A top American general has expelled a U.S. Marine special operations company from Afghanistan for the way the men responded to an ambush on March 4, Marine sources said. Maj. Cliff Gilmore, a spokesman for Marine Special Operations Command, confirmed to The Examiner that the company of 120 Marines are being sentto Kuwait.
He said the decision followed an ambush on the company’s convoy by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. A second Marine source said the Marines retaliated, and some civilians were killed.
No Marine was killed in the attack. One received minor injuries.
The action brought an abrupt end to what promised to be a historic deployment. The unit sailed in January from Camp Lejeune, N.C., as the first Marine Corps special operations company sent overseas. The Corps joined U.S. Special Operations Command a year ago.
The company had been in Afghanistan for only a few weeks in what was supposed to be a six-month tour.
A Marine officer assigned to special operations said that commanders took the extraordinary step of expelling the unit after they consulted with Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.
“The unit responded to the ambush and the local population perceptions of that response have damaged the relationship between the local population and the Marine special operations company,” Gilmore said.
Lt. Col. Louis J. Leto, a spokesman for thespecial operations division of U.S. Central Command, said the ambush and retaliation is now being probed by an investigative officer who will report his findings to Army Maj. Gen. Francis Kearny III, the command’s top special operations commander. Among his options are opening a criminal investigation.
Leto said he had no details on the Marines’ actions that day other than they were attacked while patrolling Highway 1 in Nangarhar Province. The province sits in northeast Afghanistan on the Pakistan border and is a crossing point for Taliban and al Qaeda operatives.
He said Kearny made the decision to pull the company out of Afghanistan after consulting with “others.”
“The company has been extremely aggressive in their counter-terror operations and have really taken it to the Taliban,” the officer said. “However, their aggressiveness has been at the expense of several civilians. Apparently the collateral damage made Karzai very mad. By all accounts they were killing lots of bad guys and were very successful.”
The Marines now have two special operations companies of a planned five. Each company has a direct action platoon of about 40 Marines and a security/sniper platoon of the same number. The remaining Marines are involved in headquarters duties such as intelligence and supply.
The Marine source said Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, until recently the top U.S commander in Afghanistan, wanted the Marines removed.
