Chinook crash highlights rise in spec ops raids - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Chinook crash highlights rise in spec ops raids

The raid that resulted in the Aug. 6 CH-47 Chinook crash that killed 38, including 30 American service members, was one of more than 2,000 similar missions conducted over the past year, a number that is likely to increase sharply as elite special ops task forces assume an even more prominent role in the war in Afghanistan.

“Across Afghanistan that night, there were multiple missions very similar to this one,” Marine Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, told reporters in the Pentagon via teleconference Aug. 10. The raid “was one of many” similar missions “that were occurring in Afghanistan that night,” he added.

“We’ve run more than a couple of thousand of these night operations over the last year, and this is the only occasion where this has occurred,” Allen said in answer to a question about whether the use of the CH-47 was “a mistake … in this kind of operation.”

The presence of personnel from Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU, sometimes referred to as SEAL Team 6, identified the mission as one conducted by a Joint Special Operations Command task force. JSOC, sometimes referred to by U.S. officials as “the national mission force,” conducts the vast majority of the direct-action raids aimed at killing or capturing insurgent leaders in Afghanistan.

As the number of conventional U.S. forces in Afghanistan decreases, “the role of counterterrorism operations, and in particular these kinds of special missions, will become prominent,” Allen said. “They won’t become the sole mechanism by which we achieve battlefield decision, but they will certainly play a role.”

Statistics provided Aug. 10 by ISAF Joint Command illustrate the sharp increase in special operations raids over the past couple of years — and their effectiveness. There were 675 raids in 2009, 1,780 in 2010 and 1,879 so far in 2011.

This year, the special operators captured or killed their principal target in about 49 percent of the raids, and even on missions that miss the primary target, “his next closest associate or another individual directly linked to the target” is killed or captured 35 percent of the time, meaning that 84 percent of the raids achieve some degree of success, according to numbers provided by ISAF Joint Command spokesman Army Maj. Jason Waggoner. The rate of success at killing or capturing the primary target has increased slightly since 2009, when the raids accomplished that goal 45 percent of the time.

Target killed?

The Aug. 6 crash happened when the special operations task force was “pursuing a Taliban leader” in the Tangi valley of Wardak province, Allen said.

“As this mission unfolded, we saw some significant success occurring on the objective itself, but there were elements that were escaping. … We committed a force to contain that element from getting out.” It was that force that was aboard the Chinook when it crashed, he said.

The personnel in the helicopter constituted an “immediate-reaction force” that was en route to support troops in contact on the ground, said a source in the naval special warfare community. An immediate-reaction force differs from a quick-reaction force in that the former is built into the mission plan and is on-site during the raid, sometimes circling the action in a helicopter, waiting to be committed if needed, whereas a quick-reaction force is typically brought forward from the rear, the NSW source said.

“This force was actually part of the mission,” Allen said.

There were no survivors from the crash, said a special ops source who has been briefed on the incident.

The task force did not manage to capture or kill the raid’s primary target, Allen said. However, he said that “we assess” that the helicopter was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, and the insurgents responsible for downing the helicopter had been killed by an F-16 airstrike at midnight Aug. 8.

“All of these operations generate intelligence,” Allen said. “And the intelligence that was generated both from activity on the objective [Aug. 6], but also the activity of those who sought to flee from the objective, gave us significant certainty of who they were. We tracked them, as we would in the aftermath of any operation, and we dealt with them with a kinetic strike. And in the aftermath of that, we have achieved certainty that they, in fact, were killed in that strike.”

Allen was not consistent about the cause of the crash during his press conference. Early on, he said that “the aircraft was struck by an RPG and crashed.” But later, he said, “We don’t know with any certainty what hit the aircraft.” The investigation into the incident will pinpoint the cause, he said.

Allen said the number of insurgents killed in the Aug. 8 airstrike was “less than 10.” But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told Agence France-Presse that the fighter who shot down the helicopter was alive and well.

