Bloody Heroes

by Damien Lewis

  One of the Red Cross workers gave the Chechen an apple. As he munched on it, he started rambling on about how terrible it had been down in that dark basement, surrounded by the dying and the dead. As the Red Cross proceeded to tend to the prisoners’ wounds, and tried to get some food and water into them, the Afghan soldiers became increasingly restless and angry. They couldn’t understand why these foreign aid workers were treating the enemy in such a humane way. These men were fanatics, terrorists, suicide bombers, unreasoning killers. Surely they didn’t deserve anyone’s kindness? Had they captured any of these ICRC workers within the fort, they would have treated them as just one more group of infidels that they could kill. So why were these foreigners now doing so much to help them, to save their lives?

  Finally, one of the younger Afghan soldiers cracked. He began yelling at the nearest Red Cross worker: ‘They’ll eat your apples and bananas today, and then they’ll blow you to smithereens tomorrow!’ Apparently, this was exactly what the Taliban had done to this man’s home. One of the older Afghan soldiers was itching to smash the prisoners’ heads in. ‘You bastards killed my son!’ he kept roaring, as he swung a rock around in his hand, waiting for his chance to strike. His fellow soldiers had to hold him back to prevent him from rushing in and using it. There was an ugly, bitter menace to the scene, as if it could so easily explode at any moment into yet more hatred and bloodshed.

  After the thirteen enemy fighters had emerged, there was a quick debate among the SBS soldiers and their Afghan allies as to whether there were others left in that basement. The Afghan commanders found it hard to believe that any more could have survived down there. But no one was sure. At 10 a.m., Mat spotted further movement on the steps. One by one more enemy fighters came staggering and crawling up the basement steps and into the daylight. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty of them – the stream of survivors seemed never-ending. Many had horrific injuries. One fighter came hopping up the steps on his one good leg, the other hanging smashed and useless. But despite their terrible condition, the eyes of these men were still burning with hatred for those who had denied them what they sought most in life – death in jihad.

  ‘Amazing stuff, water, ain’t it?’ Mat remarked to Jamie, as he kept his weapon trained on the silent figures emerging, ghostlike, from the basement.

  Some fifty fighters had given themselves up when a young, emaciated man with a leg wound stopped in front of his captors. As the pale, scraggy, bearded figure was placed on to a stretcher, he mumbled something to his captors in English.

  ‘I’m an American,’ the young man whispered, through cracked and bloodied lips.

  At first, the man refused to give his name, but maintained that he was from Washington State. Then he began explaining that he was a US convert to Islam who had studied at an Islamic school in Pakistan, before deciding to join the jihad in Afghanistan. He said that he had come to fight the jihad and help build ‘a perfect Islamic state in Afghanistan’. It turned out that this man was John Walker Lindh, the so-called ‘American Taliban’. He was a twenty-year-old citizen of the United States who had spent his childhood in a liberal community in northern California.

  As the SBS soldiers kept watch over the surrendering enemy forces, one of the 5th SOF operators came across to have a word.

  ‘You guys ain’t gonna believe this,’ the operator announced. ‘But there’s a goddam American.’

  ‘’Course there is, mate – there’s bloody loads of you,’ Mat retorted.

  ‘No. Not us. There’s a goddam American enemy, buddy,’ the 5th SOF soldier replied, as he pointed out the pale figure lying on the stretcher. ‘A fuckin’ prisoner. An American Taliban.’

  Holy fuck. How the hell did he end up here? Mat wondered. He watched the ‘American Taliban’ being stretchered away towards the waiting truck. The SBS counted a total of eighty-six enemy fighters who emerged alive from the basement of Qala-i-Janghi. Once the last one had supposedly given himself up, the Afghan soldiers finally went in to check out that basement. They trod carefully on the steps, advancing cautiously, feeling their way foot by foot down into the darkness. Mat decided that he had to take a look himself, and that he was going with them.

  He descended the steps holding his weapon ready at the shoulder. He checked for booby traps along the walls and floor, and for any enemy fighters that might still be holding out down there. At the base of the stairway a cold, foul air wrapped him in its embrace. He could immediately sense the death and the terror that had gripped this place just hours earlier – the enemy trapped in the darkness, freezing, soaked to the skin, starving, wounded perhaps, and with corpses afloat among the oily scum. At the foot of the stairs a body was floating face upwards. Water stretched away into the darkness – a flooded corridor leading into a cavernous, shadowed room.

