Operation Valiant Strike
Operation Valiant Strike strated on 20 March 2003, coinciding with the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. The timing was stated by US authorities to have been purely coincidental. Officials said Valiant Strike is a direct result of intelligence gleaned over the preceeding few weeks, including interrogations of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a top al Qaeda lieutenant captured in Pakistan on 1 March 2003. The operation's purpose was to clear and search villages and caves, gather intelligence, search for weapons caches and seek out remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.
Each phase of the operation started when task force soldiers conducted an air assault in the vicinity of the village to be searched. Unit leaders, task force civil affairs specialists and translators made contact with village elders and asked them to tell the heads of households to declare any weapons. They explained that females would search village women in a separate area. Task force officials also explained that the houses would be searched for contraband.
Operation Valiant Strike continued in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan through March 2003, in full swing about 130 kilometers east of Kandahar in the Sami Ghar Mountains. About 600 coalition special operations forces and conventional forces were involved in the operation. Most of the US troops involved come from the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division.
On 25 March 2003 coalition forces recovered more than 170 rocket-propelled grenades, as well as mines and mortar rounds, the third such weapons cache discovered in the area since the beginning of Operation Valiant Strike. The operation resulted in the detention of nine Afghans with suspected Taliban ties, and the confiscation of Taliban pamphlets and recruiting documents, rifles, heavy machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades, 82mm mortar rounds, and 107mm rockets.
Operation Valiant Strike came to an end around 27 March 2003.
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