Operation Red Wings - Afghans Who Aided Luttrell

Afghans Who Aided Luttrell

In the years following Operation Red Wings more details emerged about the circumstances surrounding Luttrell being given sanctuary by local villagers and the aftermath. Many of the details regarding the Afghans who aided Luttrell were reported incorrectly in the American press during the days after the events occurred.

The SEALs firefight with Ahmad Shah's Taliban forces began along a high-elevation ridgeline called Sawtalo Sar. (The highest peak of this ridgeline is 2830 meters (9,282 feet). A descent down the west side of the ridgeline leads into the Shuryek valley. The northeastern gulch in which the SEALs became trapped was in this direction, above the village of Salar Ban. To the east of the Sawtalo Sar ridgeline is the Korangal valley. As the wounded Luttrell descended the gulch, he encountered a Pashtun named Mohammad Gulab Khan from the mountain village of Salar Ban. Known simply as Gulab, he took Luttrell into his home that first day and evoked the assistance of others from his village to protect Luttrell until American forces could be contacted.

It is likely Luttrell would have been turned over to the Taliban had he descended into the Korangal instead of Shuryek. While the villagers of the Shuryek valley weren't considered overly friendly to American forces they were nonetheless less hostile than villagers in the nearby mountainous Chichal (part of neighboring Korangal), with whom the Shuryek villagers have been traditionally been at odds over grazing-land boundaries.

Not long before Operation Red Wings had occurred, relations with the Americans had improved in the Shuryek Valley and the greater Pech river region because of humanitarian work that had been occurring. Medical services had been extended, and a girls school was built at Nangalam. Gulab was aware of these developments and had introduced himself to the Marine commander at Nangalam, Matt Bartels, when he was visiting Matin. It was within this context that Gulab stumbled upon Luttrell and gave him sanctuary. The Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah, knew that the wounded soldier that he was tracking had to pass through the village of Salar Ban as he contoured downhill. Through intimidation Shah was able to ascertain which house sheltered the wounded soldier and demanded that he be turned over. But Shah couldn't risk a fight at that moment because he was outnumbered and other relatives and villagers would come to Gulab's aid. Luttrell was subsequently moved to different places until forces could arrive to extract him.

Luttrell wrote a note and asked that it be taken to the American base at Asadabad. Because Gulab had previously met the Marine commander based at Nangalam, he asked an older man named Shina, of another part of the village of Salar Ban, to make the trek with the note to that base instead. This required a longer journey down the trails of the Shuryek valley to Matin, where he then hired a cab to drive the Pech road to Nangalam. Gulab gave Shina 1000 Afghanis (about twenty U.S. dollars). When Shina reached the base in Nangalam in the middle of the night he met with the commander and related the story about a wounded American soldier in their village. He then gave him the note that Luttrell had written.

In the weeks following Marcus Luttrell's rescue, Gulab and his family received threats from the Taliban and they were relocated to Asadabad.