page_title: Operation Red Wings
section_title: Background and development
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Red Wings / Background and development
caption_attribution_description: English: Danny Dietz Français&#160;: Danny Dietz
context_page_description: Operation Red Wings, informally referred to as the Battle of Abbas Ghar, was a combined / joint military operation during the War in Afghanistan in the Pech District of Afghanistan's Kunar Province, on the slopes of a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, approximately 20 miles west of Kunar's provincial capital of Asadabad, in late June through mid-July 2005. Operation Red Wings was intended to disrupt local Taliban anti-coalition militia activity, thus contributing to regional stability and thereby facilitating the Afghan Parliament elections scheduled for September 2005. At the time, Taliban anti-coalition militia activity in the region was carried out most notably by a small group, led by a local man from Nangarhar Province, Ahmad Shah, who had aspirations of regional Islamic fundamentalist prominence. He and his small group were among the primary targets of the operation.
  The operation was conceived by the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines of the U.S. Marine Corps based on an operational model developed by 2/3's sister battalion, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, which had preceded the 2nd Battalion in their combat deployment.
context_section_description: After the initial invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, U.S. military and coalition partner operations shifted from "kinetic" operations to those of a counterinsurgency (COIN) nature. One of the primary goals of the coalition by 2004 in Afghanistan was nation-building, that is, providing a security environment conducive to the establishment and growth of a democratically elected government, as well as infrastructure support. A key milestone in this campaign would be the September 18, 2005, Afghan national parliamentary elections. While many of Afghanistan's provinces at this time had stable security environments, one of the most restive continued to be the Kunar Province, which lies in eastern Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan. For election results to be seen as legitimate by the citizens of Afghanistan and the world at large, all elections throughout the country would need to proceed "unencumbered" (without external influence, by either American and coalition forces or Taliban and anti-American and coalition forces), including those in Kunar.
  Insurgent activity in Kunar Province during this time came from 22 identified groups, individual groups of which ranged in allegiance from those with tenuous ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to the majority that were little more than local criminals. These groups were collectively known as anti-coalition militia (ACM), and the common thread among all was a strong resistance to the unification of the country and subsequent increasing presence of national government entities in the Kunar, as these would pose a threat to their activities, be these activities attempting to aid a resurgent neo-Taliban, to lumber smuggling. With the goal of successful elections in Kunar, military operations in the area focused primarily on the disruption of ACM activity, and these military operations utilized a number of different units and operational constructs to achieve this goal.
caption: SEAL Danny Dietz who was a part of the original SEAL team ambushed.
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