Missing US crew member rescued in 'daring' operation in Iran

[Twiglets1]

A missing U.S. service member who was shot down in Iran has been rescued following a risky mission deep behind enemy lines in mountainous terrain, Donald Trump has announced.

“WE GOT HIM!” the president posted on Truth Social shortly after midnight on Saturday. “My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States Military pulled off one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in U.S. History.”

Iranian authorities had offered a bounty to anyone who handed over the missing airman alive, a state television anchor announced previously. White House officials had remained largely silent on the search.

Trump said that the unnamed airman had sustained injuries during the crash but “will be just fine.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-iran-pilot-rescue-b2952011.html

You’d do your job with the utmost professionalism @MissConductUS , because that’s what you’re trained for. JSOC pilots have brains, political opinions that they largely keep to themselves and families they love just like anyone else. They don’t have to agree with the illegal war to do their job well or love the mission they are faced with.

Yes, quite. Navy engineers had to jump start the bloody thing. Luckily though we do have HMS Pedalo and HMS Dinghy in reserve.

I have family in Iran who I have (with great difficulty) been able to speak with. I don't know where you get the idea from that a significant proportion of the Iranian population within Iran support the war, because I have seen no evidence of this from people I know (who are wholeheartedly against the government).

I'd strongly wager that the average Iranian (or at least the average educated, Metropolitan Iranian) holds two opinions at the same time: 1. A dislike/hatred of their government and the supreme leader (Khamenei) and 2. A love for their country and a desire for it to not be bombed to shit by foreign forces. You can celebrate the death of an individual who has caused you personal, prolonged pain whilst also hoping that your country doesn't get blown to smithereens.

Whether the airman was helped by locals or not I do not know, but what I do know is that a lot of Iranian people are hospitable, kind, merciful and are able to distinguish between a person and their government. It would not surprise me if locals in the area didn't report his presence/helped him to some degree. But that doesn't mean that it was done with the intention of supporting the USA or its war against Iran. I would caution against anyone inferring that him not being handed over immediately demonstrates widespread local support for the war, because this is most likely not the case - again I am speaking as someone who has been to Iran multiple times, has Iranian family members and friends and has spoken to actual Iranian people in Iran over the past few weeks.

I am so tired of people bringing up the Iranian government's human rights abuses in threads about the war - not because these abuses don't matter, but because they are used (at least implicitly) to justify and rationalise the war or deflect from the fact that this is an illegal war that was started while Iran was at the negotiating table and willing to make concessions for longterm stability. If the USA cared about human rights abuses, it would be on their 15 point plan for peace but it isn't.

The best way to have helped actual people in Iran was to lift sanctions and enable economic stability. People are better able to enfranchise themselves and organise when they have funds and the flexibility to do so - the average Iranian was struggling to buy groceries even before the war began. You think people would choose a power vacuum at this point in time? They are not idiots.

There are articles online that also suggest that the USA/Israel brought arms into Iran during the January protests which is partly why the casualty count became so high - some argue that the additonal machine guns were used by militia against the crowds and fired indiscrimnately whilst others claim that the IRGC launched fire on the crowd because of concerns that the protesters were armed. Either way, the introduction of arms escalated the violence that the protesters received - it didn't coincidentally become the most violent crackdown on protests, there was a greater context behind it. And this is not me defending the government to any degree, just trying to provide greater context behind what is occurring in Iran

Oh I see - it's the fault of the US & Israel that the IRGC decided to kill thousands of their own civilians - got it.

Is that what AginglikeGazpacho is saying though? I really don't see that in their post. It's just an account from their experience.

the USA/Israel brought arms into Iran during the January protests which is partly why the casualty count became so high - some argue that the additonal machine guns were used by militia against the crowds and fired indiscrimnately whilst others claim that the IRGC launched fire on the crowd because of concerns that the protesters were armed. Either way, the introduction of arms escalated the violence that the protesters received

Do you mean the arms brought in via the Kurds or something else?

I have quoted from the post by Aging like Gazapacho

Ah I see, ok. But why did you quote that bit?

Because that bit is not as you suggested "just an account from their experience."

it contains unverified claims about what "some argue" and "others claim".

I hadn’t heard the claims before so googled to see what came up. This sadly covers what was used against protestors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mgndkklvmo

But Trump said himself that guns, etc had been given to Kurds?

