The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friendly fire may have killed 2 Army Rangers
Pentagon to probe if accidental ground fire led to deaths.
WASHINGTON — Two Army Rangers killed during a raid on an Islamic State compound in eastern Afghanistan may have died as a result of friendly fire during the opening minutes of the fierce, three-hour firefight, the Pentagon said Friday.
Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said the U.S. military is investigating to see if they were accidentally killed by ground fire from Afghan commandos or other American forces. He said the deaths did not appear deliberate.
According to Davis, the head of the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, Abdul Haseeb Logari, was the target of the Wednesday raid. He said officials suspect that Logari, the emir of what’s called the Islamic State Khorasan group, was among several key leaders killed, but they have not confirmed that. Logari was in charge of the Afghanistan affiliate’s command and control and its connections with the broader Islamic State group and its leaders.
About 35 other enemy fighters were killed and one other Army Ranger received a minor head wound during the battle, but was able to stay with the assault force.
“This was a dangerous mission and we knew this going in,” Davis told Pentagon reporters. “This was the leader of ISIS in Afghanistan. We knew that he was going to be well protected and that they were going to fight very hard to prevent him from being captured or killed. And that is indeed what happened.”
About 50 Army Rangers and 40 Afghan commandos were dropped off by helicopter around 10:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday, for the raid in Nangarhar Province’s, Mohmand Valley. They were on the ground for about fourand-a-half hours.
“Within minutes of the insertion the combined force came under intense fire from multiple directions. It was during these initial moments of the raid that the two Rangers were mortally wounded,” Davis said. He added that the U.S. and Afghan troops were being fired on from prepared positions on all sides, and that the compound was heavily fortified and contained a network of tunnels.
The soldiers killed were identified as Army Sgts. Joshua P. Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Ill., and Cameron H. Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio.
Davis said manned and unmanned aircraft, including AC-130 gunships, Apache helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, were used to support the raid and provide airstrikes to defend the force on the ground and evacuate the wounded.
The military headquarters in Kabul said in a statement that the U.S. and Afghan forces were able to accomplish the mission without civilian casualties, including women and children in the compound.
The compound is located within a mile of the site where the U.S., two weeks ago, dropped what is called the “mother of all bombs” on an Islamic State complex.
The bomb is the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S., and it killed several dozen militants.