{"id":9091,"date":"2026-04-06T23:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/cia-deception-campaign-helped-rescue-downed-airman-in-iran-director-says\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T23:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:30:35","slug":"cia-deception-campaign-helped-rescue-downed-airman-in-iran-director-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/cia-deception-campaign-helped-rescue-downed-airman-in-iran-director-says\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA deception campaign helped rescue downed airman in Iran, director says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A deception campaign launched by the CIA bought time for U.S. forces to rescue an airman who went down in Iran on Friday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a White House news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

The CIA deployed human assets and \u201cexquisite technologies\u201d to contribute to the rescue of the weapons systems officer of an F-15E Strike Eagle, Ratcliffe said. The aircraft\u2019s pilot was rescued earlier upon the crash, but Iran was \u201cdesperately hunting\u201d for the backseater who ejected further from his wingman and had moved away from the crash site.<\/p>\n

The injured officer was found by the CIA in a mountain crevice but was still invisible to Iranian forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the successful exfiltration on Saturday night, our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue,\u201d Ratcliffe said.<\/p>\n

At the press conference, President Donald Trump said it was the CIA\u2019s \u201cgenius\u201d that contributed to the rescue and that the spy agency had spotted \u201csomething moving up the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is at night. And they kept the camera on him for 45 minutes,\u201d Trump said, suggesting the CIA had a covert surveillance capability \u2014 potentially a drone or satellite \u2014 available to track the airman\u2019s movements.<\/p>\n

The public remarks about the mission show how the Trump administration has made it a point to highlight contributions that CIA operatives have made toward its national security efforts.<\/p>\n

Those include operations that targeted the government of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. The agency has also taken a more public-facing posture, releasing recruitment videos aimed at sourcing in China. And in the months leading up to the Iran war, agency spies had been reportedly tracking the movements of now deceased Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n