OEF-Afghanistan/Consolidation I (2001-06)/Operation Mongoose
From Month/Year
January / 2003
To Month/Year
March / 2003
Description Operation Mongoose near Spin Boldak is winding down. Troopers of the 82nd Airborne Division continued cave destruction in the Adi Ghar Mountains. The operation began Jan. 27. Eighteen rebels were killed after US and Norwegian aircraft bombarded the area on January 27 and 28. Coalition troops had initially believed 80 rebels linked to Taleban, Al-Qaeda and the radical Hezb-I-Islami party of hardline ex-premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were hiding in the Adi Ghar caves, 20 km north-west of the border town of Spin Boldak.
Soldiers of Company A 2nd of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) White Devils, along with soldiers of A Company 307th Engineers, attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, from Kandahar Army Airfield, Afghanistan, take a break in one of the caves they are clearing during a combat patrol in the mountains of Adi Ghar, Afghanistan, on January 30, 2003. The mission called Operation Mongoose is to search various caves throughout the mountain ranges of Adi Ghar for suspected Taliban and weapons cache and destroying them preventing the re-emergence of terrorist activities in the area.
