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High Praise for Diggers Who Helped Save Stricken American
Saturday, March 9, 2002
By Craig Skehan
The Sydney Morning Herald
Defence Correspondent

Elite Australian troops in the danger area.
Image Credit: Australian Defence Force (ADF).

"The combined actions of the Australian patrol and the US airpower was devastatingly effective, and has been acknowledged by US commanders as being critical to the survival of those US soldiers," Brigadier Duncan Lewis, Commander Australian Special Forces, said.

Australian special forces troops in Afghanistan have been in intense firefights with al-Qaeda forces and played a crucial role in the rescue of Americans whose helicopter came under attack, it was disclosed yesterday.

Amid snow and sub-zero temperatures, the fighting has been the fiercest that Australians have been involved in since the Vietnam War.

As the first picture of the elite Australians troops involved in the fighting was released, Brigadier Duncan Lewis, Commander Special Forces, said yesterday that they had been responsible for large numbers of enemy deaths by calling in US air strikes.

In response to media questioning, Brigadier Lewis said there was "no evidence" to suggest that the Australians had called in any air strikes which had resulted in civilian deaths.

As well as helping to cut off enemy escape routes, the Australians have been assigned the difficult and dangerous task of trying to locate al-Qaeda leaders.
(More: The Sydney Morning Herald News Source)
2002 © The Sydney Morning Herald.

Dan