US special operations vets carry out daring mission...

[KiwiTeTua]

US special operations vets carry out daring mission to save Afghan allies

JAMES GORDON MEEK
Fri, August 27, 2021

With the Taliban growing more violent and adding checkpoints near Kabul's airport, an all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a final daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed the "Pineapple Express" to shepherd hundreds of at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety, members of the group told ABC News.

Moving after nightfall in near-pitch black darkness and extremely dangerous conditions, the group said it worked unofficially in tandem with the United States military and U.S. embassy to move people, sometimes one person at a time, or in pairs, but rarely more than a small bunch, inside the wire of the U.S. military-controlled side of Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The Pineapple Express' mission was underway Thursday when the attack occurred in Kabul. Two suicide bombers believed to have been ISIS fighters killed at least 13 U.S. service members -- 10 U.S. Marines, a Navy corpsman and an Army soldier and one to be determined -- and wounded 15 other service members, according to U.S. officials.

There were wounded among the Pineapple Express travelers from the blast, and members of the group said they were assessing whether unaccounted-for Afghans they were helping had been killed.

As of Thursday morning, the group said it had brought as many as 500 Afghan special operators, assets and enablers and their families into the airport in Kabul overnight, handing them each over to the protective custody of the U.S. military.

That number added to more than 130 others over the past 10 days who had been smuggled into the airport encircled by Taliban fighters since the capital fell to the extremists on Aug. 16 by Task Force Pineapple, an ad hoc groups of current and former U.S. special operators, aid workers, intelligence officers and others with experience in Afghanistan who banded together to save as many Afghan allies as they could.

"Dozens of high-risk individuals, families with small children, orphans, and pregnant women, were secretly moved through the streets of Kabul throughout the night and up to just seconds before ISIS detonated a bomb into the huddled mass of Afghans seeking safety and freedom," Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret commander who led the private rescue effort, told ABC News.

An all-volunteer group of American veterans of the Afghan war launched a daring mission on Wednesday night dubbed
the 'Pineapple Express' to shepherd critically at-risk Afghan elite forces and their families to safety. (Capt. Zac Lois)

After succeeding with helping dozens of Afghan commandos and interpreters get into the protective ring of the airport created by the 6,000 American troops President Joe Biden dispatched to the airfield after Kabul fell to the Taliban, the group initiated an ambitious ground operation this week aided by U.S. troops inside. The objective was to move individuals and families through the cover of darkness on the "Pineapple Express." The week-long effort and Wednesday's operation were observed by ABC News under the agreement of secrecy while the heart-pounding movements unfolded.

The operation carried out Wednesday night was an element of "Task Force Pineapple," an informal group whose mission began as a frantic effort on Aug. 15 to get one former Afghan commando who had served with Mann into the Kabul airport as he was being hunted by the Taliban who were texting him death threats.

They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was, therefore, a high-value target for them, sources told ABC News.

Two months ago, this commando told ABC News he had narrowly escaped a tiny outpost in northern Afghanistan that was later overrun while awaiting his U.S. special immigrant visa to be approved.

The effort since he was saved in a harrowing effort, along with his family of six, reached a crescendo this week with dozens of covert movements coordinated virtually on Wednesday by more than 50 people in an encrypted chat room, which Mann described as a night full of dramatic scenes rivaling a "Jason Bourne" thriller unfolding every 10 minutes.

The small groups of Afghans repeatedly encountered Taliban foot soldiers who they said beat them but never checked identity papers that might have revealed them as operators who spent two decades killing Taliban leadership. All carried U.S. visas, pending visa applications or new applications prepared by members of Task Force Pineapple, they told ABC News.

"This Herculean effort couldn't have been done without the unofficial heroes inside the airfield who defied their orders to not help beyond the airport perimeter, by wading into sewage canals and pulling in these targeted people who were flashing pineapples on their phones," Mann said.

With the uniformed U.S. military unable to venture outside the airport's perimeter to collect Americans and Afghans who've sought U.S. protection for their past joint service, they instead provided overwatch and awaited coordinated movements by an informal Pineapple Express ground team that included “conductors” led by former Green Beret Capt. Zac Lois, known as the underground railroad's “engineer.”

