US President Donald Trump revealed new details about the operation to rescue the officer of the US F-15 plane that was shot down by Iran, stressing that Washington was initially afraid that the radio message received from the pilot was a “trap” with the aim of luring US forces into an ambush.
According to what was reported by the “Axios” website, Trump confirmed that about 200 soldiers from special operations units participated in the rescue operation, which was described as among the most complex operations in the history of American special forces.
The US President indicated that the plane was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile fired by Iranian forces, declaring: “They were lucky.” He added that members of the Iranian army were searching for the officer, and rewards were being offered to local residents in exchange for reporting or arresting him.
Trump explained that the officer was hiding in a rocky crevice in a mountainous area, and that American forces were able to locate him using advanced technologies. But a short message he sent over the radio after his parachute jump raised suspicions within the American military establishment, fearing that he had been captured and that Tehran was broadcasting misleading signals.
The phrase that the officer broadcast was a short religious phrase. Trump said it read “Power be to God,” while a US defense official confirmed that the exact phrase was “God is good.” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also used the same phrase in a post on the X platform on Sunday morning.
In the same context, Trump explained that Israel provided “limited” support during the search operation, without providing Washington with direct information about the officer’s location, but it shared general intelligence information about the field situation. The Israeli Air Force also carried out one strike to prevent Iranian forces from reaching the area.
The crew of the F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jumped from the plane on Friday, after it was targeted by Iranian fire. The first pilot was quickly rescued, while the weapons systems officer could not be found, prompting an urgent search operation.
A senior Trump administration official revealed to Axios that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had launched a “deception operation” before carrying out the rescue, by spreading rumors inside Iran that American forces had found the officer and transferred him from one place to another in preparation for removing him from the country.
The official added that this confusion allowed American intelligence a wider margin of movement to determine the officer’s location and carry out the operation, in light of the Iranian side’s uncertainty about the truth of what is happening.
