miles) south of the city of Isfahan.

The Wall Street Journal and other US media, citing unnamed officials, reported that American forces had blown up two C-130s after they became stuck, in order to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands, with other aircraft flown in to lift rescue teams to safety.

The governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province told Mehr news agency that five people had been killed and seven wounded in the Kuh-e Siah mountain area.

But the governor, Iraj Kazemijou, denied reports that US forces had landed there, saying they were “completely false and have no validity”.

In his message on Sunday, Trump also referred to another operation inside Iran to rescue “another brave pilot… which we did not confirm, because we did not want to jeopardize our second rescue operation”.

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