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27 Aug, 17 tweets, 9 min read
BREAKING @ABC — US special operations vets carried out daring mission to save Afghan allies — 500 smuggled into Kabul Airport on Weds night in complex, heart-pounding op by Americans determined not to leave comrades behind
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…

abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
With no money or no authority, 50 Americans who served in Afghanistan in military, intel and other roles formed up to get Afghan special forces out. Led by @RooftopLeader a retired Green Beret, #TaskForcePineapple got more than 630 to safety since 8/15
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
The most daring and ambitious op was by a ground team led by ex-SF CPT Zac Lois coordinating dozens of movements by individual families thru dark streets of Kabul to rallypoints. He modeled the “Pineapple Express” on Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
The Pineapple Express was orchestrated by Lois, the “engineer,” to move “passengers” to link up with “conductors,” paratroopers and Rangers wearing green chemlights who summoned each family one by one. They showed image of yellow pineapples on a pink field
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
Once a conductor verified a Pineapple Express pax, they were escorted inside Kabul Airport military side through discreet opening in the fence line and into American hands. #TaskForcePineapple manifested pax on US mil or charter flights — freedom birds
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
#TaskForcePineapple was formed in an encrypted chatroom under strict secrecy as movements were organized that resulted in saving more than 630 Afghan special forces and their family members being hunted by the Taliban.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
Some in #TaskForcePineapple had served together but most had never met. @RooftopLeader enlisted SOF legends Jim Gant, @JasonRedmanWW and Dan O’Shea. All put aside anger over the US withdrawal and Kabul falling to the Taliban and focused on saving lives.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
8:00 PM EST Weds night, “shepherds” — current and former SOF guys — all lost comms with “passengers” near Abbey Gate at HKIA. They feared Taliban took down cell towers—but it was quickly learned that the US mil was using jammers because of an IED threat
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
As morning dragged on with dozens of passengers still outside the wire, communications were reestablished and pax were looking for a US paratrooper wearing red sunglasses and waving their phones with pineapples on the screen
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
While members of #TaskForcePineapple coordinated with heroic individual military personnel and a couple of US Emb officers on the inside of Kabul airport, there was no official/unofficial USG involvement in the efforts by the group to save Afghan comrades
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
There were still many groups of passengers as the sun rose in Kabul on Thursday morning, including some trudging through a sewage clogged canal near Abbey Gate when the worst news possible came — a suicide bombing which killed 13 US servicemembers
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
Some shepherds lost contact w/ pax groups after the bomb went off at Abbey Gate. There isn’t anyone in #TaskForcePineapple who hasn’t lost friends in the war and hearts sank. The Pineapple Express was at the end of the line. Some pax wounded, none killed
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
On Thursday, as the IED catastrophe sank in with exhausted #TaskForcPineapple team — engineer Zac, the virtual shepherds led by @RooftopLeader, and the enablers up through one of the most heart-pounding nights of their lives — 500 pax were safely inside 🍍
abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sp…
#TaskForcePineapple was created by .@RooftopLeader after a couple of months of effort to help our mutual friend and brother, an Afghan Commando being hunted by the Taliban since June, get his special immigrant visa expedited and gotten out of harm’s way.
August 18 felt like the longest night as our Talib-hunted former Afghan Commando pal struggled to get into a gate at HKIA to a US Marine checkpoint amid a throng of thousands of Afghans, using a codeword given by a US Embassy officer — “PINEAPPLE” Then his family was smuggled in.
With his family safe inside HKIA, he was manifested on a US military freedom bird out of Kabul. Yesterday he sent word that he finally received US chief of mission approval for his special immigrant visa.

“I’m happy again,” he told me.

🇦🇫🏴‍☠️🇺🇸
For the past year, we kept his spirits up and helped him navigate the SIV process. Many people within the US gov made failed efforts to push the bureaucracy in his favor. Nobody quit on him. Aspiration was to save just one man.

.@RooftopLeader says more than 630 were saved 🇦🇫🇺🇸

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More from @meekwire

James Gordon Meek Profile picture
30 Aug
“Where there is hope there is life.” A kid named Anne Frank wrote that.
Sometimes hope fades. On my phone all weekend, the last bitter hours of America’s longest war were personified by a young mom in a dusty black abaya with her two young children sleeping in rubble.

