Cross your fingers:
A small team of U.S. soldiers was missing Friday in the same mountains in eastern Afghanistan where a special forces helicopter was shot down earlier this week, and U.S. forces are using ”every available asset” to find them, a U.S. military spokesman said.
The MH-47 Chinook helicopter — with 16 people on board who all died in the crash — had gone into the mountains Tuesday to extract the soldiers who are now missing. The team on the ground has been unaccounted for since the chopper was downed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O’Hara said.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, meanwhile, claimed the rebels had captured a U.S. soldier in the area, near the town of Asadabad, close to the Pakistani border.
”One high-ranking American has been captured in fighting in the same area as the helicopter went down,” he told The Associated Press. ”I won’t give you any more details now.”
Reacting to the claim, O’Hara said, ”We have no proof or evidence indicating anything other than the soldiers are missing.”
Hakimi, who also claimed that the insurgents shot down the helicopter, often calls news organizations to take responsibility for attacks, often with information that proves exaggerated or untrue. His exact tie to the Taliban leadership is not clear.
O’Hara said U.S. forces were using ”every available asset” to search for the missing troops. ”Until we find our guys, they are still listed as unaccounted for and everything we got in that area is oriented on finding the missing men,” he said.
The loss of the 16 troops on the chopper was the deadliest single blow to American forces who ousted the Taliban in 2001 for harboring al-Qaida and are now fighting an escalating insurgency. The bodies of the 16 have been recovered and troops Friday were trying to identify the remains, the military said.
Not sounding good, and the Pentagon has been real hesitant releasing information on this one.
*** Update ***
There are indications a small special operations team of U.S. soldiers
p.lukasiak
This really does sound bad. According to the times, it took US Forces 36 hours to get to the crash site. Combined with the fact that this chopper was sent to aid the now missing troops (and the Pentagon won’t even say how many are missing…) I get the impression that this particular mission was seriously undermanned/underequipped. (It doesn’t sound like more troops were sent to aid the troops that were originally in trouble after the crash….)
We may be looking at the Afghanistan War’s version of “Black Hawk Down”, but with even more tragic results…
John Harrold
I get the impression that this particular mission was seriously undermanned/underequipped.
I have a somewhat less pessimistic view of the lead up to the current situation. I get the impression that a small team was sent in to do something delicate that requires precision (intelligence gathering perhaps), and they got into trouble. As a result a larger team was sent to help them. But hey, I’m an engineer and I know very little about how the military works.
p.lukasiak
I get the impression that a small team was sent in to do something delicate that requires precision (intelligence gathering perhaps), and they got into trouble. As a result a larger team was sent to help them.
My point was based on the fact that another team was (apparently) not sent in to help the “small team”, nor (apparently) was a rescue team immediately sent in to save any survivors of the helicopter crash.
It took us thirty six freaking hours to get to the crash site, and 48 hours to announce that the “small team” is “missing”. The latter delay may well be just an attempt to manage the bad news coming out of Afghanistan….but it does seem like something went terribly wrong, and that there were no back-up systems in place to deal with the problems….
SomeCallMeTim
There’s one thing I’ve never understood, and perhaps someone with a military background can clarify it for me. How do we “lose” people? Can’t we give them a transmitter that identifies their location? Even if they can only use it intermittently?
I hope they’re fine. Jeebus.
John Harrold
The article said:
The MH-47 Chinook helicopter — with 16 people on board who all died in the crash — had gone into the mountains Tuesday to extract the soldiers who are now missing.
You said:
My point was based on the fact that another team was (apparently) not sent in to help the “small team”.
These two points seem to contradict each other. Why send 16 soldiers to just pick up a small team unless they _need_ the 16 solidiers for a specific purpose.
…and 48 hours to announce that the “small team” is “missing”. The latter delay may well be just an attempt to manage the bad news coming out of Afghanistan….
Or possibly they wanted to wait until they had a more complete idea of what was going on before they started releasing informaiton and making family members back home start worrying unnecessarily. Personally, I dont think 48 hours is an unreasonable amount of time.
p.lukasiak
These two points seem to contradict each other. Why send 16 soldiers to just pick up a small team unless they _need_ the 16 solidiers for a specific purpose.
I don’t think there is any contradiction.
Here is what I think happened. The first (“small”) team came under heavy fire. The rescue team (which was there specifically in case something went wrong for the “small team”) was dispatched, but crashed. Why wasn’t a second rescue team sent?
I don’t know enough about military tactics — let alone the kind of tactics necessary in an environment like Afghanistan — to say that someone screwed up. But I do have the feeling that some very serious questions will be asked
(e.g. Given the mountainous terrain and the relative ease with which the enemy can hide itself, shouldn’t we have been better prepared for the helicopter crash? That helicopter could have been attacked even when it wasn’t on a rescue mission — where was that chopper’s back-up?)
Shawn
I expect we’re going to be hearing a lot more about Afghanistan in the future.
From the Scotsman:Bush warns Blair he must boost UK forces
President Sunshine and his cabinet won’t tell us about this. They’re too busy blowing sunshine and “disassembling.”
John Harrold
Now I’m really confused. At first you stated
My point was based on the fact that another team was (apparently) not sent in to help the “small team”
Then you said:
The first (“small”) team came under heavy fire. The rescue team (which was there specifically in case something went wrong for the “small team”) was dispatched, but crashed.
To me your second quote would imply that the larger team was sent to help the smaller one where as your first one negates such a statement.
cfw
My take is that the second helicopter delayed 36 hours because a) leaders knew or were pretty sure that no one survived the first crash and b) leaders were concerned the second helicopter would meet the same fate as the first.
36 hours allowed time for drones and fixed wings to explore, see what risk (stingers,etc.) existed for the second helicopter.
To me, “missing” means the communications gear has stopped working (through capture, death of user, or destruction of equipment). I cannot imagine a small team having less than a couple communication systems.
Why send in a small team for spying when we supposedly own the counrty? Sounds like the small group somehow got lost or crashed, or was undercover and infiltrated within a Taliban unit. Perhaps close to Osama? Let’s hope the come home safe.