  How many men had died here? Mat wondered. How many corpses were entombed in this watery grave? They had come to this fort seeking death, of that Mat was certain. And with the help of Mat, Jamie, Tom, Sam, Ruff and the other SBS lads, many of them had found it.

  EPILOGUE

  WHEN YOU THINK of how it played out in the press I suppose the news of five hundred prisoners being shot dead sounds sensational, it sounds like it might be a war crime. Then you look at the facts – that they had an endless supply of weapons, that every room was stuffed full of the stuff, and all of them were actively seeking to die. What choice did we have but to take them out?

  – SBS soldier, on the battle for Qala-i-Janghi

  AT the time of the uprising at Qala-i-Janghi the world’s media was massed around Kunduz to report on the battle for that city. But once the prisoner revolt got underway, large sections of them relocated to the scene of the fort siege. It quickly became the focus of the media’s war in Afghanistan: from the relative safety of the fort’s exterior news crews had a perfect vantage point from which to witness the drama as it unfolded. Footage of the air bombardment of the fort was broadcast around the world, as were the bloody scenes after the fighting was over. Because of its accessibility, the battle for Qala-i-Janghi received more coverage than just about any other event of the Afghan war. It also became one of the most controversial episodes in the whole of that conflict, with sections of the media claiming that British, US and Afghan forces carried out a massacre.

  Indeed, the very first day of action by the SBS at Qala-i-Janghi was filmed by an Afghan, using a small, hand-held video camera. As he was positioned on the entranceway tower along with the Northern Alliance soldiers, the SBS operators presumed that he was somehow part of the NA forces. In fact, he was an independent Afghan video journalist. The footage that he filmed of the SBS in action quickly made its way into the hands of the international media. Among other things, it clearly showed Jamie and Ruff in action using the GPMGs from the fort battlements. ‘Amnesty International has called for an inquiry into the death of so many Taliban prisoners,’ a Channel 4 news report stated over the footage. ‘Now it’s clear that British special forces were closely involved in the fighting, attempts may be made to draw them into the investigation. But it’s equally clear that they were operating in a very hostile environment.’

  But, despite the media accusations of a massacre, no one knows for certain how many enemy were killed at Qala-i-Janghi. Approximately 150 bodies were recovered from the fort grounds, though many were unrecognisable due to the heavy bombardment. With eighty-six survivors coming out alive and 150 bodies recovered, the majority of the six hundred prisoners reportedly held at the fort remain un-accounted for. Doubtless, many of the bodies were never found because they had been obliterated during the bombing. But it also seems highly likely that some of the prisoners managed to escape, especially during the initial twenty-four hours of the uprising and prior to the fort being sealed off by Northern Alliance troops. That is certainly what I have been told by my sources from the AQT side of the story. And there were, of course, significant casualties on both sides of the fighting – reflecting the fact that this was a fierce and prolonged fire
fight, as opposed to a massacre.

  The Northern Alliance lost some fifty soldiers in the fort siege – a number of whom were killed by the errant JDAM strike. The five US 5th SOF soldiers who were injured in that errant air strike were air-evacuated via Uzbekistan to a US military hospital at Landstuhl, Germany. The only Western operative to be killed at Qala-i-Janghi was CIA Agent Johnny Michael Spann. Mike Spann was part of the CIA’s elite and secretive Special Activities Division (SAD). This serves as the Agency’s knifepoint in its cloak-and-dagger work to provide security to the USA around the globe. Members of SAD are drawn from the Navy SEALs, the Army Special Operations Forces and, as in Mike Spann’s case, the US Marines. The unit is skilled in the dark arts of paramilitary warfare, including assassinations, advanced demolitions, high-tech surveillance and behind-enemy-lines combat. CIA SAD operatives were some of the first forces deployed on the ground in the war in Afghanistan.

