Donald Trump vows to hunt down ‘leaker’ who put US airforce rescue mission in danger

Donald Trump has promised to hunt down a ‘leaker’ who provided details of an injured colonel hiding on a mountain ‘full of terrorists’ in Iran to the media.

The President said 155 aircraft made up the rescue mission, part of Operation Epic Fury, which is going ‘unbelievably well’.

Hiding in a cave, the injured airman was finally able to activate an emergency transponder; his first message was: ‘God is good.’

The president began describing the rescue efforts from Friday and over the weekend after two airmen ejected and landed alive ‘deep in enemy territory’.

Trump said 21 aircraft were deployed to help with the search and rescue in the first wave, flying for hours under ‘very, very heavy enemy fire.’ He said the US has one helicopter with many bullets in it.

He said a blood-soaked colonel had set off a location transmitter as he climbed up higher to look for a safe position.

Trump says the downed weapons officer followed his training to get as far away from the crash site as possible.

When a plane crashes in hostile territory, ‘they all head right to that site, you want to be as far away as you can,’ Trump said, adding they had been given incentive by a leaker.

He said a journalist who first did the story gave Iran the information that the US was still looking for a missing airman, jeopardising his life.

He said: ‘We will go to the media company that released it. And we’re going to say “national security, give it up or go to jail and you know who we are talking about.”

‘Because when they did that, all of a sudden, the entire country of Iran knew there was a pilot somewhere on their land that was fighting for his life.

‘It made it much more difficult for the pilots and the people going in to search for him.

‘All of a sudden they know somebody is out there, there are these planes coming in – it becomes a much more difficult operation.’

He added: ‘A leaker leaked that we have one but there is another one out there we are trying to get.

‘Iran put out a major notice, you all saw, offering a very large reward to anybody that captured the pilot. So in addition to a hostile, very good, very evil, very talented military, there were millions of people trying to get the reward.

‘We have to find that leaker because that is a very sick person. Probably didn’t realise how bad it was.’

Trump didn’t name the journalist or news organisation. 

Trump says the officer was ‘bleeding profusely’ but was able to climb mountainous terrain and contact U.S. forces to communicate his location.

Rescuers mobilised a massive response that included subterfuge to confuse the Iranians about where they were looking.

Much of it was an effort to throw off the Iranians who were also looking for the missing crew member, the president said.

Giving an update on the successful rescue, the US President told reporters: ‘This is a rescue that is very historic. It will go down in the books.

‘They went out for Operation Epic Fury where we are doing unbelievably well.

‘The entire country [Iran] could be taken out in one night. That night could be tomorrow night.’

He added: ‘I ordered the armed forces to do whatever is necessary to bring our brave warriors back home.

‘A risky decision we could have ended up with hundreds dead not just one or two. It was a hard decision to make. ‘But in the US Military we leave no-one American behind. We just don’t do it.’

He said the rescue planes were failing to take off on land, more like a farm than a runway.

He said he blew up the rescue planes ‘to smithereens’ to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

No man left behind

Speaking at a White House press conference, Head of the CIA John Ratcliffe said the agency used ‘exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service’possesses to locate the aviator after the F-15 was shot down in Iran.

At the same time, the CIA mounted a deception operation to mislead the Iranians who were looking.

Ratcliffe said the search and rescue operation was ‘comparable to hunting for a single grain of sand in the middle of a desert.’

The CIA declined to respond to questions about the kind of technology used to locate the airman.

Defence Secretary Pete Hesgeth said: ‘The Iranians are still asking themselves “how did the Americans do this?”

Hegseth made parallels to the Christian Easter story. He said the airman, was shot down on Good Friday, ‘hidden in a cave’ on Saturday and on Easter Sunday was rescued as the sun rose in Iran ‘a pilot reborn, all home and accounted for.’

Hegseth then pivoted to praising the lethality of US forces during the rescue, saying: ‘Just ask any Iranian soldier who dared attempt to get anywhere near that pilot before or during that mission. Death from above.’

‘