A US helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan has killed 31 US special forces and seven Afghan soldiers, President Hamid Karzai's office says.
The helicopter was taking the personnel back to their base after an operation.
Neither the US nor Nato have confirmed the cause, but witnesses, officials and the Taliban say it was shot down.
The incident is believed to be the biggest single loss of life for US forces in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.
The helicopter went down overnight in Wardak province, the statement from President Karzai's office said.
It was returning from an operation against the Taliban in which eight insurgents are believed to have been killed.
A senior official of President Barack Obama's administration said the helicopter was apparently shot down, Associated Press news agency said.
An official with the Nato-led coalition in Afghanistan told the New York Times the helicopter was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade.
'Enemy activity'
"The president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan expresses his sympathy and deep condolences to US President Barack Obama and the family of the victims," the statement from Hamid Karzai said.
President Obama, too, issued a statement paying tribute to the Americans and Afghans who died in the crash.
"We will draw inspiration from their lives, and continue the work of securing our country and standing up for the values that they embodied. We also mourn the Afghans who died alongside our troops in pursuit of a more peaceful and hopeful future for their country," the statement said.
The Nato-led International Security Assistance Force has confirmed the helicopter crash but has not released details of casualties or the cause.
It is believed the helicopter was a Chinook, commonly used by coalition forces in Afghanistan to ferry troops in and out of combat.
Nato said it was mounting an operation to recover the helicopter and find out why it crashed. It said there had been "enemy activity in the area" where it went down.
A Taliban spokesman said insurgents had brought down the helicopter with a rocket after US and Afghan troops attacked a house in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak where insurgents were meeting late on Friday, Associated Press said.
Sayd Abad, near the province of Kabul, is known to have a strong Taliban presence.
A Wardak government spokesman quoted by AFP news agency agreed with this, saying the helicopter was hit as it was taking off.
A local resident told the BBC Pashto service a rocket hit the helicopter.
"What we saw was that when we having our pre-dawn (Ramadan) meal, Americans landed some soldiers for an early raid," said Mohammad Wali Wardag.
"This other helicopter also came for the raid. We were outside our rooms on a veranda and saw this helicopter flying very low, it was hit by a rocket and it was on fire. It started coming down and crashed just away from our home close to the river."
There are currently about 140,000 foreign troops - about 100,000 of them American - in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban insurgency and training local troops to take over security.
All foreign combat forces are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and some troop withdrawals have already taken place.
Nato has begun the process of handing over control of security in some areas to local forces, with Bamiyan becoming the first province to pass to Afghan control in mid-July.
An increase in US troop numbers last year has had some success combating the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, but attacks in the north, which was previously relatively quiet, have picked up in recent months.
Don't know how accurate the information is, but MSN is claiming on their front page that the 31 American spec-ops personnel included 20+ members of Seal Team Six (well whatever their called now at least).
That's what the BBC is saying as well. (apparently it's DEVGRU now )
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Wing Commander MAD wrote:Don't know how accurate the information is, but MSN is claiming on their front page that the 31 American spec-ops personnel included 20+ members of Seal Team Six (well whatever their called now at least).
They say it's the biggest single loss of troops so far. Wonder if this + the economic boondoggle will hasten the retreat from Afghanistan?
So the Taliban avenged Bin Laden. Gotta give them due, that was an extremely well-done choice of targets. Killing soldiers who killed Bin Laden was an operation rather hard to pull off.
Why didn't America immediately retire all involved in the operation?
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Stas Bush wrote:So the Taliban avenged Bin Laden. Gotta give them due, that was an extremely well-done choice of targets. Killing soldiers who killed Bin Laden was an operation rather hard to pull off.
Why didn't America immediately retire all involved in the operation?
I don't think it's the same people who killed OBL, just the same SEAL team.
Stas Bush wrote:So the Taliban avenged Bin Laden. Gotta give them due, that was an extremely well-done choice of targets. Killing soldiers who killed Bin Laden was an operation rather hard to pull off.
Why didn't America immediately retire all involved in the operation?
Well, I don't believe any of the actual DEVGRU SEALs were on this CH-47, but there were others from the same Team (each SEAL Team has about 300 personnel, IIRC).