The Afghan operators, assets, interpreters and their families were known as “passengers” and they were being guided remotely by “shepherds," who are, in most cases their loyal former U.S. special operations forces and CIA comrades and commanders, according to chat room communications viewed by ABC News.

Refugees are evacuated from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on, Aug. 26, 2021

(Hassan Majeed/UPI/Shutterstock)

There was one engineer, a few conductors, as well as people who were performing intelligence-gathering duties. The intelligence was pooled in the encrypted chat group in real-time and included guiding people on maps to GPS pin drops at rally points for them to stage in the shadows and in hiding until summoned by a conductor wearing a green chem light, ABC News observed in the encrypted chat.

Once summoned, passengers would hold up their smartphones with a graphic of yellow pineapples on a pink field.

Before the deadly ISIS-K bombing on Thursday near the Abbey Gate of the airport known as HKIA, intelligence warnings were issued about possible improvised explosive device attacks by ISIS-K. Around 8 p.m. EST Wednesday, the shepherds reported in the chatroom, which was viewed by ABC News, one by one that their passenger groups maneuvering discreetly in the darkness toward rally points had suddenly gone dark and were unreachable on their cell phones.

"We have lost comms with several of our teams," texted Jason Redman, a combat-wounded former Navy SEAL and author, who was shepherding Afghans he knew.

There was concern the Taliban had dropped the cell towers -- but another Task Force Pineapple member, a Green Beret, reported that he learned the U.S. military had employed cell phone jammers to counter the IED threat at Abbey gate. Within an hour, most had reestablished communications with the "passengers" and the slow, deliberate movements of each group resumed under the ticking clock of sunrise in Kabul, ABC News observed in the encrypted chat.

"The whole night was a roller-coaster ride. People were so terrified in that chaotic environment. These people were so exhausted, I kept trying to put myself in their shoes," Redman said.

Looking back at an effort that saved at least, by their count, 630 Afghan lives, Redman expressed deep frustration "that our own government didn't do this. We did what we should do, as Americans."

Many of the Afghans arrived near Abbey Gate and waded through a sewage-choked canal toward a U.S. soldier wearing red sunglasses to identify himself. They waved their phones with the pineapples and were scooped up and brought inside the wire to safety. Others were brought in by an Army Ranger wearing a modified American flag patch with the Ranger Regiment emblem, sources told ABC News.

Lois said the Task Force Pineapple was able to accomplish a truly historic event, by evacuating hundreds of personnel over the last week.

"That is an astounding number for an organization that was only assembled days before the start of operations and most of its members had never met each other in person," Lois told ABC News.

Lois said he modeled his slow and steady system of maneuvering the Afghan families in the darkness after Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad for American slave escapees.

The Afghan passengers represented the span of the two-decade war there, and participants included Army Maj. Jim Gant, a retired Green Beret known as "Lawrence of Afghanistan," who was the subject of a 2014 "Nightline" investigation.

"I have been involved in some of the most incredible missions and operations that a special forces guy could be a part of, and I have never been a part of anything more incredible than this," Gant told ABC News. "The bravery and courage and commitment of my brothers and sisters in the Pineapple community was greater than the U.S. commitment on the battlefield."

"I just want to get my people out," he added.

Dan O'Shea, a retired SEAL commander, said he successfully helped his own group, which included a U.S. citizen who served as an operative and his Afghan father and brother in a nail-biting crucible as they walked on foot to one entry point after another for hours. They dodged Taliban checkpoints and patrols in order to get inside the U.S. side of the airport and on a plane out of Kabul.

"He was not willing to let his father and his brother behind; even it meant he would die. He refused to leave his family," O'Shea, a former counterinsurgency adviser in Afghanistan, told ABC News. "Leaving a man behind is not in our SEAL ethos. Many Afghans have a stronger vision of our democratic values than many Americans do."

It all began with trying to save one Afghan Commando, whose special immigrant visa was never finalized.

