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According to a report released Sunday, SEAL Team 6 has turned into a “global manhunting machine” since they managed to terminate Osama bin Laden in May 2011, but its accountability remains questionable.
According to the report, SEALs grew larger in both size and significance since 9/11 when they started to carry out thousands of attacks on militant bases in Afghanistan which considerably weakened terrorist networks in the area.
In their oversea missions, SEAL Team 6 usually team up with CIA’s paramilitary agents and they usually carry out their most dangerous missions from spy ships which look like commercial vessels. They also secure US embassies as undercover agents, according to a piece published by the Times which had interviewed several current and former team members.
The reports also shows that SEAL Team six steadily morphed from a small team designed to complete difficult but rare missions into a “global manhunting machine” in more than a decade.
But despite it being famous, the Team 6’s missions are mostly kept in secret, while its activity is one of the least scrutinized in the entire US military. The report also reveals that the team resorted to excessive killing which seldom resulted in civilian collateral damage.
A former officer of the team disclosed that between 2006 and 2008 his team had on average 15 kills every night during their night time operations. Sometimes the figure reached 25, said the report.
“These killing fests had become routine,”
the officer added.
A U.S. doctor, who was rescued in 2012 by the SEALs from a Taliban base in Afghanistan, had doubts about the efficiency of the rescue. He told Times reporters that the raid was “so surgical” since 5 out of 5 Taliban were located and struck down. Dr. Dilip Joseph recalls that it took him weeks to take a grasp on what happened.
But Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove didn’t live to tell her story since she was killed by a SEAL who used a hand grenade in the location she was held captive. He failed to detect her position.
But a similar nightly raid was a resounding success. Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen, two aid workers who were doing their life-saving job in Somalia, were rescued from their nine kidnappers in a movie-like scene. The SEALs sky-dived into the country, and crept behind their targets under the cover of darkness, shooting down all of them.
The doctors couldn’t believe their eyes since they had deemed any rescue mission “impossible” from that point on.
Image Source: Wikimedia
