Operation Red Wings

Overview

Operation Red Wings, informally referred to as the Battle of Abbas Ghar, was a joint military operation conducted by the United States in the Pech District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan. It was carried out from late-June to mid-July 2005 on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar, a mountain approximately 20 miles (32 km) west of the provincial capital of Asadabad. The operation was intended to disrupt the activities of local Taliban-aligned anti-coalition militias (ACM), thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the September 2005 parliamentary election for the National Assembly of Afghanistan. At the time, Taliban ACM activity in the region was carried out predominantly by a small group led by a local man from Nangarhar Province known as Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of achieving regional prominence among Muslim fundamentalists. Consequently, Shah and his group were one of the primary targets of the American military operation.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Significance

Operation Red Wings was conducted in Kunar Province's Pech District during the summer of 2005 with the explicit aim of disrupting Taliban-aligned anti-coalition militia activity ahead of Afghanistan's September 2005 parliamentary elections. By targeting Ahmad Shah's militia group on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar, U.S. forces sought to reduce ACM influence in the region and create conditions stable enough to allow the National Assembly elections to proceed. Shah, a Nangarhar Province native with ambitions for broader standing among Muslim fundamentalists, represented the kind of localized but operationally significant threat that U.S. forces were working to suppress during this phase of the Afghanistan War. The operation illustrates the dual military-political logic that governed many U.S. actions in eastern Afghanistan during this period: combat operations were timed and shaped by the imperative to enable the Afghan state-building process, with electoral milestones serving as concrete near-term objectives.

Forces & casualties

Commanders (5)