Updated: 31 US Special Forces Killed When Copter Shot Down
Aug 6, 2011 55 Comments ›› Angelia
Rest In Peace…
The operators from SEAL Team Six were flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. That’s according to one current and one former U.S. official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified of the loss of their loved ones.
One source says the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three Air Force air controllers, seven Afghan Army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.
Insurgents shot down a NATO Chinook helicopter during an overnight operation in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 37 people on board, a coalition military official said on Saturday. It was believed to be the deadliest helicopter crash in the nearly decade-long war, punctuating a surge of violence across the country even as American and NATO forces begin a modest drawdown of troops.
Afghan military officials put the death toll at 38, including 31 Americans and 7 Afghan commandos. President Hamid Karzai’s office, in a statement, described the American casualties as members of the Special Operations forces. The coalition official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, confirmed that most of the dead were NATO forces, but could not immediately identify their nationalities or the units to which they belonged.
“The president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has expressed his condolences to the U.S. President Barack Obama and to the families of the victims,” Mr. Karzai’s office said in the statement.
The helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in the Tangi Valley of the Wardak Province just west of Kabul, the coalition official said. The Taliban claimed credit for the attack.
If confirmed, Saturday’s crash would be the deadliest day for American forces since the war began. A NATO spokesman, Capt. Justin Brockhoff of the United States Air Force, confirmed the crash but could provide no further information, including what caused the crash or whether there were casualties.
There were conflicting accounts about when the helicopter went down. A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said insurgents shot down the helicopter around 11 p.m. Friday as it was starting an operation on a house where the militants were gathering in the Tangi Joyee region of the district of Saidabad in the eastern part of the province. Eight militants were killed in the fight, which continued after the helicopter fell, Mr. Mujahid said.
“The fresh reports from the site tells us that there are still Americans doing search operations for the bodies and pieces of the helicopter are on the ground,” he said.
Although the nationality of the NATO soldiers killed was not confirmed, Americans were known to be carrying out most of the operations in the area.
Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, police chief of Wardak, said the operation began around 1 a.m. Saturday as NATO and Afghan forces attacked a Taliban compound in Jaw-e-mekh Zareen village in the Tangi Valley. The firefight lasted at least two hours, the general said.
“It was at the end of the operation that one of the NATO helicopters crashed,” he said. “We don’t know yet the cause of the crash, and we don’t know how many NATO soldiers were on board.”
The Tangi Valley runs along the border of Wardak and the neighboring province of Logar. Taliban activity has been heavy in both provinces, which border the capital of Kabul.
Prior to Saturday, the biggest single-day loss of life for the American military in Afghanistan came on June 28, 2005 during Operation Red Wing in Kunar Province, when a Chinook helicopter carrying Special Operations troops was shot down in eastern Kunar Province as it tried to provide reinforcements to forces trapped in heavy fighting. Sixteen Special Operations troops, most of them Navy Seals, were killed in the crash. Three more Seals were killed in fighting on the ground.
