![]() Night Stalker pilots and crew rigorously train for nighttime raids, like the one in Juy Zarin.Įxtortion 17 was accompanied by two AH-64 Apaches, like the pair lifting off behind a CH-47, as well as an AC-130 and UAVs. Special Operations Command possesses its own specialized Chinooks-MH-47s-flown by the ultra-secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the “Night Stalkers.” The MH-47s’ modifications include inflight refueling probes, additional and upgraded sensors, more powerful engines, and more powerful defensive weapons than their conventional counterparts. The helicopters are capacious and fast, and they can perform well in Afghanistan’s performance-degrading high altitudes and heat. Extortion 16 flew empty.Ĭommanders frequently request CH-47 Chinooks to insert troops. The IRF commander then made a critical decision: In order to get everyone on the ground as quickly as possible and deny the Taliban time to react, he ordered the entire force to fly in Extortion 17. The IRF also included two SEALs from another team, five Navy special operations support personnel, three Air Force special tactics airmen, seven Afghan National Army commandos, a translator, and a combat assault dog. Planners then chose a new landing zone for the IRF, but it was large enough to accommodate only one Chinook.įaced with the possibility of confronting nine or 10 Taliban fighters, planners increased the reinforcement team from 17 to 32 men, formed around the 15-man SEAL group. Mission commanders, believing that Tahir was likely among one of the groups, deployed an Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) to interdict them while the Rangers held the compound. forces observing the mud walls and terraces of the village saw new groups of fighters gathering and maneuvering. Through sensors on manned and unmanned aircraft, U.S. Three hours after disembarking from the Chinooks, the assault force had secured the compound and detained a number of Tahir’s men, but they hadn’t found Tahir himself. The remaining two fighters ducked into a stand of trees and disappeared from the Apaches’ infrared scanners. One AH-64 crew, after identifying the men as enemy combatants, fired on them with their gunship’s 30mm cannon, killing six. When the two Chinooks had first touched down in the village, a group of eight fighters armed with AK-47 rifles and RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers bolted from the compound. As the ground assault force rushed toward Tahir’s compound, Extortion 17 and 16 sped back to base, where they were refueled, and awaited word to extract the team, evacuate wounded, or race reinforcing troops to Juy Zarin. Intelligence had revealed Tahir to be the senior Taliban chief of the Tangi Valley region, with probable ties to upper-echelon Taliban leadership in Pakistan. Their target: an Afghan named Qari Tahir and his group of fighters. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, an Air Force AC-130 gunship, and a small fleet of unmanned surveillance aircraft orbited overhead, a platoon of the 75th Ranger Regiment and members of an Afghan special operations unit stormed down the rear ramps of the Chinooks and into the night. The mission had begun about four hours prior to the shootdown, when the two helicopters touched down side by side in Juy Zarin, a village in the bare rock-walled Tangi Valley of Wardak Province. ![]() military investigations followed every moment of the mission to determine what went wrong on Extortion 17’s final flight. No evidence has emerged to support any of these claims. In light of that raid’s success, the shootdown of Extortion 17 incited a flurry of conspiracy theories: The Taliban were tipped off it was a trap it was retribution for the killing. Just three months earlier, members of a counterpart SEAL Team 6 squadron successfully raided a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and killed Osama bin Laden. Those killed ranked among the world’s most highly trained and experienced commandos, including 15 men from Gold Squadron of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, popularly called SEAL Team 6. A Taliban fighter shot the helicopter out of the sky with a rocket-propelled grenade and all aboard were killed-the single greatest loss of American life in the Afghan war. ![]() Operating with no lights save for the faint green glow of night vision goggles and cockpit instrument panels, the two helicopters, call signs Extortion 17 (“one-seven”) and Extortion 16, lifted into the darkness and accelerated toward a destination less than 20 miles west.Įxtortion 17 and its 38 occupants would not return. A few minutes past 2 a.m. on August 6, 2011, at a dusty forward operating base 40 miles south of Kabul, Afghanistan, the rotors of two U.S. ![]()
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