The DailyMail reports (external link)
US special forces vets launch mission to get Afghan allies out amid Biden’s chaotic withdrawal
A group of American Afghanistan veterans are in Kabul on a volunteer mission getting people to the airport
They include retired Green Berets and SEAL Team commanders who want to help the Afghan commandos that helped them in the war
They have been going out at night to escort Afghans to the airport on foot under the cover of darkness
They have also teamed up with soldiers at the airport who are defying orders to let them in
The vulnerable Afghans were using the password ‘pineapple’ to identify themselves at airport gates
A group of American war veterans in Kabul are secretly saving hundreds of Afghan Special Forces troops and their families who helped them in the war but have now been left for dead as the US withdraws from Afghanistan.
The group of special op soldiers includes retired Green Berets and SEAL Team commanders who launched the mission, which they are calling Pineapple Express, after one of the Afghan commandos they served with contacted them to say he was on the run from the Taliban. His visa had not been approved when the Taliban took over on August 14 and thousands ran for the airport.
The special ops soldiers first devised a system with US troops at the airport where they sent their comrades to a gate and told them to identify themselves with the password ‘pineapple’ to be put on a plane by the Marines on the ground. Some also showed the troops pictures of pineapples on their phones.
After successfully getting hundreds through that way, the special ops teams started going into Kabul, behind enemy lines, to rescue more of their comrades and their families in the cover of darkness.
It’s unclear how long they have been in Afghanistan and how they got there but some of those involved spoke to ABC News about the mission on Friday, explaining they simply could not leave their comrades behind.
‘I just want to get my people out,’ said one of the retired troops involved while another said the Afghan allies they were saving had a prouder sense of Democracy than some Americans.
Their astonishingly courageous efforts have saved hundreds while Biden and his team have bungled the evacuation mission by haphazardly telling some US citizens and allies to go to the airport while rejecting visas for others and leaving any Americans to fend for themselves. They are one of several ad-hoc volunteer groups on the ground that are frantically trying to save people before time runs out.
The disastrous government rescue mission became even more tragic on Thursday when ISIS bombers targeted the crowds at the airport, slaughtering 170 people with a suicide bomb that also killed 13 US troops.
It has since emerged that Biden’s administration also gave a list of Afghan allies’ names to the Taliban in the naïve hope they would then help get them out. Former President Donald Trump called it a ‘kill list’ that all but guaranteed their deaths.
The US is now one of the only nations still evacuating from Kabul amid increasing threats of another ISIS attack.
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