Guard’s role

Although the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) is the helicopter unit that directly supports most JSOC missions, in this case the helicopter and crew were from Army National Guard and Reserve units.

The use of a conventional Army Chinook to fly a JSOC mission was “atypical,” said the special ops source who was briefed on the incident. A special operations officer who went on several JSOC missions in Afghanistan during the past year said, “We always used 160th birds.” However, he added, the National Guard had provided “some of the best aviation support I’ve ever received in Afghanistan.”

It’s not unprecedented for special operations forces to rely on conventional aviation units for airlift support, special operations officials said.

The 160th has almost doubled in size over the past 10 years, but its operational tempo is nonetheless “incredibly busy,” unit spokeswoman Kim Tiscione said. The regiment, which has about 3,000 personnel and 200 aircraft, has been continuously deployed for the last 10 years, and elements of the 160th rotate into Afghanistan as needed, she said, adding that the unit also has training requirements and missions elsewhere in the world.

Investigating the crash

Marine Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, has appointed a 160th veteran, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Colt, the deputy commanding general for support of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), to lead an investigation into the crash. Colt has spent just under 10 years in the 160th, including command tours at the platoon, company and battalion level, according to his official Army biography.

The investigation will seek to answer “the standard questions that we would ask in any investigation of this nature: What was the cause of the crash and what lessons can be learned as a result of that cause?” Allen said. “The investigation … is just beginning. We would anticipate it will take some time.”

Colt’s investigation is likely to be one of several.

“There will be multiple investigations,” said the special operations source who has been briefed on the incident, adding that this was typical for an aircraft crash of this magnitude.

The crash is believed to be the biggest single loss ever suffered by the NSW community or in the 24-year history of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Of the 22 NSW members killed, 17 were SEALs and five were direct support personnel, according to information released by the Defense Department.

Two of the SEALs were from a West Coast SEAL unit, but the others were from Gold Squadron of DEVGRU, said the NSW source.

DEVGRU, based in Dam Neck, Va., is the Navy’s “Tier One” special mission unit that operates as part of task forces formed under JSOC. It is the Navy’s equivalent to the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment — Delta, or Delta Force. DEVGRU has four line squadrons — Blue, Gold, Red and Silver — plus a strategic reconnaissance element known as Black Squadron.

Each squadron is divided into three troops. The crash wiped out an entire troop in Gold Squadron, said the NSW source.

The presence of the West Coast SEALs on the mission should not come as a surprise, even though they are not part of a unit that habitually reports to JSOC, said the NSW source.

“We have SEALs from the West Coast augmenting Dam Neck on every deployment,” the source said.

The remaining U.S. military casualties were divided between a five-person Army aircrew and three Air Force personnel from the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, which is based at Pope Field, N.C.

The Afghans who died included an interpreter and Afghan National Army Commandos from the Afghan Partnered Unit, which accompanies JSOC forces on their combat missions in Afghanistan, according to the special ops source who has been briefed on the mission.

‘Worst day by a mile’

Asked what the naval special warfare community’s initial reaction to the incident was, the NSW source answered: “Shock and disbelief. There’s no precedent for this. It’s the worst day in our history by a mile.”

The source noted that twice as many NSW personnel died in the Wardak crash as were killed in Operation Red Wings, which cost the lives of eight SEALs and eight 160th soldiers when insurgents shot down their MH-47 Chinook near Asadabad, Afghanistan, on June 28, 2005. An additional three SEALs were killed during a firefight on the ground.

The tragedy comes three months after JSOC’s highest-profile success — the May 2 mission that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in his safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. That raid, conducted by DEVGRU’s Red Squadron and aircrews from the 160th, was executed without any friendly casualties.

The Wardak incident also occurred less than three days before the change of command at U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., that saw Adm. Eric Olson relinquish command to another SEAL, Adm. William McRaven, who was the JSOC commander for the bin Laden mission. Army Lt. Gen. Joe Votel has since replaced McRaven as the JSOC commander.

Staff writer Michelle Tan contributed to this story.