  Some controversy surrounds the death of Mike Spann. The US military supposedly has an ethos to ‘leave no man behind’. This means that no combat operative should ever be abandoned by his fellow men. The father of Johnny Mike Spann, Johnny Spann Sr, is deeply troubled by events surrounding his son’s death. He raises several questions. First, at what stage exactly did the US and allied forces trying to lift the siege conclude that his son was dead? How did they reach that conclusion, as no one had been able to get to his son and check if he was still alive? The nearest that anyone had reached was Sam Brown, the US SEAL on secondment to the SBS, who thinks he spotted Mike Spann’s body from the western tower of the fort. Johnny Spann Sr believes that a serious rescue attempt carried out by scores of US and British special forces might have succeeded in reaching his son before nightfall of the first day, at which time he might have been injured and unconscious, but still alive. So why were no US or British reinforcements rushed in to the fort during those first hours of fighting, to help suppress the uprising and rescue his son?

  Another question Johnny Spann Sr asks is why air strikes were used on the fort, when there was an American operative still inside who might have been alive? He believes that at some stage a decision must have been reached by those in allied high command that his son was dead. Otherwise, he can’t account for the rescue mission being abandoned at the end of day one of the uprising, in favour of the policy of using air strikes against the enemy holed up in the fort. Of course, none of this detracts from the heroic efforts made by the SBS team of Sam Brown and Tom Knight to locate and rescue CIA Agent Mike Spann. Johnny Spann Sr is full of gratitude for the way in which the whole SBS contingent fought ferociously and against all odds to put down the uprising and locate and rescue his son. But he still has questions to which he’s seeking answers, and most of those questions relate to the bigger picture and those in high command making the decisions.

  However, Johnny Spann Sr does not believe that his son died in vain. ‘Mike went to Afghanistan for one reason only – to find and deal with al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden because of what they had done to us, because we were attacked by al-Qaeda and bin Laden on 9/11,’ he says. ‘It’s important we remember that, along with Mike, others died fighting al-Qaeda and the terrorists. My son gave his life fighting al-Qaeda, and the terrorists are still out there, they haven’t changed. People mustn’t lose sight of that and why we were in Afghanistan. Mike could have run away and got out to safety. The day he died at Qala-i-Janghi he gave his life capturing and punishing al-Qaeda and saving the lives of good people. He could have turned and run, but he elected to step forward and take a stand. It’s good Mike had the fortitude and courage to do what he did, what he was trained to do. If he’d run that day he’d not have been able to live with himself.’

  The friendly-fire incident involving the errant JDAM strike has since been investigated by the relevant US authorities. The US CENTCOM’s initial findings were that the accident was a result of ‘procedural errors in the transmission and application of friendly and enemy coordinates’. In other words, it was human error. US forces have now changed their standard operating procedures for forward air control so that forces calling in air strikes do not put up friendly coordinates to the pilots. This is the UK military’s standard operating procedure for calling in air strikes, and it was the procedure that the SBS forces argued should have been used at Qala-i-Janghi. Clearly, if pilots are not given friendly coordinates this makes it far harder for them to accidentally target friendly forces.

  The friendly-fire incident at Qala-i-Janghi was not the only such incident in the Afghan war. In April 2002, four Canadian soldiers were killed and eight wounded when a US F-16 aircraft dropped two five-hundred-pound bombs on them. The Canadian troops had been engaged in a live fire exercise around Kandahar, and the US warplane mistook their actions for hostile fire. This was one of a dozen or more friendly-fire incidents in which Western personnel and Afghan soldiers were killed or wounded. On 5 December 2001, a US B-52 providing close air support dropped a JDAM, which killed three US troops and five allied Afghans and injured forty others. On 1 July 2002, US aircraft misinterpreted celebratory gunshots at a wedding in the region of Oruzgan for hostile fire and targeted the wedding party, killing forty-four of the wedding guests.

  The siege of Qala-i-Janghi is known in the US as a US-led mission in which UK special forces played a significant part. In fact, it was very much a British-led operation. After the fort siege, there were articles that appeared in the press stating that all the SBS troops would be awarded the CGM (Conspicuous Gallantry Medal) in the USA. The SBS soldiers were told that grateful CIA officers had planted these articles in the media. They believed that the British troops deserved to be honoured in the US for their actions at the fort trying to rescue the two CIA officers. The CIA also sent a telegram to the British government praising several of the SBS soldiers involved in the lifting of the fort siege and urging that they be given the recognition they deserved. Despite their best efforts, no SBS soldiers have received decorations in the USA for their actions at Qala-i-Janghi.

