In March 2009, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division established a base in Tangi Valley after increased Taliban activity in the area. American, French and Afghan National Police forces carried out a three-day sweep of the area, and the area was then deemed secure. In April 2011, American forces turned over control of Combat Outpost Tangi to Afghan government forces. However, the Afghan government forces did not occupy the base, which was seized by the Taliban shortly after the departure of American forces.
American forces continued to carry out operations in the area (mostly via helicopter and using special forces), encountering resistance from Taliban fighters on several occasions. For example, on 8 June 2011 another Chinook helicopter was engaged from five to six locations (i.e., points of origin) with 14 rocket-propelled grenades, forcing the crew to abort their mission.[9][10]
Timeline
After American intelligence services discovered in 2011 that senior Taliban leader Qari Tahir was possibly in Tangi Valley, Wardak province, Afghanistan, local American forces launched a mission to apprehend or kill him.[11] At 22:37 (local time) on the night of 5 August, a platoon of 47 U.S. Army Rangers left a forward operating base in Logar Province via two CH-47D transport helicopters, one of which would later be involved in the accident.[9][10][11] After a 20-minute flight (around 23:00), the two Chinook helicopters landed near the compound ostensibly containing Tahir, offloaded the Ranger platoon and returned to base.[11]
As the Rangers approached the target compound, ISR aircraft observed several people leaving the compound. This group grew in number over the course of the night, but American forces were at first too preoccupied to engage. At 23:30, one of the Apache support helicopters engaged in a brief skirmish with a different group of eight Taliban fighters 400m (440yd) north of the compound, killing six.[11]
Separately, ISR aircraft continued to observe the unengaged group from the compound. Originally just two people, the group eventually swelled to a total of nine or ten fighters, and the special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander became concerned that it might include Tahir. At 01:00, they decided to engage the group with the SEAL reserves.[9][11]
Almost an hour later (01:50), the aviation brigade commander approved a new landing zone for infiltration of the SEAL team. The landing zone had been examined for a previous mission but had not yet been used.[11]
At 02:00, the special operations task force commander and the Immediate Reaction Force commander decided to add additional (non-SEAL) reinforcements, increasing the size of the team to 33. In order to speed disembarkation, all troops were loaded on a single CH-47D helicopter for transport; the other Chinook would approach the landing zone second as a decoy. Around 02:23, the two helicopters departed the forward base.[9][11]
Meanwhile, the group of Taliban fighters split in two. At 02:15, one group of three Taliban fighters took a position in a stand of trees; the remaining six or seven men entered a building located some 2km (1.2mi) from the target compound.[11] Going forward, the two AH-64 Apache helicopters would be engaged in tracking those two groups of Taliban, and hence unable to provide surveillance or fire support to the inbound helicopter carrying the SEAL team.[12][13]
Six minutes prior to reaching the landing zone, the empty CH-47D left the formation as planned. The helicopter carrying the SEALs proceeded to the landing zone alone, without external lighting. During the Ranger insertion earlier that night, the CH-47D had approached from the south; this time, it approached from the northwest. The helicopter made its last radio transmission stating that it was one minute away from the landing zone, then descended to an altitude of 100–150ft (30–46m) and slowed to a speed of 50kn (58mph; 93km/h) as it approached the landing zone.[9][11]
Around 02:38, the helicopter was fired upon and shot down by a previously undetected group of Taliban fighters approximately 220m (240yd) south of the helicopter. The group fired two or three RPG rounds from a two-story building, the second striking one of the helicopter's three aft rotor blades. The resulting explosion destroyed the aft rotor assembly. In less than five seconds, the helicopter crashed, killing all occupants, and approximately 30 seconds later, one of the AH-64 Apache helicopters radioed in the crash.[9][11]
Six minutes later, the Rangers concluded securing the compound, detained several people and began to move on foot toward the crash site. They reached the site at 04:12 and found no survivors. Several minutes later, a 20-man Pathfinder team (specializing in downed-aircraft rescue and recovery) arrived at the site.[11]
By 16:25, all of the remains were taken from the crash site via ground convoy and transported to Combat Outpost Sayyid Abad. Recovery of wreckage from the crash site lasted until 9 August 2011.[11]
The 30 American deaths represent the greatest loss of U.S. military lives in a single incident in the war in Afghanistan that began in 2001.[7][19][20]
In the afternoon of 6 August, a flash flood swept through the area, washing away parts of the wreckage.
