Backstory

The desperate battle to rescue a SEAL team in the mountains of Afghanistan continues:

A Predator unmanned aerial vehicle captured images of movement around the crash site and infrared strobes of the type U.S. special operators use in emergencies, a military source said. “There was definitely movement around the aircraft,” the source said.

The Washington Post reported that the Predator also crashed or was shot down.

In addition, U.S. forces detected a PRC-112 survival radio beacon emitting from the vicinity of the helicopter, the military source said. The beacon appeared to be moving. “The last location was a good distance away from the crash,” he said.

By all accounts, the area aroud the crash has been secured, and US troops are flooding the zone.

Remember Mogadishu? Nobody could call it a victory - 18 US servicemen dead in an inconclusive battle is the kind of thing we're not accustomed to these days - but we didn't know the full story of the battle until Mark Bowden took the story away from the media; a story not only of immense courage and competence, but of a brutal drubbing dealt out to the enemies that day, the warlords' militias by the retreating Rangers and Deltas.

I suspect - with no information whatsoever - that there's a similar story behind what's going on near Asadabad; a concentration of Al Quaeda and Taliban, flushed by the original stick of four SEALs, is getting descended on by a whole lot more than two choppers full of troops now.

Matt Heidt, a former SEAL, is the blog to follow over at Froggy Ruminations. Keep your thoughts with the guys who are no doubt rooting through the allahforsaken mountains of Afghanistan today dealing out the payback.

And when you think about them, think about their families back home. And spare a buck or two for Frog Friends, a charity to benefit the families of Navy special forces killed in action.

Posted by Mitch at July 1, 2005 07:13 AM | TrackBack