‘US op was completely foiled’: Iran’s military says Americans used abandoned airport in Isfahan to rescue F-15E pilot

Iranian military on Sunday (Apr 5) said that the US military used an abandoned airport in southern Isfahan province during the operation to rescue the stranded crew member of the F-15E that was shot down in its territory. In a statement, Ebrahim Zolfaghari, spokesman for the military's central command, Khatam Al-Anbiya, claimed that the US rescue operation was “completely foiled”. Iran has also released images claiming to be the wreckage of several US aircraft that were downed during the rescue mission. This comes after US President Donald Trump confirmed that the airman was “SAFE and SOUND” after he was recovered from Iran following “the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History.”

“The so-called US military rescue operation, planned as a deception and escape mission at an abandoned airport in southern Isfahan under the pretext of recovering the pilot of a downed aircraft, was completely foiled,” Zolfaghari said.

Iran claims several US aircraft shot down

He added that “two C-130 military transport planes and two Black Hawk helicopters were destroyed” during the operation.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by Tasnim news ​agency that several aircraft were destroyed during the US mission to locate the stranded pilot. Earlier, Iran’s police command announced that an American C-130 plane had been downed in the south of Isfahan.

The F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jet was shot down over southern Iran on Friday (Apr 3), the first such incident since the start of the war. While the first pilot was rescued by the US forces earlier, the second had remained missing behind the enemy lines as American and Iranian forces raced to locate him. Reports suggested that the second crew member from the downed F-15E has been recovered after a “heavy firefight”.

How was US pilot rescued from Iran?

According to a New York Times report, hundreds of special forces troops and dozens of US warplanes, helicopters, and cyber, space and other intelligence capabilities were employed to save the crew member. The US forces had a firefight with Iranian convoys. The report added that two transport planes that would carry the commandos and the airmen to safety got stuck at a remote base in Iran, following which they decided to fly three new planes to extract all the US military personnel and the airmen. They blew up the two disabled planes to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.

Trump said that while the pilot had sustained injuries, there were no US casualties in the rescue operation. Meanwhile, Iranian media reported that overnight strikes in the Kouh-e Siah area in southwestern Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province during the US rescue mission killed five people.

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