During an intense night last week involving coordination between Mann and another Green Beret, an intelligence officer, former aid workers and a staffer for Florida Republican and Green Beret officer Rep. Mike Waltz, the ad hoc team enlisted the aid of a sleepless U.S. Embassy officer inside the airport. He helped Marines at a gate to identify the former Afghan commando, who was caught in the throngs of civilians outside the airport and who said he saw two civilians knocked to the ground and killed.

"Two people died next to me -- 1 foot away," he told ABC News from outside the airport that night, as he tried for hours to reach an entry control point manned by U.S. Marines a short distance away.

With Taliban fighters mixing into the crowd of thousands and firing their AK-47s above the masses, the former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter, where he shouted the password "Pineapple!" to American troops at the checkpoint. The password has since changed, the sources said.

Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him with the aid of the same U.S. embassy officer.

Mann said the group of friends decided to keep going by saving his family and hundreds more of his elite forces comrades on the run from the Taliban.

Former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst Mick Mulroy is part of both Task Force Pineapple and Task Force Dunkirk, who are assisting former Afghan comrades.

"They never wavered. I and many of my friends are here today because of their bravery in battle. We owe them all effort to get them out and honor our word," Mulroy said.

US special operations vets carry out daring mission to save Afghan allies originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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US special operations forces race to save former Afghan comrades in jeopardy
The current and former military members are getting people out "one at a time"

By James Gordon Meek and Matt Seyler
August 22, 2021, 3:01 AM

Americans warned to avoid Kabul airport unless specifically instructed
Tens of thousands of people are still desperate to get out of Afghanistan

Current and former U.S. military special operations and intelligence community operatives are using their own networks of contacts to get elite Afghan soldiers, intelligence assets and interpreters to safety as they've become increasingly disillusioned and fed up with the U.S. government-led evacuation effort in Kabul, ABC News has learned.

One informal group, dubbed "Task Force Pineapple," began as a frantic effort last weekend to get one former Afghan commando into Hamid Karzai International Airport as he was being hunted by Taliban who were texting him death threats. They knew he had worked with U.S. Special Forces and the elite SEAL Team Six for a dozen years, targeting Taliban leadership, and was therefore at high risk of reprisal.

Two months ago, he told ABC News, he had narrowly escaped a tiny outpost in northern Afghanistan that was later overrun, while awaiting his U.S. special immigrant visa to be approved.

During a harrowing night last week involving coordination between former Green Berets, aid workers and a congressional staffer for Florida Republican and Green Beret officer Rep. Mike Waltz, the ad hoc team enlisted the aid of a sleepless U.S. Embassy officer inside the airport. He helped Marines to identify the former Afghan commando, who was caught in the throngs of civilians outside the airport and said he saw two civilians knocked to the ground and killed.

"Two people died next to me -- 1 foot away," he told ABC News from outside the airport that night, as he tried for hours to reach an entry control point manned by U.S. Marines a short distance away.

With Taliban fighters mixing into the crowd of thousands and firing their AK-47s above the masses, the former elite commando was finally pulled into the U.S. security perimeter, where he shouted the password "pineapple" to American troops at the checkpoint. (The password has since changed)

Two days later, the group of his American friends and comrades also helped get his family inside the airport to join him with the aid of the same U.S. embassy officer.

"I'm very excited. I feel like on one side of the wire is Afghanistan and on this side is America, and I told my family we are now on U.S. soil," the former Afghan commando told ABC News after his young children went to sleep inside the well-guarded airport.

U.S. soldiers arrive to provide security in support of Operation Allies Refuge at Hamid Karzai International Airport
in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 2021

Other former members of the military and CIA have consolidated their own efforts with a separate group calling itself "Task Force Dunkirk," a reference to the massive evacuation of British and other Allied forces from France in 1940 under threat of the Nazi juggernaut.

"I spent the primacy of my career in special operations, and that gave me access to a lot of people who are like-minded, and a lot of people who have lived with the Afghan people and love the Afghan people and have been with them for 15, 20 years," retired Marine Lt. Col. Russell Worth Parker, a spokesman for the group, said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

"We couldn't stand by and just watch people we know fall to a very, very certain fate," he added.