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Stas Bush wrote:Why didn't America immediately retire all involved in the operation?
1. THere'sa lot of guys involved in units like that.
2. These are the sort of people who are mission/goal oriented to 11. They don't just go and do one mission and go home, they keep running missions and acheiving goals until they die or they're to old to make the cut anymore.
All the Taliban really did with this is score a momentary PR coup. The unspoken message is that they've just managed to make every swinging dick in the entire US special operations community want to kill them. The killed 31 people and managed to gain the anger of several thousand people that are selected solely for their ability to never give up. All in all, this wasn't a victory, it's a flat out death kneel depending on how USSOCOM and the White House want to play it.
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Stas Bush wrote:So the Taliban avenged Bin Laden. Gotta give them due, that was an extremely well-done choice of targets. Killing soldiers who killed Bin Laden was an operation rather hard to pull off.
Why didn't America immediately retire all involved in the operation?
[blinks]
Why would we retire commandos purely because they killed bin Laden, or participated in his killing? Waste of good commandos, if you ask me.
This isn't the first time a helicopter's gotten shot down by RPG fire in combat; it does happen once in a while, and I don't think this was a result of Taliban choice- they'd have fired the same rocket at the helicopter if it had been full of people who had nothing to do with bin Laden. Which was probably true of most, if not all, of the men on the helicopter anyway.
If you fly helicopters full of troops into zones where enemies with machine guns and bazookas are waiting for you, once in a while you lose one, because any enemy with brains will be gunning for those helicopters.
Why would we retire commandos purely because they killed bin Laden, or participated in his killing? Waste of good commandos, if you ask me.
In this case it denies the Taliban a major propaganda victory. And this is a war largely fought for public opinion. How the public sees the war going is more important than how many bad guys were killed. If the Taliban live up to their infamous promise of avenging Bin Ladens death well then its a disaster.
I have to tell you something everything I wrote above is a lie.
Mr. Coffee wrote:
All the Taliban really did with this is score a momentary PR coup. The unspoken message is that they've just managed to make every swinging dick in the entire US special operations community want to kill them. The killed 31 people and managed to gain the anger of several thousand people that are selected solely for their ability to never give up. All in all, this wasn't a victory, it's a flat out death kneel depending on how USSOCOM and the White House want to play it.
What is this, the KO Corral? Is killing a SF operator like killing a cop, and then the SF/cops make shit go real and go nuts at the SF/copkiller?
Does this even change anything in the current, coalition troops and Taliban troops try to kill each other all the time, scheme? I mean, they probably do this all the time except the only difference is that the helicopter they shot down was a big one and was filled with SF operators.
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I sure hope they recovered the bodies. It will not do well for a "Black Hawk Down" redux.
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Mr. Coffee wrote:All the Taliban really did with this is score a momentary PR coup. The unspoken message is that they've just managed to make every swinging dick in the entire US special operations community want to kill them. The killed 31 people and managed to gain the anger of several thousand people that are selected solely for their ability to never give up. All in all, this wasn't a victory, it's a flat out death kneel depending on how USSOCOM and the White House want to play it.
[trailer guy]In a world where people shoot each other and it's war, two men are pushed to their limits as their comrades are killed by the enemy side in a combat operation. It's a world of VENGEANCE! It's a world of RETRIBUTION! MADNESS! This is AFGHANISTAN! The enemy has wakened a sleeping dragon and filled him with TERRIBLE RESOLVE! Coming up next September in a cinema near you, KILL TEAM! With Steven Seagal and Mel Gibson. [/trailer guy]
You know, if I were a special forces guy I'd felt insulted by your insinuation to have half-assed it this whole time. I mean, according to you victory could have been had years earlier if only the Navy Seals/Green Berets/whoever had taken this war seriously and given it their all.
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Why would we retire commandos purely because they killed bin Laden, or participated in his killing? Waste of good commandos, if you ask me.
In this case it denies the Taliban a major propaganda victory.
Well, from my point of view, the public doesn't need to know who the commandos who killed bin Laden are. Which would have made it completely impossible to say that his death has or has not been avenged.
The Taliban doesn't announce which of its people were involved in the planning and execution of any given attack. Why should we?
