The nearly 40 military personnel killed on Saturday in Afghanistan may have been lured into a trap by the Taliban employing a relatively new kind of rocket to bring down the helicopter carrying Navy SEALs and others.

 

The 38 people killed when their Chinook was shot down in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak province included 22 Navy SEALs, eight Army troops, seven Afghan commandos and an interpreter.

 

U.S. officials claim that the SEALs were involved in a mission to rescue Army Rangers who were pinned down during a firefight. However, one Afghan official said the attack was actually a trap set by a Taliban commander, Qari Tahir, who leaked false information that a Taliban meeting was taking place, knowing which route the helicopter would take to get in and out. As the aircraft flew through a darkened valley, insurgents fired on it from the surrounding mountains, hitting it with “multiple shots.”

 

The government of President Hamid Karzai believes the attack was retaliation for killing Osama bin Laden, even though the Taliban did not say anything to this effect while taking credit for the downing.

 

The SEALs killed were part of Team 6, the same unit that carried out the bin Laden mission.

 

One U.S. military official told Wired that the Taliban may have used a special improvised rocket, or “chopper-killer,” that insurgents in Iraq have utilized against American forces. Known as an “Improvised Rocket-Assisted Mortar,” the IRAM consists of a traditional tube mortar with rocket boosters giving the weapon more range than other rocket-propelled weapons.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

U.S. Helicopter ‘Crashed in Taliban Trap’ (Agence France-Presse)

Did a New Taliban Weapon Kill a Chopper Full of Navy SEALs? (by David Axe, Wired)