Horrendous @EasternStandard

"This is the largest mass killing in contemporary Iranian history and one of the largest in the world," Payam Akhavan, an Iranian Canadian former UN prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, in The Hague, told BBC News Persian.

The Iranian government has blamed the killings on "rioters and terrorists".
But BBC News Persian analysis shows security forces used a number of different weapons on protesters, including:
machine guns
sniper rifles
assault rifles
shotguns
handguns
pellet-firing paintball guns
tear gas
machetes
knives
batons
large wooden clubs
green laser sights and pointers (for blinding and targeting)

No, he said the U.S. tried to send guns to Iranian protesters to fight against the government.

“They don’t have guns,” Trump said of the Iranian people, after asserting that civilians were not protesting the government out of fear of being killed.

“We sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give — which I said would happen, to my people, I said it, I called it exactly,” he said. “We sent guns, lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs.”

“You know what happened?” he said. “The people that they sent them to kept them, because they said, ‘What a beautiful gun, I think I’ll keep it.’ So I’m very upset with a certain group of people, and they’re going to pay a big price for that.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/live-blog/live-updates-iran-war-trump-deadline-hormuz-oil-ceasefire-israel-rcna266833

Well they certainly didn't help! Trump was also actively encouraging protesters to take to the street and inciting an uprising and then left them high and dry, aside from seemingly arming the Kurds (if we believe his own words).

There is misinformation coming from all sides currently, it is difficult to understand what actually happened during the January protests but we have testimonies that seem to indicate that there was increased violence to usual, guns were supplied to be distributed amongst the protesters, and claims from the IRGC that some protesters werw armed. Whether any of those testimonies are correct and their level of correlation with one another is unknown by us commoners unfortunately!

I'm not denying that the Iranian government sanctioned the killing of its own people. My main point is to focus people on the war itself rather than letting people use human rights abuses as part of the narrative of why the war should occur. I also wanted to clarify that I strongly disbelieve based on my own experience and what I have heard from family and friends in iran that the average Iranian wants this war to happen, regardless of how brutal their own government is.

I find it interesting you focused just on this element of my comment

I couldn’t see anything on protestors with weapons but was looking for it quickly.

I find it interesting when people attempt to divert attention away from the actions of the IRGC.

"the largest mass killing in contemporary Iranian history and one of the largest in the world," according to an Iranian Canadian former UN prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, in The Hague.

Who is trying to divert attention from the Irgc? I am not seeing it.

I guess I just don't get the relevance to the current war situation unless you're using it to justify foreign martial intervention and I am questioning what your motives are for bringing it up repeatedly

"Protesters were reportedly killed in many of the more than 200 cities where protests had been recorded. While the exact death toll remains unclear, the level of brutality and the deployment of lethal weaponry evidenced in pictures, witness accounts and reports by human rights groups and the media show thousands have been killed across the country."

Awful. The regime really hate their own people

"security forces used a number of different weapons on protesters, including:

machine guns

sniper rifles

assault rifles

shotguns

handguns

pellet-firing paintball guns

tear gas

machetes

knives

batons

large wooden clubs

green laser sights and pointers (for blinding and targeting)"

Quote :"I find it interesting when people attempt to divert attention away from the actions of the IRGC."

I find the opposite interesting. How some people keep diverting to the shooting of protestors to justify near every aspect of this ridiculous war. I mentioned this in a reply to you on one of your other threads.

NB: I am not justifying the Iranian Government, that should not have to be said, but for some posters it does.

Recall the protests. They started with traders protesting inflation and it changed to anti government. It can be argued that Trumps sanctions contributed or caused that inflation, and that the conditions were externally created. but that's not for here.

Remember at the time, the Iranian government done the usual authoritarian thing of blaming external agitators, the CIA etc. It's the go to. And most people dismiss that offhand. I do.

But now we have Trump boasting about it. He is openly saying he does what the Iranian Government accused him off.

Now think back to the ICE protests in the USA. And no, this is not a whataboutism, I will use it to make a point.

Trump and his admin. I recall Vance, claimed the protestors killed were paid agitators. Maybe paid from outside. So he was using the exact same "go to" blame as authoritarians use. Basically, " It's not our fault cos we are so good that any protests against us must be from outside". And most people, including me, dismissed that. Much of his base did not dismiss it though, they rabbited it.