Early media reports suggested that the Army had been tardy to recover flight recorders from the downed Chinook, and, as a consequence, the recorders had been swept away by the flood.[11][23] These reports were erroneous; the CH-47D airframe does not contain flight recorders, although the MH-47 variant does have a flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.[24][original research?]
Four years after the downing of Extortion 17, there were many theories about a possible government coverup. The official statement from U.S. Central Command stated that a Taliban fighter scored a lucky shot with a rocket-propelled grenade. It was reported that the Taliban fighters had no information of the helicopter's flight path and that they had been in the right place at the right time. A Department of Defense official asserted that there were no leaks from the Afghans.[citation needed] Doubts about this story were raised by families and other concerned citizens despite the fact that the Navy SEAL team aboard Extortion 17 was a different squadron than that which had killed Osama bin Laden three months earlier. The theories suggest that Afghan forces leaked information to the Taliban about the mission.[25]
Response
The U.S. military helicopter carrying special operations forces to a night-raid in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, according to military officials.[21][19]Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that eight of the movement's fighters had been killed in the assault on the compound. He said: "They wanted to attack our Mujahideen who were in a house, but our Mujahideen resisted and destroyed a helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade."[5]
Later accounts
Subsequent reports stated that on the night during which the helicopter had been delivering reinforcements to personnel of the 75th Ranger Regiment, another special operations unit engaged in a night raid on a compound to kill or capture a senior Taliban leader.[7][26][27] During the battle, American forces observed a small group of Taliban trying to flee the scene. The group probably contained the commander and a few of his bodyguards, while the remaining Taliban fighters offered resistance in an effort to buy the group enough time to escape. In order to prevent this, American forces called in for support.[28]
Other reports alleged that the Taliban had laid an elaborate trap for American special-operations forces, luring them in with false information. A senior Afghan government official, speaking anonymously, said that Taliban commander Qari Tahir had fed American forces false information about a meeting of insurgent leaders and fighters waited for the helicopter from both sides of a steep valley: "The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take. That's the only route, so they took positions on either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons. It was brought down by multiple shots."[29]
Reporting of event
Television
On 12 August 2011, Jim Lehrer of the PBS NewsHour announced that he would report the Honor Roll at the end of the program with names and photographs of all 30 men. He said, "And now, to our honor roll of American Service Personnel killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Yesterday, the Pentagon released the names of the 30 troops-- Navy SEALs, soldiers, and airmen, killed in the helicopter downed by Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan last weekend. Here, in silence, are the names and photographs of all 30 men."[30][31]NBC News reported that the Pentagon released the names of the 30 Americans killed.[32]
After the shootdown of Extortion 17, the insurgent responsible used a two-way radio to brag to others about the act. American signals intelligence aircraft intercepted these transmissions and subsequently tracked the individual and his accomplice. American intelligence officials identified this individual as "OBJECTIVE GINOSA." On the night of 8 August 2011, an F-16 dropped four GBU-54 "Laser JDAM" bombs on the man, his accomplice and four associates in the Chak Valley, which lies to the west of the Tangi Valley. Monitored and controlled by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller at Forward Operating Base Shank via a General Atomics MQ-1 Predatorunmanned aerial vehicle, all six were positively confirmed killed by the bomb strike and subsequent attacks by a Lockheed AC-130 gunship and two Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter gunships.[2][37]
On 10 August 2011, the U.S. military stated that the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade had been killed only two days afterward in an F-16 airstrike, saying only that intelligence gained on the ground provided "a high degree of confidence" that the person was among those killed in the airstrike from two days earlier, but providing no other details.[38]
During the same Pentagon news conference in which he announced that the F-16 airstrike had incapacitated "less than 10" of the insurgents involved, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander in Afghanistan John R. Allen said that the military investigation would also review whether small-arms fire or other causes might have contributed to the downing.[38]
