April 6, 2026 9:35 AM
How a perilous US rescue mission in Iran nearly went off course
The rescue had unfolded with near‑perfect precision. Under cover of darkness, U.S. commandos slipped deep into Iran, undetected, scaled a 7,000‑foot ridge and pulled a stranded American weapons specialist to safety, moving him toward a secret rendezvous point before dawn on Sunday. Then everything stopped. Two MC-130 aircraft that had ferried some of the roughly 100 special operations forces into rugged terrain south of Tehran suffered a mechanical failure and could not take off, a U.S. of...