Less than two weeks after the largest non-nuclear bomb ever dropped in combat shook the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, ninety soldiers boarded helicopters for a mission into the same valley. The date was April 26, 2017. The target was a compound in the Mohmand Valley of Nangarhar Province, believed to shelter Abdul Haseeb Logari, the emir of the Islamic State's Khorasan Province affiliate. Commanders had chosen a ground raid over an airstrike for a specific reason: women and children were thought to be inside. What followed was more than five hours of close-quarters combat that achieved its objective, degraded a terrorist network, and demanded the highest price from two soldiers who had enlisted out of high school and were serving their third deployments before either had turned twenty-four.
By spring 2017, the Mohmand Valley in Achin District had become the epicenter of the campaign against ISIL-KP in Afghanistan. The group had formed in January 2015 when former Taliban leaders pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and at its peak commanded roughly 3,000 fighters. But relentless pressure from both the US-Afghan coalition and the Taliban had ground that number down to an estimated 700. On April 13, the US military dropped a GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast -- the so-called 'Mother of All Bombs' -- on a tunnel network less than a mile from the compound that would become the raid's target. That strike killed 96 militants. The tunnels themselves dated to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and had later been used by Osama bin Laden during the 2001 invasion. Layers of conflict had accumulated in this terrain like sediment, each generation of fighters inheriting the fortifications of the last.
At 10:30 p.m., fifty Rangers from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and forty Afghan commandos from the Special Security Forces fast-roped and landed near the target. Almost immediately, entrenched fighters opened fire from multiple directions -- 360 degrees of incoming rounds in terrain that offered little cover. The joint force called in AC-130 gunships, F-16s, Apache helicopters, and drones as they pushed forward under fire. Conditions deteriorated so quickly that the second assault element had to divert to a backup landing zone, where Rangers fast-roped under small arms fire. One fell to the ground during the descent. An investigation later concluded that the diversion placed them dangerously close to ISIL-KP fighters already engaged with other elements of the force, catching the Rangers in crossfire between enemy and friendly positions.
As a team from the primary assault force prepared to breach a compound door, a Ranger providing suppressive fire from a rooftop fell through it. Teammates rushed to help. On the other side of the structure, a suicide bomber detonated. In the chaos that followed, Rangers fought room to room. Sergeant Joshua Rodgers, a twenty-two-year-old team leader from Bloomington, Illinois, took a gunshot wound to his leg. He kept fighting until a second wound killed him. Elsewhere in the compound, Sergeant Cameron Thomas of Kettering, Ohio, and two other Rangers engaged the enemy from a prone position until intensifying fire sent them tumbling ten feet onto a lower terrace. Thomas told his teammates he had been wounded and was struggling to breathe. Under fire, they tore off his equipment and searched for the wound. He was twenty-three. Both sergeants had enlisted straight out of high school. Both were on their third combat deployments.
The raid lasted until roughly 3:30 a.m. -- five hours from insertion to extraction. Staff Sergeant Michael Young, a squad leader in C Company, was later credited with saving the lives of twenty-two Rangers and destroying multiple enemy positions during the fight. He received the Silver Star in April 2018. Two F-16 pilots from the 79th Fighter Squadron, Captain John Nygard and Captain Salvador Cruz, conducted precision strikes on enemy positions so close to friendlies that any error would have been catastrophic. They provided air cover during the evacuation of casualties. Both received the Distinguished Flying Cross, credited with saving eighty-eight soldiers. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis honored Rodgers and Thomas, saying they had 'proved themselves willing to go into danger and impose a brutal cost on enemies in their path' before making 'the ultimate sacrifice.'
On May 7, 2017, the Pentagon confirmed that Abdul Haseeb Logari had been killed in the raid, along with several other ISIL-KP leaders and approximately thirty-five militants. The Pentagon called the operation a success in degrading the group's ability to fight. Haseeb's replacement, the Pakistani militant Abu Saeed, lasted barely two months before dying in a US drone strike in Kunar Province on July 11 -- the third ISIL-KP emir killed since July 2016. Back home, a post office in Bloomington, Illinois, was renamed for Sergeant Rodgers after legislation signed by President Trump in December 2018. The ceremony took place in early 2019, attended by the families of the fallen. The valley where these men fought is quiet from the air, a crease in the brown mountains of eastern Nangarhar where nothing suggests the violence that has echoed through it for decades.
Located at 34.07N, 70.63E in the Mohmand Valley, Achin District, Nangarhar Province, eastern Afghanistan. The valley sits in rugged mountainous terrain near the Pakistan border. Nearest significant airport is Jalalabad Airport (OAJL), approximately 30 nm to the northwest. Kabul International Airport (OAKB) lies roughly 80 nm to the west. Best viewed from 15,000-20,000 ft AGL. The terrain is arid, mountainous, and largely featureless from altitude -- a brown fold in the foothills of the Spin Ghar range.