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A few more details about that downed SF helo & Seals in Afghan
Troops target most-wanted warlordFORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan - U.S. commanders are stepping up the hunt for the obscure warlord whose thugs gunned down a team of Navy SEALs and downed their rescuers' Chinook helicopter, killing all aboard. Military officials vowed they will be relentless in settling the score for 19 SEALs and Army aviators who were killed on one of this war's most tragic days. "We are not going to stop until we get those bastards," said one U.S. commander still seething over the loss of American lives on a secret operation in the forgotten war to secure Afghanistan. The Daily News has learned new details about how the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment CH-47 was shot down on June 28. The tragedy began that Tuesday when a four-man SEAL special operations team was ambushed as it was on a covert mission targeting Ahmad Shah, a warlord loyal to deposed Taliban figurehead Mullah Omar Some news reports speculated the SEALs' target was Omar or Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, but military sources said the objective was tracking Shah, who has influence over the northeastern border town of Asadabad. Three of the SEALs - including Lt. Michael Murphy of Long Island - were killed in a running gun battle against large numbers of fighters believed to be Shah's men. A fourth survived and was later saved by a Pashtun shepherd and his village. A quick reaction force of two SEAL teams was immediately dispatched in the CH-47 Chinook to help the SEAL team in trouble north of Asadabad. As the Chinook and several AH-64 Apache attack helicopters reached the landing zone just above a steep ravine, the two SEAL teams began rappelling down from the helicopter on ropes, sources said. Just then, an enemy fighter on a nearby slope fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the open back door of the huge Chinook, which caught fire and staggered about a mile before crashing on top of the rescue teams hanging from the ropes. The giant aircraft sheared off tree tops as it rolled down the ravine, killing 16 in all. Sources said body parts and pieces of the SEALs' M4 rifles were found scattered over much of the ravine's rocky slope amid blackened tree stumps. Unmanned Predator spy drones flew over the crash site until troops arrived, but no survivors were found. The Taliban immediately tipped reporters that they had shot down a chopper and released a video showing the Chinook allegedly hit not by an RPG but a more sophisticated Russian SA-7 surface-to-air missile. An analysis by journalist and Taliban expert Khalid Mafton in Kabul determined that the men firing the SA-7 were dressed like "Arab Afghan" foreign fighters and not Taliban. A voice on the tape shouting "Allah Akhbar!" ("God is Great!") did not have an Arabic or Afghan accent, Mafton noted. Military officials said no coalition aircraft have ever been hit by surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan, and suspect the video includes footage from guerrilla fighting in Chechnya or elsewhere. Multiple witnesses in the other choppers insist they saw an RPG fired. Enemy fighters are believed to have first reached the crash site in the 36 hours before U.S. forces could get there. Several suspects were later captured carrying pilfered U.S. military binoculars, one Army source said. Army photos obtained by The News show a team from the 82nd Airborne Division recovering personal items from the scorched crash site such as cracked pilots' helmets, charred ammunition magazines, a flashlight, SEAL team knife and broken goggles amid the wreckage of broken rotors and bent metal. In one image, a gloved trooper holds a dog tag scorched by fire, which quotes the Warrior Ethos: "I will always put the mission first/I will never accept defeat/I will never quit/I will never leave a fallen comrade." Posted by: Sherry 2005-08-08 |
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