SEALs staged bid to rescue Aussie hostage

US special forces launched a ­secret raid in Afghanistan last month in a failed bid to rescue an Australian academic.

A report in The New York Times, quoting US officials, said it was believed the two men had been moved only hours before the operation took place.

US special forces launched a ­secret raid in Afghanistan last month in a failed bid to rescue an Australian academic and his American colleague.

The academics were kidnapped by armed gunmen on their way to the American University Afghanistan in Kabul on August 7 when their vehicle was stopped and the attackers, wearing police uniforms, smashed the windows and pulled the two men from the vehicle.

“President Obama authorised US forces to conduct a mission in Afghanistan, aimed at recovering two civilian hostages,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said this week.

“Unfortunately, the hostages were not at the location we suspected. During the mission, US forces engaged and killed a number of hostile forces. No US personnel or civilians were harmed.”

The raid was at an unspecified location in Afghanistan.

According to The Washington Post, US officials thought the two men, who worked as professors at the university, were being held by the hard-line Haqqani network in eastern Afghanistan. Haqqani is a Taliban affiliate.

It is a particularly sensitive time as Anas Haqqani, the brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the group’s deputy emir who is also the operational leader of the network, is in an Afghan jail and has been sentenced to death.

Anas is the son of Jalaluddin, the founder of the network, and the Taliban has threatened severe retribution against the judicial institution in Afghanistan should the death penalty be carried out.

It is believed the Australian had only just started working at the university, where he was teaching English, a month before he was kidnapped.

The elite Navy SEALs conducted the raid last month; they landed at the site in a helicopter at night and fought their way into a compound, where it was thought the two men were being held. There was an intense gunbattle and seven Taliban were reportedly killed.

A report in The New York Times, quoting US officials, said it was believed the two men had been moved only hours before the operation took place. According to the Post, the Americans may have missed an opportunity to rescue them on the night before they conducted the raid.

It said the elite forces had boarded an aircraft and had flown towards the target. However the mission was aborted as they had not secured presidential approval.

Instead, they went the following night and by then the two men ­appear to have been moved.

“There was a very narrow window of time before the sun came up,” a US official told the Post.

Mr Cook said: “Military hostage rescue operations are inherently sensitive and dangerous, and careful deliberation went into this mission.

“The United States military remains fully prepared to take extraordinary steps to protect American citizens anywhere in the world.”

Last month Australian aid worker Kerry Jane Wilson was rescued by Afghan forces from a compound, south of Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, after being held captive for four months. It is believed she was being held by a criminal gang.

Heavy fighting continued in Tarin Kowt, in the capital of ­Oruzgan province, where Australian troops were stationed until 2013. Tarin Kowt was on the verge of being taken by the Taliban on Thursday when its fighters got to within a kilometre of the governor’s compound after a number of military checkpoints had been abandoned or overrun.

However, on Thursday afternoon more than 200 Afghan special forces were flown into the city and fought back with the believed support of coalition warplanes.

Dost Mohammad Nayab, a spokesman for the governor, told Tolo News, the battle started on Tuesday after insurgents attacked army outposts.

He said security forces had retreated from 20 checkpoints and were inside the city and had “built up a defence belt”. “A number of commandos arrived last night in Tarin Kowt but we need more air support, reinforcements and equipment to clear the city of ­insurgents,” he said.