Following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in April 2011, Tangi valley became a major staging area for attacks on Kabul (located just 60 miles away). Tangi valley remained under Taliban control until April 2013, when more than 1,000 Afghan security forces personnel launched an offensive in an effort to clear the area of Taliban fighters.[39]
In October 2011, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an investigation following the shootdown concluded "that all operational decisions, linked to the incident, were deemed tactically sound." The article stated that the helicopter crashed after an RPG round impacted the aft rotor assembly.[11]
In 2013, Congressman Jason Chaffetz said that he would hold an investigation of the United States House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security into the matter.[40] At the subsequent hearing in February 2014, Pentagon representative Garry Reid defended the decision to undertake the mission and denied that the Taliban had any advance knowledge of it. He said that insurgents had assumed a strong tactical position without knowledge of the helicopter's flight path.[41]
In 2017, Air Force captain Joni Marquez, the fire control officer on an AC-130 gunship that had accompanied Extortion 17 on the final flight, made a similar claim. Ranger assault helicopters had already engaged the enemy and killed six of eight Taliban fighters, causing the other two to retreat. In her first interview about the incident, Marquez said: "I had the sensor operators immediately shift to the eight insurgents the helicopters had taken out. Two were still alive." Captain Marquez claims that had the AC-130 been allowed to fire on the remaining enemy insurgents, Extortion 17 would not have been shot down. Warnings from her crew to turn the Chinook back or cancel their mission went unheeded.[42][43]
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem-rotor helicopter originally developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and now manufactured by Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The Chinook is a heavy-lift helicopter that is among the heaviest lifting Western helicopters. Its name, Chinook, is from the Native American Chinook people of Oregon and Washington state.
Operation Anaconda or the Battle of Shah-i-Kot was a military operation that took place in early March 2002 as part of the War in Afghanistan. CIA paramilitary officers, working with their allies, attempted to destroy al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. The operation took place in the Shah-i-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat. This operation was the first large-scale battle in the post-2001 War in Afghanistan since the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001. This was the first operation in the Afghanistan theater to involve a large number of U.S. forces participating in direct combat activities.
Bagram Airfield-BAF, also known as Bagram Air Base, is located 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It is under the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Sitting on the site of the ancient Bagram at an elevation of 1,492 metres (4,895 ft) above sea level, the air base has two concrete runways. The main one measures 3,602 by 46 metres, capable of handling large military aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy. The second runway measures 2,953 by 26 metres. The air base also has at least three large hangars, a control tower, numerous support buildings, and various housing areas. There are also more than 13 hectares of ramp space and five aircraft dispersal areas, with over 110 revetments.
The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), abbreviated as 160th SOAR (A), is a special operations force of the United States Army that provides helicopter aviation support for special operations forces. Its missions have included attack, assault, and reconnaissance, and these missions are usually conducted at night, at high speeds, low altitudes, and on short notice.
The Boeing Chinook is a large, tandem rotor helicopter operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF). A series of variants based on the United States Army's Boeing CH-47 Chinook, the RAF Chinook fleet is the largest outside the United States. RAF Chinooks have seen extensive service in the Falklands War, the Balkans, Northern Ireland, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Operation Red Wings, informally referred to as the Battle of Abbas Ghar, was a joint military operation conducted by the United States in the Pech District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. It was carried out from late-June to mid-July 2005 on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, situated approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of the provincial capital of Asadabad. The operation was intended to disrupt the activities of local Taliban-aligned anti-coalition militias (ACM), thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the September 2005 parliamentary election for the National Assembly of Afghanistan. At the time, Taliban ACM activity in the region was carried out predominantly by a small group led by a local man from Nangarhar Province known as Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of achieving regional prominence among Muslim fundamentalists. Consequently, Shah and his group were one of the primary targets of the American military operation.