Identities of specifal operations troops are classified, and according to news articles none of the men on the downed Chinook took part in the raid that killed Bin Laden. All we know is that they came from SEAL Team Six/DEVGRU, which is probably a lot more than just twenty something guys. No reason to retire elite (and expensive) troops because they were successful.
The Taliban got some retaliation here, but the SEALs and other units are probably out for blood even more now. I wouldn't be surprised if the US increased the number of raids and drone strikes in the next few months.
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Metahive wrote:You know, if I were a special forces guy I'd felt insulted by your insinuation to have half-assed it this whole time. I mean, according to you victory could have been had years earlier if only the Navy Seals/Green Berets/whoever had taken this war seriously and given it their all.
The CIA said the same thing about retaliating, after they lost six people to a suicide bomber a while back. The ability to step up attacks doesn't mean that the guys already there have been half assing it. It could mean deploying more resources and troops to the area. Which I've read the SEALs and othe special ops units are capable of doing, since forces are being withdrawn from Iraq anyway.
"They're not triangular, but they are more or less blade-shaped"- Thrawn McEwok on the shape of Bakura destroyers
"Lovely. It's known as impugning character regarding statement of professional qualifications' in the legal world"- Karen Traviss, crying libel because I said that no soldier she interviewed would claim that he can take on billion-to-one odds
"I've already laid out rules for this thread that we're not going to make these evidential demands"- Dark Moose on supporting your claims
Metahive wrote:You know, if I were a special forces guy I'd felt insulted by your insinuation to have half-assed it this whole time. I mean, according to you victory could have been had years earlier if only the Navy Seals/Green Berets/whoever had taken this war seriously and given it their all.
The CIA said the same thing about retaliating, after they lost six people to a suicide bomber a while back. The ability to step up attacks doesn't mean that the guys already there have been half assing it. It could mean deploying more resources and troops to the area. Which I've read the SEALs and othe special ops units are capable of doing, since forces are being withdrawn from Iraq anyway.
There's also a difference when something becomes personal. You go just that little step over and above what you'd normally do. It's just human nature.
Sarevok wrote:The real question is did they nail the chopper carrying the SEALs by chance or were they tipped off by someone.
The helicopter was shot down after having extracted a SEAL platoon which was sent in to reinforce an Army Ranger unit which got involved in a major firefight attacking a house with some random Taliban target inside. No word if they got the target, but the chopper was hit at night a minute or two after liftoff. Random luck for the Taliban. We can also add one Bin Laden sniffing war dog to the list of American casualties.
A number of Chinooks, several of them special forces models. have been lost to RPGs in Afghanistan, just never with a full payload of people onboard; several full ones did get shot down in Iraq. Because of the hot high conditions in Afghanistan and long ranges Chinooks have to be used much more as assault transports then they really should be; Blackhawk performance is just not sufficient up in the mountains. If you have to move a lot of people it has to be by Chinook, and the Chinook is a big unagile target. Still the RPG hit had to have been in a bad spot like the cockpit or else something nasty happened, like flying into a cliff, for everyone on board to die.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
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There was another incident much earlier in the war where a large number of special forces troopers were killed. A Taliban fighter got lucky and managed to shoot an RPG into the Chinook's open rear hatch.
The US should seriously consider getting a much more survivable transport chopper. The Chinook is simply too vulnerable for the number of people it carries.
Zinegata wrote:There was another incident much earlier in the war where a large number of special forces troopers were killed. A Taliban fighter got lucky and managed to shoot an RPG into the Chinook's open rear hatch.
That Chinook did land, but rolled down a steep slope after setting down violently in high winds which is what killed everyone. That's one of those war is hell situations.
The US should seriously consider getting a much more survivable transport chopper. The Chinook is simply too vulnerable for the number of people it carries.
Umm, no. Want to point out a more survivable chopper of similar size and payload? Or hell any chopper period which you think can guarantee survival after a direct hit by an RPG? It doesn't exist and never will exist unless we get some radical armor breakthrough AND build the aircraft with two cockpits. Any chopper that big will be vulnerable, choppers that big are required to make effective air assaults. Air assault as well as day to day transport runs means not being blown up by endless IEDs and ambushes along the roads. Chinooks have easily saved hundreds of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan because of that alone, never mind the forces saved not escorting ground convoys or what it can do in conventional war.
