US soldiers pursue militants in Helmand province. The shadowy Task Force 373 meanwhile focuses its efforts on more than 2,000 senior Taliban figures on a target

US soldiers pursue militants in Helmand province. The shadowy Task Force 373 meanwhile focuses its efforts on more than 2,000 senior Taliban figures on a target list. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

美军士兵在赫尔曼德省（Helmand）追捕激进分子。这支代号为373的神秘特遣部队同时还肩负着抓捕目标名单上2000多名塔利班高层的重任。摄影：Adrees Latif/路透社

The Nato coalition in Afghanistan has been using an undisclosed "black" unit of special forces, Task Force 373, to hunt down targets for death or detention without trial. Details of more than 2,000 senior figures from the Taliban and al-Qaida are held on a "kill or capture" list, known as Jpel, the joint prioritised effects list.

阿富汗的北约联军一直在通过一支名为特遣部队373的秘密特种部队搜捕一些目标人物，这些目标人物在被抓捕以后不经审判就被处决或拘留起来，约有2000多名塔利班和基地组织的中坚成员已经被列入了这个“捕杀”名单之中，该名单的正式称谓是Jpel，即共同优先效应名单（joint prioritised effects list）。

In many cases, the unit has set out to seize a target for internment, but in others it has simply killed them without attempting to capture. The logs reveal that TF 373 has also killed civilian men, women and children and even Afghan police officers who have strayed into its path.

在大多数情况下，这支部队抓捕目标人物的初衷是为了拘禁，但有时候他们只是简单的将目标置于死地，根本不想抓活的。相关的解密日志显示373部队也杀害过无辜平民，甚至还包括误闯入其禁区的阿富汗警务人员。

The United Nations' special rapporteur for human rights, Professor Philip Alston, went to Afghanistan in May 2008 to investigate rumours of extrajudicial killings. He warned that international forces were neither transparent nor accountable and that Afghans who attempted to find out who had killed their loved ones "often come away empty-handed, frustrated and bitter".

联合国负责人权问题的特别报告人菲利普·阿尔斯通（Philip Alston）教授于2008年5月份前往阿富汗，对非法处决（extrajudicial killing）的传闻进行调查。在调查结束以后，阿尔斯通警告说，在阿富汗执行任务的国际军事力量既不透明，又不付责任，而那些希望能在部队中找出杀人凶手并为亲人讨个公道的阿富汗人“常常是两手空空的离开，无奈而又苦涩”。

Now, for the first time, the leaked war logs reveal details of deadly missions by TF 373 and other units hunting down Jpel targets that were previously hidden behind a screen of misinformation. They raise fundamental questions about the legality of the killings and of the long-term imprisonment without trial, and also pragmatically about the impact of a tactic which is inherently likely to kill, injure and alienate the innocent bystanders whose support the coalition craves.

现在，这些泄露的战争日志第一次揭露了373部队和其他作战部队所执行的死亡任务的细节，而在以前，这种针对Jpel名单人物的抓捕任务一直处于不公开的机密状态。日志的公开使人们对战争中的一些基本问题产生了疑虑，如不经审判的处决和长期监禁的合法性问题，以及运用会导致无辜平民伤亡和疏远的实用性战术所造成的影响问题，因为这些旁观者的支持正是联军们竭力想争取的。

On the night of Monday 11 June 2007, the leaked logs reveal, the taskforce set out with Afghan special forces to capture or kill a Taliban commander named Qarl Ur-Rahman in a valley near Jalalabad. As they approached the target in the darkness, somebody shone a torch on them. A firefight developed, and the taskforce called in an AC-130 gunship, which strafed the area with cannon fire: "The original mission was aborted and TF 373 broke contact and returned to base. Follow-up Report: 7 x ANP KIA, 4 x WIA." In plain language: they discovered that the people they had been shooting in the dark were Afghan police officers, seven of whom were now dead and four wounded.

日志显示，2007年6月11日的夜里，373部队联合阿富汗特种部队在贾拉拉巴德（Jalalabad）附近的一处山谷中准备对一名名为奎阿尔·乌-拉赫曼的塔利班指挥官进行俘虏或暗杀，当他们在一片漆黑中快接近目标时，有人用火把照亮了他们，随后交火开始了，特遣队召来了一架AC-130重型攻击机，用机关炮对这一区域实施了狂轰滥炸：“既定任务中止，373特遣部队在失去目标后返回基地。后续报告：7xANP KIA, 4xWIA。”用通俗语言表示即为：事后发现，在黑暗中他们射击的目标是阿富汗警务人员，结果是7人死亡，4人受伤。

The coalition put out a press release which referred to the firefight and the air support and then failed entirely to record that they had just killed or wounded 11 police officers. But, evidently fearing that the truth might leak, it added: "There was nothing during the firefight to indicate the opposing force was friendly. The individuals who fired on coalition forces were not in uniform." The involvement of TF 373 was not mentioned, and the story didn't get out.

联军在事后发布的新闻稿上只提及了交火和空中支援，并没有对这一导致11名警务人员伤亡的事故进行完整记录。而且由于害怕真相被泄露，报告中还特意补充道：“交火发生时，没有任何证据表明敌对的武装力量是友军，向联军开火的对方并没有穿制服。”报告中并没有牵涉此事的是373特遣部队，当时这则事故并没有被泄露出去。

However, the incident immediately rebounded into the fragile links which other elements of the coalition had been trying to build with local communities. An internal report shows that the next day Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Phillips, commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, took senior officers to meet the provincial governor, Gul Agha Sherzai, who accepted that this was "an unfortunate incident that occurred among friends". They agreed to pay compensation to the bereaved families, and Phillips "reiterated our support to prevent these types of events from occurring again".

尽管如此，事故的发生还是让人们联想起联军其他机构一直尝试与地方社区所建立起的那种脆弱联系。一份内部报告显示，惨案发生后的第二天，省级重建队（Provincial Reconstruction Team）的指挥官中校戈登·菲利普斯（Gordon Phillips）就领着一批高级军官会见了楠格哈尔省（Nangarhar）的省长古尔·阿迦·舍载（Gul Agha Sherzai ），省长接受了这是“发生在朋友之间的一次不幸事故”的说法。联军同意对死伤者家属进行赔偿，菲利普斯“反复强调要防止类似事件的再次发生”。

Yet, later that week, on Sunday 17 June, as Sherzai hosted a "shura" council at which he attempted to reassure tribal leaders about the safety of coalition operations, TF 373 launched another mission, hundreds of miles south in Paktika province. The target was a notorious Libyan fighter, Abu Laith al-Libi. The unit was armed with a new weapon, known as Himars – High Mobility Artillery Rocket System – a pod of six missiles on the back of a small truck.

一个星期以后的6月17日，为消除地方领导对于联军行动安全性的顾虑，省长舍载特意主持召开了一次“舒拉（shura：阿富汗人民立法会议）”会议。然而，就在会议召开的同时，373特遣部队在数百公里之外的帕克蒂卡省（Paktika）南部又发动了一次搜捕任务，任务目标是臭名昭著的利比亚好战分子阿布·来斯·阿尔-利比（Abu Laith al-Libi）。该作战小组装配了一项新式武器，即所谓的高机动性火箭炮系统（High Mobility Artillery Rocket System），简称Himars，它的主体部分是在一辆小卡车后部装上的六发导弹。

The plan was to launch five rockets at targets in the village of Nangar Khel where TF 373 believed Libi was hiding and then to send in ground troops. The result was that they failed to find Libi but killed six Taliban fighters and then, when they approached the rubble of a madrasa, they found "initial assessment of 7 x NC KIA" which translates as seven non-combatants killed in action. All of them were children. One of them was still alive in the rubble: "The Med TM immediately cleared debris from the mouth and performed CPR." After 20 minutes, the child died.

373特遣部队认为利比藏身于一处名为楠加凯尔（Nangar Khel）的村庄，他们计划先向村庄里的目标发射5枚火箭弹，然后再派出地面部队进行攻击。等攻击完毕以后，他们却发现利比并不存在，只是杀死了五名塔利班武装人员，而后当他们走到一处清真寺的残砖瓦砾时，又意外发现“初步评估：7 x NC KIA”，即有7名非战斗人员在行动中被误杀。这些误杀对象都是孩子，其中一人尚在废墟中奄奄一息：“医疗小组迅速清理了他口中的泥土碎屑，并进行了心肺复苏术。”20分钟以后，孩子因为伤势过重还是死掉了。

Children

儿童

The coalition made a press statement which owned up to the death of the children and claimed that troops "had surveillance on the compound all day and saw no indications there were children inside the building". That claim is consistent with the leaked log. A press release also claimed that Taliban fighters, who undoubtedly were in the compound, had used the children as a shield.

事件发生后，联军在一份公开声明中承认了这一惨剧的发生，并宣称说军队“一整天都在对这一区域进行监视，没有发现有任何迹象表明建筑物里有儿童”。这段声明与泄露的日志记录一致，而对外发布的新闻稿中也宣称说塔利班武装人员肯定是躲在建筑物中，用孩子做肉盾。

The log refers to an unnamed "elder" who is said to have "stated that the children were held against their will" but, against that, there is no suggestion that there were any Taliban in the madrasa where the children died.

日志中还提及了一位无名“老者”的证词，据他“表述说孩子们是被强制带到那里的”，但和这一论调相矛盾的是，没有迹象表明，塔利班武装人员藏身于清真寺中。

The rest of the press release was certainly misleading. It suggested that coalition forces had attacked the compound because of "nefarious activity" there, when the reality was that they had gone there to kill or capture Libi.

新闻稿的其他部分则纯粹是为了误导大众，比如它暗示说联军部队攻击村庄是因为有“邪恶活动”的存在，但实际情况是联军的这次行动是为了抓捕或击毙利比。

It made no mention at all of Libi, nor of the failure of the mission (although that was revealed later by NBC News in the United States). Crucially, it failed to record that TF 373 had fired five rockets, destroying the madrasa and other buildings and killing seven children, before anybody had fired on them – that this looked like a mission to kill and not to capture. Indeed, this was clearly deliberately suppressed.

稿件不但对利比只字未提，而且也没有提到任务的失败（美国的NBC新闻对该任务有所揭露）；更为关键的是，373特遣部队的名字没有出现在稿件中，他们率先对清真寺和其他建筑发射了5枚火箭弹导致7名儿童被害的行为被一笔抹去；另外，这种狂轰滥炸的行为使得这次任务看起来更像是一次清除任务，而非抓捕任务，当然在通稿中这一点显然被刻意淡化了。

The internal report was marked not only "secret" but also "Noforn", ie not to be shared with the foreign elements of the coalition. And the source of this anxiety is explicit: "The knowledge that TF 373 conducted a HIMARS strike must be protected." And it was. This crucial fact remained secret, as did TF 373's involvement.

相关事件的内部报告不仅被列入“机密”而且还被打上了“Noforn”的标签，即不能与联军之中的涉外人员进行共享。这种焦虑的源头显而易见：“关于373特遣部队利用HIMARS实施打击的行为事实必须被保护起来。”他们也的确做到了这一点，在日志解密以前，这些关键事实和373特遣部队的存在一直不为人所知。

Again, the lethal attack caused political problems. The provincial governor arranged compensation and held a shura with local leaders when, according to an internal US report, "he pressed the Talking Points given to him and added a few of his own that followed in line with our current story". Libi remained targeted for death and was killed in Pakistan seven months later by a missile from an unmanned CIA Predator.

这次血腥的袭击行动不可避免的又一次引发了政治问题。据美军的内部报告透露，该省省长安排了赔偿，并同地方领导举行了会谈。在会议上，“他将事先准备好的谈话要点扔在一边，即兴加上了一段自己的发言，透露了部分的事件真相”。行动虽然失败，但利比仍然被列在刺杀名单上，七个月以后，他在巴基斯坦被CIA捕食者无人战机发射的一枚导弹击中身亡。

In spite of this tension between political and military operations, TF 373 continued to engage in highly destructive attacks. Four months later, on 4 October, they confronted Taliban fighters in a village called Laswanday, only 6 miles from the village where they had killed the seven children. The Taliban appear to have retreated by the time TF 373 called in air support to drop 500lb bombs on the house from which the fighters had been firing.

尽管几次失败的行动导致了军事行动与政治活动产生了严重的对峙情绪，但373特遣部队并没有就此收手，他们还在继续执行高度破坏性的攻击行动。四个月以后，即同年的10月4日，他们在一个叫拉斯旺德（Laswanday）的村庄与塔利班武装分子发生了正面冲突，值得一提的是，这个村庄离上一次发生惨剧的楠加凯尔村只有10公里左右。交火发生时，当373特遣部队召来空中支援对武装分子藏身的房屋扔下200多公斤的炸弹时，塔利班似乎已经撤退了。

The final outcome, listed tersely at the end of the leaked log: 12 US wounded, two teenage girls and a 10-year-old boy wounded, one girl killed, one woman killed, four civilian men killed, one donkey killed, one dog killed, several chickens killed, no enemy killed, no enemy wounded, no enemy detained.

泄露的日志对最后的伤亡结果做了异常精炼的概括：十二名美军士兵受伤，两名少女和一名十岁男孩受伤，一名女孩被杀，一名妇女被杀，四名平民男子被杀，一头驴被杀，一只狗被杀，若干只鸡被杀，敌方无伤亡或被俘虏。

The coalition put out a statement claiming falsely to have killed several militants and making no mention of any dead civilians; and later added that "several non-combatants were found dead and several others wounded" without giving any numbers or details.

而在对外发布的声明中联军不但虚伪的宣称此次行动击毙了多名武装分子，而且对无辜平民的伤亡只字不提；只是后来加上了一句：“行动导致几名非战斗人员的伤亡”，就这样轻描淡写的一笔带过，具体的伤亡数字连提都没提。

This time, the political teams tried a far less conciliatory approach with local people. In spite of discovering that the dead civilians came from one family, one of whom had been found with his hands tied behind his back, suggesting that the Taliban were unwelcome intruders in their home, senior officials travelled to the stricken village where they "stressed that the fault of the deaths of the innocent lies on the villagers who did not resist the insurgents and their anti-government activities … [and] chastised a villager who condemned the compound shooting". Nevertheless, an internal report concluded that there was "little or no protest" over the incident.

不仅如此，联军的政治宣传部门也没有对当地无辜的老百姓作过多安抚。事后的调查发现，死亡的平民都来自于同一个家庭，其中一人的手一直还被绑在背后，这些情况表明，这一家人是因为将塔利班视为不受欢迎的侵入者才遭此厄运的。为了做做样子，军队的高级军官们到屡遭不幸的拉斯旺德村走了一遭，用他们自己的话说，他们此行的目的是为了“强调导致无辜平民伤亡的失误和惩戒那些帮助塔利班开火的村民，平民的伤亡与他们对叛乱的不抵抗行为以及反政府活动密切相关。”但相关的内部报告却总结说，在冲突发生时，联军“几乎没有遇到抵抗”。

Concealment

隐瞒

The concealment of TF 373's role is a constant theme. There was global publicity in October 2009 when US helicopters were involved in two separate crashes in one day, but even then it was concealed that the four soldiers who died in one of the incidents were from TF 373.

对373特遣部队战斗角色的隐瞒是一个永恒的话题。2009年10月份的时候，媒体曾广泛报道过美军直升机在一天之内发生两起坠毁事故的新闻，但他们有所不知的是，在其中一起事故中死亡的四名士兵正是来自373特遣部队。

The pursuit of these "high value targets" is evidently embedded deep in coalition tactics. The Jpel list assigns an individual serial number to each of those targeted for kill or capture and by October 2009 this had reached 2,058.

很明显，对那些“高价值目标”的渴求深深的根植于联军的战术意图之中。Jpel名单会给上榜的每个人分配一个独有的序列号，截止到2009年10月，榜单上需要被清除和抓捕的人数已经达到2058名。

The process of choosing targets reaches high into the military command. According to their published US Field Manual on Counter Insurgency, No FM3-24, it is policy to choose targets "to engage as potential counter-insurgency supporters, targets to isolate from the population and targets to eliminate".

目标人物的选择过程涉及到军事指挥高层的授意。已出版的《美军反叛乱战地手册》（US Field Manual on Counter Insurgency）FM3-24条规定，“为支持反叛乱行动，从居民中隔离和淘汰某些目标，并与之交火”是一项既定政策。

A joint targeting working group meets each week to consider Target Nomination Packets and has direct input from the Combined Forces Command and its divisional HQ, as well as from lawyers, operational command and intelligence units including the CIA.

一个负责目标甄别的联合工作小组每个星期都举行会议，并对所谓的目标提名方案（Target Nomination Packets）进行讨论，倘若遇上联合司令部（Combined Forces Command）、各师部、律师、作战指挥部和CIA情报部门提交上来的目标名单，就直接列入Jpel。

Among those who are listed as being located and killed by TF 373 are Shah Agha, described as an intelligence officer for an IED cell, who was killed with four other men on 1 June 2009; Amir Jan Mutaki, described as a Taliban sub-commander who had organised ambushes on coalition forces, who was shot dead from the air in a TF 373 mission on 24 June 2009; and a target codenamed Ballentine, who was killed on 16 November 2009 during an attack in the village of Lewani, in which a local woman also died.

在这些被列上名单的目标人物之中，被373特遣部队追踪到且成功击毙的包括沙阿·阿迦（Shah Agha）、埃米尔·简·穆塔基（Amir Jan Mutaki）以及一个目标代号为巴伦丁（Ballentine）神秘人物，其中沙阿·阿迦是负责简易爆炸装置单元（IED cell）的情报人员，他和其他四人死于2009年6月1日的一场袭击之中；埃米尔·简·穆塔基是负责对联军队伍实施伏击的塔利班副指挥官，他在2009年6月2日被373特遣部队从空中击毙；而巴伦丁则在2009年11月16日死于一场突袭，这次突袭发生在一个名叫勒旺尼（Lewani）的村庄里，当时还导致了一名无辜妇女的死亡。

The logs include references to the tracing and killing of other targets on the Jpel list, which do not identify TF 373 as the unit responsible. It is possible that some of the other taskforce names and numbers which show up in this context are cover names for 373, or for British special forces, 500 of whom are based in southern Afghanistan and are reported to have been involved in kill/capture missions, including the shooting in July 2008 of Mullah Bismullah.

日志还提到了针对另外一些目标人物的追踪和暗杀，但不确定这些行为是否由373特遣部队所执行。也有可能日志中的某些地方在提到373特遣部队时，用其他作战部队的名称和番号代替了；另外还有500名的英国特种部队士兵驻扎在阿富汗南部，据报道他们也参与了一些猎杀行动，例如2008年7月击毙毛拉·比斯穆拉（Mullah Bismullah）的行动中就有英国人的身影。

Some of these "non 373" operations involve the use of unmanned drones to fire missiles to kill the target: one codenamed Beethoven, on 20 October 2008; one named Janan on 6 November 2008; and an unnamed Jpel target who was hit with a hellfire missile near Khan Neshin on 21 August 2009 while travelling in a car with other passengers (the log records "no squirters [bodies moving about] recorded").

还有一些“非373”的行动任务主要是利用无人机发射导弹对目标进行击杀，其成功案例包括2008年10月20日击毙了目标代号为贝多芬（Beethoven）的名单人物，以及2008年11月6日击毙代号为迦南（Janan）另一名名单人物；另外，2009年8月21日一名Jpel未标出姓名的人物在凯汗·奈什因（Khan Neshin）附近旅行时，其乘坐的轿车被一枚地狱火导弹击中，其人也一命呜呼。

Other Jpel targets were traced and then bombed from the air. One, codenamed Newcastle, was located with four other men on 26 November 2007. The house they were in was then hit with 500lb bombs. "No identifiable features recovered," the log records.

也有一些Jpel目标是从空中被追踪到，再用炸弹炸死的。2007年11月26日，名单上一名代号为纽卡斯尔（Newcastle）的人物与其他四人被成功定位到，他们所在的房屋被200多公斤的炸弹炸飞。事后，日志是这样记录的：“现场找不到可辨认的肢体特征。”

Two other Jpel targets, identified only by serial numbers, were killed on 16 February 2009 when two F-15 bombers dropped four 500lb bombs on a Jpel target: "There are various and conflicting reports from multiple sources alleging civilian casualties … A large number of local nationals were on site during the investigation displaying a hostile attitude so the investigation team did not continue sorting through the site."

2009年2月16日，名单上两名只用序列号标示的目标人物被击毙，当时两架F-15轰炸机共朝目标扔下了四枚炸弹：“(此次行动以后），有来自多个不同渠道的报告宣称有平民伤亡......在调查过程中，在事发现场的很多当地民众表现出敌对的态度，因此调查队并没有对该事件进行进一步厘清。”

One of the leaked logs contains a summary of a conference call on 8 March 2008 when the then head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, Amrullah Saleh, tells senior American officers that three named Taliban commanders in Kapisa province are "not reconcilable and must be taken out". The senior coalition officer "noted that there would be a meeting with the Kapisa NDS to determine how to approach this issue."

泄漏的日志中有一条包含了2008年3月8日一次电话会议的摘要，摘要显示阿富汗国家安全理事会（Afghan National Directorate of Security）的头头阿姆拉赫·萨利赫（Amrullah Saleh）告诉美军的一些高级军官，卡皮萨（Kapisa）省的三名塔利班领导人“无法与之和解，必须有所动作”，联军的高级军官“表示需要与卡皮萨国家安全理事会进行接洽，以确定如何执行这项任务。”

It is not clear whether "taken out" meant "killed" and the logs do not record any of their deaths. But one of them, Qari Baryal, who was ranked seventh in the Jpel list, had already been targeted for killing two months earlier.

日志上并没有透露所谓的“有所行动”是否就意味着“直接杀掉”，关于这三人是否已经死亡日志上也没有记录，但可以肯定的一点是，三人之中的夸里·巴雅尔（Qari Baryal）在Jpel名单上排名第七，而且早在会议召开的两个月之前已经遭到过一次死亡打击。

On 12 January 2008, after tracking his movements for 24 hours, the coalition established that he was holding a large meeting with other men in a compound in Pashkari and sent planes which dropped six 500lb bombs and followed up with five strafing runs to shoot those fleeing the scene.

2008年1月12日，在经过24小时的追踪以后，联军终于确定了夸里·巴雅尔的准确位置，当时他正在帕什卡里（Pashkari）的某个地方召开一次大型会议，联军派来飞机丢下200多公斤的炸弹，随后又进行了五轮空中扫射，将那些欲逃离现场的可疑人员全部射杀。

The report records that some 70 people ran to the compound and started digging into the rubble, on which there were "pools of blood", but subsequent reports suggest that Baryal survived and continued to plan rocket attacks and suicide bombings.

报告记录显示，狂轰乱炸之后，约有70人跑向这座建筑，拼命挖掘倒塌的废墟，当时那里已经“血流成河”，但随后的报告又暗示说巴雅尔幸存了下来，还在继续策划火箭袭击和自杀式爆炸袭击。

Numerous logs show Jpel targets being captured and transferred to a special prison, known as Btif, the Bagram Theatre Internment Facility. There is no indication of prisoners being charged or tried, and previous press reports have suggested that men have been detained there for years without any legal process in communal cages inside vast old air hangars. As each target is captured, he is assigned a serial number. By December 2009, this showed that a total of 4,288 prisoners, some aged as young as 16, had been held at Btif, with 757 still in custody.

大量的战争日志表明，Jpel名单上的目标人物在被抓捕后就被转移到一座特殊的监狱之中，这座监狱的全称是巴格拉姆战区收容所（Bagram Theatre Internment Facility），简称Btif。没有任何证据表明，关押在那里的囚犯事先经过上诉或审判，而且早先就有媒体爆料说，有些囚犯甚至不经过诉讼程序就被关押了好几年，监狱是一座巨大的飞机棚改造而成的，犯人就被关在其中的公共牢笼中。每抓获一个目标人物，就给他分配一个序列号，截至到2009年12月，Btif总共收押了4288名囚犯，其中的一些犯人甚至只有16岁。到目前为止，这座监狱中依然拘留者757名囚犯。

Who are TF373?

关于373特遣部队

The leaked war logs show that Task Force 373 uses at least three bases in Afghanistan, in Kabul, Kandahar and Khost. Although it works alongside special forces from Afghanistan and other coalition nations, it appears to be drawing its own troops from the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and to travel on missions in Chinook and Cobra helicopters flown by 160th special operations aviation regiment, based at Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.

泄密的战争日志表明，373特遣部队在阿富汗至少使用过三处基地，分别是喀布尔（Kabul）、坎大哈（Kandahar）以及霍斯特（Khost）。尽管该军事单元与来自阿富汗以及其他一些国家的特种部队共同执行过任务，但有迹象表明这支军队的士兵主要是来自北卡罗来纳布拉格堡的第七特种部队，而且在执行空中任务时，负责驾驶奇努克运输直升机和眼镜蛇攻击直升机（Chinook and Cobra helicopters）的飞行员来自第160特种作战航空团（160th special operations aviation regiment），其美国所属基地位于乔治亚州的亨特军用机场（Hunter Army Airfield）。