A thread.
Moving along the Kabul airport perimeter to attempt entry on Saturday, this Afghan wife of a former US Army interpreter in the American South faced a hard fact. He is a US citizen but she is not. She and her kids are “USPERS” but to Taliban guards, they were just in the way.
This strong mom had a clutch — her Afghan passport in her hand. And a paper copy of her husband’s American passport. She and the kids waited and waited in the heat, as a platoon of Americans in an encrypted chatroom called members of Congress, Green Berets and US Embassy contacts
Read 9 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
30 Jun
Thread: A very stressful June for a few US spec ops vets & me. Our dear brother, an Afghan special immigrant visa applicant—who hasn’t heard from the US emb despite 12 years fighting alongside US commandos—was trapped in a tiny base surrounded by Taliban texting him death threats
We heard from him around the clock for weeks as Taliban closed in, seizing Afghan govt checkpoints near his tiny outpost—many surrendering without a shot fired—surrounding his base where he was a contractor directing security for civil infrastructure
The alarming fragility of the Afghan government’s armed forces, which the United States and NATO allies spent two decades forming, forging and arming was acute to our friend, who was not an interpreter but an operator who worked with Green Berets and a tier 1 national asset
Read 11 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
17 Jun
SCOOP @ABC — Hope dims for American hostage as US hastily exits Afghanistan. 3 options pursued include a swap for an Afghan drug lord, a commando rescue op, or encouraging Pakistan’s spy service to intervene. Only 3rd option viewed as viable now.

abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
US intelligence is now assessing rumors that Pakistan’s ISI already has gotten involved in the Mark Frerichs matter, one source told me. Many assume he is held captive inside Pakistan, like most of the Haqqani network's Western hostages in the past.

abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
Pressuring Pakistan’s spy service ISI to lean on the Taliban’s Haqqani network to free American Mark Frerichs has precedent — Trump NSC threatened them in 2017 over US hostage Caitlan Coleman. JSOC knew her location and SEAL Team Six was ready to launch.
abcnews.go.com/US/hope-dims-a…
Read 4 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
11 Jan
My first story about US Capitol security was published for UPI 23 years ago. I interviewed lawmakers five months before gunman Russell Weston’s July 24, 1998 crazed attack which left 2 USCP officers dead. The issue was how to secure Congress and maintain public accessibility. 1/9
"The barricades give some amount of protection, but there's little protection against a determined terrorist," the late Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) told me in February 1998. (I’d known Ike since childhood.) "Americans should be able to visit their capital, and do it safely." 2/9
"The tragedy is that America's capital is subject to such threats," Ike continued in the interview 23 years ago. He was to become Armed Services Committee chairman before his 2013 death. "But we're blessed with excellent Capitol Police. I don't think you can do any better." 3/9
Read 10 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
31 Oct 20
BREAKING @ABC — American citizen kidnapped last Monday in Niger has been rescued by a US special mission unit in neighboring Nigeria, US and Nigerien officials tell @ABC

abcnews.go.com/International/…

By @meekwire @AichaEHC @cjf39
BREAKING @ABC — US citizen Philip Walton rescued by SEAL Team Six, who killed all but one captor in Nigeria, officials say. Walton, 27, was abducted by suspected criminals in Niger on Monday. Concern he’d end up in hands of terrorists drove urgency of op.
abcnews.go.com/International/…
Hostages freed are good for @realDonaldTrump who has made the issue a hallmark of his administration and highlighted it with several former hostages appearing at his convention, along with Kayla Mueller’s parents. This case has unfolded fast since Monday.
abcnews.go.com/International/…
Read 7 tweets
James Gordon Meek Profile picture
9 Oct 20
After the death in ISIS captivity of Kayla Mueller, her parents Carl and Marsha and Rev. @kmdday advised me to speak to two women in Turkey who were friends of Kayla’s and tried in vain to get the attention of US officials after she was kidnapped in 2013.
abcn.ws/3jKW0RL
When I called young American journalist Halla Barakat and her Syrian activist mom Dr. Orouba in 2015, I was stunned to learn they made repeated calls to US diplomats in Turkey and no one gave them the time of day, even though they had the most knowledge about Kayla’s kidnapping.
At FBI request, the Muellers recorded calls about Kayla. In their first call with Halla Barakat in 2015, she told them Syrians “hurt” when they don’t know how a loved one has died. “Kayla's one of these people. Her truth, I think just unfortunately died with her." Haunting words.
Read 10 tweets

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