Parker said that while there are civilian supporters assisting the group, the majority of members served in Afghanistan. As the country fell to the Taliban, they received pleas for help from Afghans they worked with and befriended during the war. The veterans then began calling each other and talking about ways to help their comrades.

"I don't know that I could live with myself if I didn't do something," Parker said. "I told my daughter the other day, 'Someday this is going to be something that people talk about. And when they do, I want you to remember that your dad and a bunch of moms and dads did the best that they could.'"

Former deputy assistant secretary of defense and ABC News analyst Mick Mulroy is part of the grouping that is assisting former Afghan comrades.

"I am proud to be a member of this group," said Mulroy, who served as a Marine and CIA paramilitary officer. "It is very impressive to see all of my retired former colleagues volunteer to meet the obligations we all made to those that committed to us during the last 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan. Many have taken weeks off work to assist, to include going to Afghanistan. We will see this through until everyone is out."

Parker said Task Force Dunkirk and the groups it has now banded together with have helped get at least 83 at-risk Afghans out of the country -- but their modus operandi remains "one at a time."

U.S. Marines assist with security at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai
International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 2021 (Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla/U.S. Marine Corps)

The mission statement is simple: "To just get one more Afghan out. And after we get him or her out, we want to get just one more. That's the best that we can do right now, and we don't want to get at cross purposes with any broader effort," Parker said.

After Task Force Pineapple's initial success bringing the Afghan commando and then his family into the safety of the U.S. military's security bubble, the group's aspirations grew to getting dozens more out of harm's way -- especially those who fought against the Taliban in elite Afghan units alongside U.S. special operators, as well as women and children. It is now teaming up with Task Force Dunkirk in the effort.

"This is an informal, organic and eclectic group that spans the public and private sector with one goal: to get Afghans at risk to safety," Scott Mann, a former Green Beret and leader of the nonprofit Heroes Journey, told ABC News.

The Afghan commando, who inspired Mann and others to form Task Force Pineapple to help get him through the Taliban and into Kabul's airport, had served with the U.S. Special Forces lieutenant colonel a decade ago in the Village Stability Operations program.

But there are more commandos at grave risk, so the veterans said the group plans to continue.

"We are collating, learning and adapting -- and moving faster than the hamstrung U.S. bureaucracy," Mann said.

The U.S. military said it had flown at least 13,500 Afghans and 2,500 Americans out of Kabul since the Taliban took Kabul and the government fell. But the effort has slowed in recent days from 6,000 on Friday to 3,800 on Saturday for a variety of reasons, including the failure to quickly find third-party countries willing to accept Afghans temporarily while their U.S. visas are processed, the Taliban blocking those trying to reach the airport, and overcrowding at the airport with 16,000 people awaiting flights.

President Joe Biden has defended his handling of a catastrophe he said was inevitable, saying in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos there was no "way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing." Critics have said the United States caused the defeat of the Afghan government and the abandonment of its loyal allies.

Many of the veterans of the 20-year war in Afghanistan said they were inspired by those Afghans who fought side-by-side with them and were often wounded and killed with them. Abandonment was never an option for them, they said, even when the U.S. abruptly withdrew almost all military forces last month.

"They never wavered. I and many of my friends are here today because of their bravery in battle. We owe them all effort to get them out and honor our word," Mulroy said.

Afghans gather on a roadside near the military part of the airport in Kabul, Aug. 20, 2021, hoping to flee from the country
after the Taliban's military takeover of Afghanista (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)

But desperate messages from Afghans continue to flood the inboxes of American friends.

Gretchen Peters, who formerly worked as a journalist for ABC News in Kabul, has made her own efforts to help. Although she has managed to get several Afghans on manifests for flights out of the country, she still has a feeling of helplessness when she reads her messages.

"I'm getting lots of requests from other people, mainly through Twitter ... and it's heartbreaking to hear the fear in people's messages," said Peters, now the executive director of the Center on Illicit Networks and Transnational Organized Crime.

"All we can do is try," Peters said. "And I will feel better for having tried and failed than having never tried at all".