11/29/2023 0 Comments Extra missions for venture planIt all began with trying to save one Afghan Commando, whose special immigrant visa was never finalized.ĭuring an intense night last week involving coordination between Mann and another Green Beret, an intelligence officer, former aid workers and a staffer for Florida Republican and Green Beret officer Rep. Many Afghans have a stronger vision of our democratic values than many Americans do." "Leaving a man behind is not in our SEAL ethos. He refused to leave his family," O'Shea, a former counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan, told ABC News. "He was not willing to let his father and his brother behind even it meant he would die. side of the airport and on a plane out of Kabul. They dodged Taliban checkpoints and patrols in order to get inside the U.S. citizen who served as an operative and his Afghan father and brother in a nail-biting crucible as they walked on foot to one entry point after another for hours. "That is an astounding number for an organization that was only assembled days before the start of operations and most of its members had never met each other in person," Lois told ABC News.ĭan O'Shea, a retired SEAL commander, said he successfully helped his own group, which included a U.S. Lois said the Task Force Pineapple was able to accomplish a truly historic event, by evacuating hundreds of personnel over the last week. Others were brought in by an Army Ranger wearing a modified American flag patch with the Ranger Regiment emblem, sources told ABC News. They waved their phones with the pineapples and were scooped up and brought inside the wire to safety. soldier wearing red sunglasses to identify himself. Many of the Afghans arrived near Abbey Gate and waded through a sewage-choked canal toward a U.S. Looking back at an effort that saved at least, by their count, 630 Afghan lives, Redman expressed deep frustration "that our own government didn't do this. These people were so exhausted, I kept trying to put myself in their shoes," Redman said. People were so terrified in that chaotic environment. "The whole night was a roller-coaster ride. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was, therefore, a high-value target for them, sources told ABC News. 15 to get one former Afghan commando who had served with Mann into the Kabul airport as he was being hunted by the Taliban who were texting him death threats. The operation carried out Wednesday night was an element of "Task Force Pineapple," an informal group whose mission began as a frantic effort on Aug. The objective was to move individuals and families through the cover of darkness on the "Pineapple Express." The week-long effort and Wednesday's operation were observed by ABC News under the agreement of secrecy while the heart-pounding movements unfolded. officials.Īfter succeeding with helping dozens of Afghan commandos and interpreters get into the protective ring of the airport created by the 6,000 American troops President Joe Biden dispatched to the airfield after Kabul fell to the Taliban, the group initiated an ambitious ground operation this week aided by U.S. Marines, a Navy corpsman, an Army soldier and another service member - and wounded 15 other service members, according to U.S. A suicide bomber believed to have been an ISIS fighter killed at least 13 U.S. The Pineapple Express' mission was underway Thursday when the attack occurred in Kabul. military-controlled side of Hamid Karzai International Airport. embassy to move people, sometimes one person at a time, or in pairs, but rarely more than a small bunch, inside the wire of the U.S. Moving after nightfall in near-pitch black darkness and extremely dangerous conditions, the group said it worked unofficially in tandem with the United States military and U.S. With the Taliban growing more violent and adding checkpoints near Kabul's airport, an all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a final daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed the "Pineapple Express" to shepherd hundreds of at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety, members of the group told ABC News.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |