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Gazi Abbas Shahid
Starting as a ground reporter back in his home UT of Jammu and Kashmir, Gazi has been a part of the news industry for well over a decade. While he finds every type of news engrossing, politics, partic ... Read More
SEAL Team 6, the elite special forces unit of the United States Navy that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011, was deployed on a covert mission to North Korea in 2019, which was allegedly approved by US President Donald Trump. However, the US Navy SEALs botched the highly-classified mission after they shot and killed several North Korean civilians.
According to a New York Times report, the SEAL Team 6 was deployed on a covert mission to plant a listening device to spy on the Pyongyang top leadership, including its leader Kim Jong Un. The mission was carried out when high-stakes diplomatic negotiations were underway between Washington and Pyongyang in early 2019, it said.
The elite US Navy SEALs, who famously gunned down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s Abbottabad in 2011, spent months preparing for the mission, and were warned that even the slightest mistake could prove disastrous, The Mirror reported. The SEAL team planned to carry out the mission in a remote location to reduce chances of being noticed, it said.
As part of the plan, eight Navy SEALs would go ashore, dive towards the target, install the device, and disappear back into the sea without leaving any trace. However, as soon as the team, donning black wetsuits, and equipped with night-vision goggles and weapons, stepped on land, they realized that something had gone wrong.
As per the NYT report, as the SEALs went ashore, they were inadvertently came across several North Korean civilians who were diving for shellfish. The US special forces unit panicked and opened fire on a small fishing vessel, killing all on board, the report said, but did not specify the number of casualties.
“The US Navy SEALs pulled the bodies into the water to hide them from the North Korean authorities,” the NYT report quoted officials familiar with the mission as saying. According to one sources, the SEALs “punctured the boat crew’s lungs with knives to make sure their bodies would sink”.
According to the Times, it gained knowledge of the botched mission after interviewing dozens of people, ““including civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission”.
The report claimed that Donald Trump, during his first term in office, had greenlighted the mission, however, the US President denied any knowledge when queried. “I could look, but I know nothing about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time,” Trump claimed.
According to US officials, it is unclear whether Pyongyang ever pieced together what had happened during the classified mission.
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