The Battle of Takur Ghar was a short but intense military engagement between United States special operations forces and al-Qaeda insurgents fought in March 2002, atop Takur Ghar mountain in Afghanistan. For the U.S. side, the battle proved the deadliest entanglement of Operation Anaconda, an effort early in the War in Afghanistan to rout al-Qaeda forces from the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains. The battle saw three helicopter landings by the U.S. on the mountain top, each met with direct assault from al-Qaeda forces. Although Takur Ghar was eventually taken, seven U.S. service members were killed and 12 others were wounded. The battle is also known as the Battle of Roberts Ridge, after the first casualty of the battle, Navy SEAL Neil C. Roberts.
In January 2006, NATO's focus in southern Afghanistan was to form Provincial Reconstruction Teams with the British leading in Helmand Province and the Netherlands, Australia and Canada leading similar deployments in Orūzgān Province and Kandahar Province respectively. The United States, with 2,200 troops, stayed in control of Zabul Province. Local Taliban figures voiced opposition to the incoming force and pledged to resist it.
The following items form a partial timeline of the War in Afghanistan. For events prior to October 7, 2001, see 2001 in Afghanistan.
Ahmad Shah was an Afghan militant leader who commanded a group of fighters operating in eastern Afghanistan and was linked to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Between 7 October 2001 and 30 August 2021, the United States lost a total of 2,459 military personnel in Afghanistan. Of this figure, 1,922 had been killed in action. An additional 20,769 were wounded in action. 18 operatives of the Central Intelligence Agency were also killed during the conflict. Further, there were 1,822 civilian contractor fatalities.
The Battle of Do Ab took place in Nuristan province, Afghanistan on 25 May 2011. In the battle, a scout platoon from the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, United States Army, 20 Afghan soldiers, and two United States Air Force Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) operators and one Law Enforcement Professional (LEP) retired police officer were ambushed by an estimated 400-500 Taliban near the village of Do Ab. With assistance from close air support, the coalition forces repulsed the ambush, killing approximately 270 Taliban. The coalition forces suffered no casualties. Three purple hearts were awarded. Major Heidi lesh, Sargent Toka Phillips and First Sargent Kyle White.
Tangi Valley is located in the south of Wardak Province in Afghanistan. Between 2009 and 2011 it was occupied by US forces, and became known for the large number of US troops killed there. It was considered an important area and hence was a focus of insurgent activity due to its proximity to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.
Call Sign Extortion 17: The Shoot-Down of SEAL Team Six is a 2015 non-fiction expose, written by best-selling author and former U.S. Navy JAG Officer Don Brown, about the 2011 Chinook shootdown in Afghanistan of a United States Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. It is published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, through its Imprint, Lyons Press. In the shoot-down, 31 Americans lost their lives, including 17 U.S. Navy SEALs, 15 of whom were from 2 troop, Gold Squadron at SEAL Team Six, officially the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
The Australian Defence Force has operated Boeing CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters for most of the period since 1974. Thirty four of the type have entered Australian service, comprising twelve CH-47C variants, eight CH-47Ds and fourteen CH-47Fs. The helicopters have been operated by both the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and Australian Army.
The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, And The Deadliest Day of The U.S. War in Afghanistan is a book by Ed Darack. It was published on September 19, 2017. It describes the downing of Extortion 17, a U.S. Army CH-47D Chinook helicopter, in the Tangi Valley of Afghanistan's Maidan Wardak Province in the early hours of 6 August 2011. The book focuses on the helicopter's two pilots and three crew members.
1 2 3 Ed Darack (2017). "The Final Mission of Extortion 17: Special Ops, Helicopter Support, SEAL Team Six, and the Deadliest Day of the U.S. War in Afghanistan". Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN978-1588345899.
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