Just found the text below on Facebook, what say the US military experts on the forum, might the rescue mission have been the aftermath of a failed special forces operation to recover the weapons grade uranium?
The source is this, I have no clue as to who he is but the text does sounds plausible at least in most parts:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18vjqPmvZs/
The text in question is below:
Now that the dust has settled, it's fairly clear that the weekend events by the Americans were a Joint Special Operations Command attempt to establish a FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Isfahan, rather than a simple rescue attempt. The question remains whether the F-15E was part of that operation, or whether the downing of the jet triggered it.
It's most likely that the F-15E was the “first wave” of the operation. Why? Well, Trump isn’t particularly careful with his messaging. In one of his post-rescue posts, he said the rescued WSO (Weapons Systems Officer) was a “respected Colonel.”
That immediately raises a red flag. It’s not common for a colonel (O-6) to serve as a WSO in an F-15E Strike Eagle. WSOs are typically mid-career officers—captains (O-3) or majors (O-4)—paired with pilots of similar rank. However, a colonel could serve as a WSO if designated as the mission commander (MC) for a larger, multi-aircraft operation. U.S. Air Force doctrine allows a senior officer like a colonel to occupy the WSO seat as MC, overseeing all mission phases regardless of the pilot’s junior rank (e.g., captain). That, paired with what we know happened later, points to a broader mission.
The other element is the scale of the operation. The U.S. military didn’t just “find an abandoned airstrip south of Isfahan.” The airstrip where we believe the U.S. attempted to establish the FOB was likely surveyed months in advance. U.S. Special Forces don’t just “wing it” on operations like this. The narrative being presented—such as the claim that the MC-130J “got stuck”—suggests something that Special Operations planners simply don’t do.
The MC-130J Commando II aircraft that transported the troops—and likely the “Little Bird” helicopters—sustained damage from Iranian attacks, which prevented them from taking off. The shrapnel damage seen in images supports that. We don’t believe they crash-landed or were shot down. The only evidence cited for that is the bent rotor blades on one of the engines in aftermath photos. But the MC-130J is not a standard C-130, which uses four-blade steel propellers. The Special Forces variant uses six-bladed Dowty R391 composite propellers, built with a carbon-fiber structure rather than metal. The bent propellers are most likely the result of the resin matrix softening—effectively “melting”—under extreme conditions. Other images support this, as the propellers appear to shred and snap rather than cleanly break.
Why Isfahan? The obvious explanation is the collection of nuclear material, as the region hosts multiple facilities such as Natanz, where enriched uranium is believed to be stored. But there are other factors. Isfahan hosts a large Jewish community, which would likely be influenced by Mossad and CIA operations. The airstrip was not chosen at the last minute to rescue a WSO, with massive assets assembled on the fly. It’s rumored the airstrip had previously been surveyed by Israeli Shaldag (Unit 5101), an elite Israeli Air Force special operations unit.
As for staging: at roughly the same time, Iran struck Camp Buehring in Kuwait, which is believed to have been the staging ground for the operation. This suggests Iran had prior knowledge—and reinforces the idea that the base was tied to the American operation.
There are several other inconsistencies in the U.S. narrative: how a badly injured WSO managed to climb a mountain, why the extraction point was established in Isfahan when evacuation to Kuwait or Iraq was possible, and so on.
So the CSAR mission prematurely triggered a larger Special Operations effort to retrieve uranium stockpiles, or whether this was all part of a single planned operation, it failed. The Iranians have now learned a great deal about how the U.S. plans to infiltrate—and the U.S. has likely lost access to an airstrip it intended to use for a high-profile raid.
The U.S. narrative, of course, is one of “leave no man behind” - and reads like the outline of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Well, there's a lot to unpack here... and there's a lot that could be "conspiracy theory" stuff... And of course "experts" are paid to come up with "interesting" things. And of course you need to wrap "plausibility" into it in order to make the rest of it sound good. But consider the obvious:
First, there is talk about the C130J being a "SOF variant" because of its six propeller blades. But it's not like SOF are the only people using a C130J. It's just the most modern variant. Heck, even the Blue Angels are using a Juliet:
As far as the "Colonel WSO", two things to consider:
First is the problem where too many people refer to Lieutenant Colonels as "Colonel". Not saying that's happened in this case, but it's a possibility. If that happened, it's not unreasonable that the Squadron Commander is a WSO, and not unreasonable that the CO was on the mission.
But even if that's not true, and we are talking about an O6 Colonel, it's not unreasonable that an O6 level command has a WSO in charge, and again, it's not unreasonable that the commander was leading a mission. I knew a bunch of Colonels who were Marine Naval Flight Officers (NFOs) (WSOs in the F/A-18) and Marine Air Group Commanders (MAGs), Yes, O6s still fly, whether in the front seat or back seat. And Mission Commanders also fly in both spots. In fact, sometimes it's better to have the rear seater be the Mission Commander, as he can focus on what everyone needs to be doing and not be task saturated with the mechanics of flying the airframe. It's also irrelevant to the rank of the pilot. You certainly wouldn't put the CO and XO in the same airframe, would you?
Sorry: Acronyms again: Commanding Officer (number one guy) and Executive Officer (number two guy).
Oh, and I just thought of a third thing? I'm not 100% sure how the Air Force does it these days, but I can tell you in the Navy and the Marine Corps, the pilot (guy up front) is a Naval Aviator, and the guy in back is a Naval Flight Officer. Think Maverick and Goose. Their wings are different. In the F-4 and F-14, the NFO was called a "RIO", or Radar Intercept Officer. In the F-18, the job is a little different, and they are called Weapons System Officers (WSOs). It's a job title, not a rank. There can be Generals and Admirals who are rated as WSOs.
So those two points are not unusual, though I don't know exactly how they relate to this specific case. But hey, if you're an "expert" posting on Facebook, why not make the usual seem exceptional? Isn't that the secret to telling a good story?
