DUNCAN
(
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An airstrike by international forces killed the Taliban insurgents responsible for the downing of a US helicopter last weekend, in which 38 US and Afghan troops died, the military said yesterday.
Among the Taliban reportedly killed in the F-16 fighter-jet strike Monday was the militant who launched the fatal rocket-propelled grenade.
The military provided few details to back up the claim, but the top American commander in Afghanistan, Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, said he was confident the airstrike killed fewer than 10 insurgents involved in the attack on the US Chinook helicopter.
“All of these operations generate intelligence,” Allen said, including about those who fled the site of the crash.
“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 said.
In a separate statement, the military said the strike killed a Taliban leader and the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade at the helicopter. That statement also cited intelligence gathered on the ground. It did not provide further details.
“This does not ease our loss, but we must and we will continue to relentlessly pursue the enemy,” Allen said.
The crash was the deadliest single loss for US forces in the nearly 10-year Afghan war.
The military is still seeking the top insurgent leader who had been targeted in last Saturday’s mission, Allen said.
Allen defended the decision to send in the Chinook loaded with Special Operations forces to aid Army Rangers pursuing insurgents in a dangerous region of eastern Afghanistan.
“The fact that we lost this aircraft is not . . . a decision point as to whether we’ll use this aircraft in the future,” Allen said. “It’s not uncommon at all to use this aircraft on our special missions.”
According to officials, the team included 17 SEALs, five Navy Special Operations troops who support the SEALs, three Air Force airmen, a five-member Army air crew and a military dog, along with seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter.
The claim of retaliatory success comes amid fears that as US troops begin to leave Afghanistan, the country is far from stable and remains deadly for those forces who remain.
As US troops thin out, Special Operations forces like those that died in Saturday’s helicopter crash are likely to make up a greater part of the American force in Afghanistan.
Allen agreed that as US troops begin to pull out, such counterterrorism missions — often by Special Operations forces — will increase and become prominent.