Operation ANACONDA proved to be no exception. In war, however, things rarely go exactly as planned – the enemy has a “vote”. ABH1 Neil Roberts served in one of these reconnaissance teams. This was done in several locations resulting directly in effective airstrikes on observed al Qaeda positions and the death of hundreds of al Qaeda in the Sahi-Kowt area. The plan was to position these reconnaissance (ÒrecceÓ) teams at strategic locations where they would establish observation posts (OPs) to provide information on enemy movements and direct air strikes against observed enemy forces. Augmenting the conventional forces would be small reconnaissance teams. ANACONDA planners believed this maneuver would cause the enemy to flee east into the blocking positions of awaiting American soldiers from the 10 th Mountain and 101st Airborne Divisions located in the eastern sector of the valley. and Afghan forces in Gardez would push from the West in an effort to clear an area of reported high concentrations of al Qaeda in the western part of the Shah-e-Kot valley. ground forces in Afghanistan, TF MOUNTAIN, commanded by MG Hagenback, conceived a classic military Òhammer and anvilÓ maneuver” code-named Operation ANACONDA” to clear out this threat. SOF had been monitoring for well over a month a large-scale pocket of forces in the Shah-e-Kot valley, southeast of Gardez, Afghanistan. Their countless acts of heroism demonstrated the best of America’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) as Army, Navy and Air Force special operators fought side by side to save one of their own, and each other, and in the process secured the mountain top and inflicted serious loss on the al Qaeda. forces involved in this fight again distinguished themselves by conspicuous bravery. This fire resulted in a Navy SEAL, ABH1 Neal Roberts, falling out of the helicopter, and began a chain of events culminating in one of the most intense small-unit firefights of the war against terrorism the death of all the al Qaeda terrorists defending the mountain top and, sadly, resulting also in the death of seven U.S. In the early morning hours of March 4, 2002, on a mountaintop called Takur Ghar in southeastern Afghanistan, al Qaeda soldiers fired on an MH-47E helicopter carrying a Special Operations Forces (SOF) reconnaissance element. Released through the Department of Defense, May 24, 2002 Executive Summary of the Battle of Takur Ghar
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