The pilot of the Russian Su-24 fighter jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was rescued in an operation commanded by IRGC Qods Force chief Major General Soleimani.

Emad Abshenas, a reporter for Russia’s state-run Sputnik news agency, wrote a piece in the Persian-language website of the Russian agency outlining the rescue story as told by a senior Syrian officer.

The Iranian troops reportedly found the Russian pilot using his GPS, discovering he was being held 6km behind the frontline of the clashes between the Syrian army and the militants.

Six fighters of Hezbollah’s special operation unit and 18 Syrian commandos, supported by Russian air power, then rescued him, the British newspaper Mirror reported.

Abshenas said, “I contacted one of the Syrian officers who is my old friend and is stationed in Lattakia and asked him to tell me the story, and here is what he said.”

“Every move of the special units was monitored and covered precisely by the Russian satellites in a way that the slightest moves made 100 meters away from the area of operation was reported to them and every moment of the operation was reported to a very high-ranking official in the Kremlin (that he thinks was president Putin) and it was clear that he was monitoring the entire operations through satellites from Moscow.”

“The interesting point is that all the 24 members of the special units along with the pilot returned to their base without even one injury after fulfilling the dangerous mission.”