Did the Navy SEALs Get too Close to bin Laden?

The recent downing of a helicopter with Navy SEALs aboard leaves many questions to be answered...did they come under unusually heavy fire because they were getting close to Usama bin Laden or the Taliban leader Mullah Omar?

THE first sign of trouble was a radio message requesting immediate extraction. A four-man team of US Navy Seal commandos had run into heavy enemy fire on a remote, thickly forested trail in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

Trouble turned to disaster when a US special forces helicopter carrying 16 men was shot down as it landed at the scene, killing all on board. Almost two weeks later, a mission that led to the worst US combat losses in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001 has turned into an extraordinary manhunt. It has also opened an intriguing new front in the coalition’s battle against terrorism.

The story of Operation Red Wing, a US-led search for Taliban and Al-Qaeda guerrillas in the mountain wilderness of Kunar province, contains remarkable human drama and an unresolved military mystery.
...
According to former special forces officers and other military sources, the four-man Seal strike team may have come too close to one of the US-led coalition’s highest-priority targets — perhaps Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader, or even Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. Other military sources suggested the target was a regional Taliban commander suspected of links with Al-Qaeda.

Source: Times Online

I was wondering the same thing. The circumstances surrounding this operation seems a bit fishy...


Hat tip: Hellmutt

How do so many US blackhawks get shot down ?

A: with RPG's

B: At the end of the war the US just gives Iraq a massive bill they cannot re-pay and just install's western business into the local economy to recoup some of the debt.

When i first heard about it thats what both me and my father said that they probably got too close and got killed but one survived i wonder what he/she is gonna say.

Originally posted by Sand_man
How do so many US blackhawks get shot down ?

A: with RPG's

Back when they were fighting the Russians, we taught them how to modify fuses in RPGs to go off at a certain time, without impact. Assuming you're at about the right range, it creates a proximity strike effect that does not require a hit, just like many more sophisticated anti aircraft missiles use.

It sounds tough, but given a little ingenuity it actually is entirely possible.

Or, they just happened to run into a rather strong band of Taliban fighters that had nothing to do with Bin Laden or Omar. There have been bigger attacks lately, and they WERE on a recon mission looking for Taliban fighters. Maybe they just ran into a bigger group than they thought was operating in the area, and got into trouble.

The Vagabond thats a good idea but how would you set that in time to take one down ?

It's how Bin Laden and company did it in Afghanistan against the Russians. You replace the fuse from a contact fuse, to a timed fuse. I don't know all the details, but the timed fuse starts burning as soon as you pull the trigger, so when it gets up near the height helicopters normally fly at in a combat zone, it explodes, instead of having to be a direct hit. You try for a direct hit of course, but you don't have to have one. They took the knowledge to Somalia and that's what they used against our Blackhawks in 93. Apparently it's not hard to do.

Originally posted by Sand_man
The Vagabond thats a good idea but how would you set that in time to take one down ?

It's not an idea- it's a documented tactic which has been used in Afghanistan and Somalia. You don't set them. You take them apart long before the battle and somehow alter the fuse (I have no idea how that part works- I just read about it). Now the weapon will go off at whatever certain distance the user altered it for, according to how far away he expects to be engaging the enemy from. This isn't difficult to guess that since the aircraft can't drop its troops from above a certain altitude. You get close enough and you fire. If it hits, it goes off. If it doesn't hit, it may still go off somewhere near the aircraft and damage it.

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Just why would it have to be Taliban or al-Qaeda guerrillas

a band of 'private contractors' intent on not being discovered,
would go All-Out to insure No-One survived!!

or, a Black-Ops Team would react the same way, if a helicopter
found itself deviated from its zone or planned recon area...
and surprised the covert team.........pow-pow-pow-whump!!

are not the 'poppy' crops coming into harvest, collection, distribution?

Actually the helicopter was not a back hawk it was a Chinook, now the Chinook is a big A target and it was hit from above. The helicopter was 10,000ft high and apparently there as some one on a ledge above the helicopter looking down and hit it with an RPG. The helicopter still managed to fly for about a mile before it had to make an emergency landing, now given the fact that it was 10,000ft high there was really no place to land so the pilot did his best but the helicopter just ended up rolling down the mountain into a ravine killing all aboard.