Now Trump has just boasted about the CIA operating in Iran, and about sending arms ( not sure of the timings on that). Convert that to the anti ICE protests in the USA. If it had been TRUE, that an outside state had agitated the protestors, and armed them. That could very well have been a bloodbath instead of 2 dead. Imagine if ICE had been told by Trump " They have guns, Iran gave them guns"

You will rightly say " But that won't happen in a free society". And I would agree with that. Probability of a total bloodbath is low (not zero). But Iran is not a free society. It's an authoritarian state. No free press, no Youtube. None of that. The Government line is practically the only line. That's a feature of authoritarianism. Probability of bloodbath is greater.

Does that objective logic work ?

And from reading @AgingLikeGazpacho excellent posts, what I think they are saying is that the shooting of protestors is a totally separate thing to the war. And I agree. Because in my experience of authoritarian states, protests do happen ( I have seen them). And the cops go in. Or the cops stand and watch. Depends on what the protest is about. Not too different from in the west. But as soon as the protests change to "anti Government", the whole mood changes, and the cops most definitely change too.

The vast majority of people just want to get on with living, Doing their day to day things.

And here we have Trump saying he will bomb an entire nation of 90 million souls back to the stone age. And some posters here are trying to use the dead protestors to justify that. That's not right.

And remember too, when the protests were going on. it was in a couple of cities. And if you have experienced living in an authoritarian state, WITHOUT A VPN, a significant % of the population would not even be aware of them.

So when Trump claims, and I paraphrase, " They love the sound of the bombs because that is freedom", he is talking out of his blubbery arse.

That post was too long and rambling for me to address every point.

But in relation to you taking me back to the ICE protests in the USA, the claim by Vance that the protestors killed were paid agitators was nonsense so I'm not sure why you appear to be lecturing me about that.

Trump said he had dispatched “a lot of guns” to demonstrators, whom he had previously promised to save from crackdowns by the regime, but believed that the Kurds “kept them”. So in other words, the US attempt to arm the protestors failed.

“We sent them a lot of guns. We sent them through the Kurds. And I think the Kurds kept them,” Mr Trump told Fox News on Sunday.

“We sent guns to the protesters, a lot of them. And I think the Kurds took the guns.”

Witnesses described protesters, including children, being shot at close range or severely beaten by Tehran’s security forces.

www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/04/05/trump-sent-guns-iranian-protesters-through-kurdish-militias/

Quote : "But in relation to you taking me back to the ICE protests in the USA, the claim by Vance that the protestors killed were paid agitators was nonsense so I'm not sure why you appear to be lecturing me about that."

Ahh. It was actually Trump. :

"There was a woman screaming, “Shame! shame! shame!” She was an agitator. Probably a paid agitator. But, in my opinion, she was an agitator. A very high-level agitator. So professional. She wouldn’t stop screaming."

Re Vance :

“In Minnesota, the vice president suggested that Renee Good, who was killed by this ICE officer was part of a broad left-wing network,"

Source :

Trump Dodges When Asked Which 'Network' Renee Good Was In (mediaite.com)

Now when you say Trump sent guns, but the Kurds kept them, do you think that makes a difference ? Really ? So an intel officer goes to the Iranian guv and says, " Sir, Trump sent guns". With that info, what do you think the cops will do if a shot is fired ?

I am optimistic and do think there will be regime change in the medium term. Once the war has ended the Iranian economy will be in dire straits and it will be obvious that the only way forward for the country is to remove the regime and its ideology to gain some economic prosperity. I don't know whether it will be ultimately street led protest or an organised group hastening this but I think it will come.

The IGRC cannot hold power of all they can promise the Iranian people is a sanctioned economy and the prospect of future wars. Iran has no significant defences so will be always prone to US and Iranian bombing raids.

the protests in January were about the economy and that has got a hel l of a lot worse so once Iran starts to get away from martial law protest will restart I imagine.

Alan said "And remember too, when the protests were going on. it was in a couple of cities. And if you have experienced living in an authoritarian state, WITHOUT A VPN, a significant % of the population would not even be aware of them."

A simple Google will show Alan is incorrect, as often is.

"The 2025–2026 Iranian protests are a series of nationwide demonstrations against the government of Iran that began on 28 December 2025 amid a deepening economic crisis. The unrest followed a sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial, rising inflation, and widespread shortages linked to international sanctions and government mismanagement. This event has been the largest uprising in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, spreading to more than 200 cities across the country. The ensuing crackdown, reportedly carried out under orders by Ali Khamenei and senior officials to use live fire on protesters, resulted in massacres that left thousands of protesters dead, making them the largest massacres in modern Iranian history."