You are talking about a helicopter which carried tens of millions of passengers in the Vietnam War alone, has flown millions of hours in combat ect.. Claiming something is wrong over two lost aircraft is nonsensical. This aircraft has been in production for over fifty years for good reason. As it is nobody produces a helicopter in the world right now which is actually comparable either, everything else is either much lighter or much heavier.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Jim Raynor wrote:The CIA said the same thing about retaliating, after they lost six people to a suicide bomber a while back. The ability to step up attacks doesn't mean that the guys already there have been half assing it. It could mean deploying more resources and troops to the area. Which I've read the SEALs and othe special ops units are capable of doing, since forces are being withdrawn from Iraq anyway.
Read Coffee's post again, he's talking about how the Taliban are facing extinction now that they've supposedly sufficiently angered the US special forces.
The killed 31 people and managed to gain the anger of several thousand people that are selected solely for their ability to never give up. All in all, this wasn't a victory, it's a flat out death kneel depending on how USSOCOM and the White House want to play it.
What else does that mean than that their heart hasn't been in it so far? Also excuse my skepticism about simply throwing more resources at the special forces or increasing their operations bringing the Taliban down. That train left the station years ago.
People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)
Saddam’s crime was so bad we literally spent decades looking for our dropped monocles before we could harumph up the gumption to address it
-User Indigo Jump on Pharyngula
O God, please don't let me die today, tomorrow would be so much better!
-Traditional Spathi morning prayer
Sea Skimmer wrote:Umm, no. Want to point out a more survivable chopper of similar size and payload? Or hell any chopper period which you think can guarantee survival after a direct hit by an RPG? It doesn't exist and never will exist unless we get some radical armor breakthrough AND build the aircraft with two cockpits.
MH-53 comes cloest to mind and were used by special forces extensively, but those have been phased out.
You are talking about a helicopter which carried tens of millions of passengers in the Vietnam War alone, has flown millions of hours in combat ect.. Claiming something is wrong over two lost aircraft is nonsensical. This aircraft has been in production for over fifty years for good reason. As it is nobody produces a helicopter in the world right now which is actually comparable either, everything else is either much lighter or much heavier.
Chinooks are excellent transports, but it was still best used as a logistics support aircraft during the Vietnam War. It also suffered pretty heavy losses - wiki says 200 aircraft lost out of 750 due to both combat and accidents.
Besides which, I'm not advocating replacement of the entire Chinook fleet - I'm saying the US should procure a dedicated high-survivability transport chopper.
Zinegata wrote:Besides which, I'm not advocating replacement of the entire Chinook fleet - I'm saying the US should procure a dedicated high-survivability transport chopper.
There's high survivability and there's withstanding a direct hit from a weapon originally designed for taking out main battle tanks. The only practical way to increase survivability versus one of those things is to make it as difficult as possible for the guy firing it to hit you in the first place, which unfortunately is impossible to do whilst hovering to deploy troops, or landed to pick them up.
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Zinegata wrote:Besides which, I'm not advocating replacement of the entire Chinook fleet - I'm saying the US should procure a dedicated high-survivability transport chopper.
There's high survivability and there's withstanding a direct hit from a weapon originally designed for taking out main battle tanks. The only practical way to increase survivability versus one of those things is to make it as difficult as possible for the guy firing it to hit you in the first place, which unfortunately is impossible to do whilst hovering to deploy troops, or landed to pick them up.
The older versions of the MH-53 has been known to take RPG hits and survive in Vietnam, as the thing has a fair bit of armor. There are also instances of Chinooks surviving RPG hits that missed everything important (rotors, engines, cockpit), but chances are the MH-53 will survive a hit better than a CH-47. It wasn't called the "Jolly Green Giant" for nothing.
Also, if you want to make it difficult for the enemy to shoot at you with an RPG, the MH-53 still wins out. It comes with three gatling guns as standard along with dedicated gunners, as opposed to the Chinook maybe having 3 MGs. The MH-53 can lay down a lot of suppressing fire if it has to.
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