  In the US, 5th SOF Major Michael E. Martin was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for his actions at Qala-i-Janghi. His medal citation states that he showed ‘unparalleled courage under fire, decisive leadership and personal sacrifice which were directly responsible for the success of the rescue operation and were further responsible in ensuring the city of Mazar-e-Sharif did not fall back into enemy hands’. Major Martin himself stated of the award: ‘It is a tremendous honour. But I don’t consider myself a hero. I am not personally convinced that my actions warranted more than a pat on the back. I was just doing my job and our mission was accomplished.’

  For his actions at Qala-i-Janghi, Sam Brown was duly awarded the US Navy Cross, second only to the CGM, for bravery in combat (his full citation is quoted at the start of this book). Only a handful of Navy Crosses have been awarded since the Vietnam War. Sam Brown also received the Military Cross (MC) from the Queen, making him one of only a few US servicemen ever to have been decorated by Her Majesty. Tom Knight, the SBS soldier who fought alongside him in the rescue mission, was awarded a high gallantry medal.

  SBS Captain Lancer was also awarded a high gallantry medal for his actions at the fort. Stevie ‘Ruff’ Pouncer was awarded a mention in dispatches, although originally he had been nominated for an MC, and Sergeant Major Trent also received a mention in dispatches. Surprisingly, the other SBS soldiers received no British (or US) decorations for their actions at Qala-i-Janghi, though the siege of the fort remains one of the most highly decorated SBS missions, and one of the most extensively decorated missions in British special forces history.

  By the time the siege came to an end, the battle for Northern Afghanistan had already been won. Immediately afterwards, the SBS team around Mazar went back to providing security for the rebuilding of villages and schools in the region. But the fort battle had been the turning point for the UK special forces in Afghanistan. Just weeks earlier, they had received a hostile reception from the Afghan resistance. Af
ter Qala-i-Janghi, General Dostum sent a letter of thanks to Her Majesty’s Government for the SBS actions, and SBS units started getting the choicest missions. As one SBS soldier expresses it: ‘Qala-i-Janghi really put the SBS (and SAS) on the map in Afghanistan. It meant that UK special forces had arrived and been seen to arrive, and had been seen to mean business.’

  Several SBS soldiers question why they were left to deal with the Qala-i-Janghi uprising largely alone. Why were no UK or US special forces called in to reinforce the tiny group of soldiers trying to put down the uprising? Certainly, allied forces were overstretched in Afghanistan and many were deployed on far-distant operations. But to have had eight SBS soldiers deployed as the QRF for the whole of the Mazar region was certainly a risk-laden strategy.

  The battle for Qala-i-Janghi remains one of the most controversial events of the Afghan war. At the time of the uprising, sections of the media questioned how the putting down of the revolt could have resulted in the majority of the prisoners being killed. It led to an outcry in the newsrooms, accusations of a ‘massacre’, and calls for an inquiry. Under the headline THE CASTLE OF DEATH, this is how the UK’s Independent newspaper reported the uprising: ‘How did US and British special forces come to be involved in the massacre of at least 150 prisoners of war – and maybe as many as 400 – who should have been protected under the Geneva Convention? In terms of numbers, Qala-i-Janghi could be the worst massacre to have come to light since the US bombing began.’

  Months after the siege, the media continued to speculate as to the scale of the alleged war crimes that took place there. This is how the Globalvision News Network described the events. ‘After a couple of phone calls to the special forces, the “unlawfuls” [the prisoners] were shot with mortars, machine guns, tanks and, finally, aerial bombardment. Just to make sure no “unlawfuls” would get out of what was left of the ruins, grenades were thrown into the basement of the fort. Diesel fuel was poured into the basement and ignited.’ Frontline, an Indian news magazine, concluded: ‘The massacre of prisoners of war at the Qala-i-Janghi fort may be the incident that exposes the inflated claims being made for a war by the richest nation against the poorest in the world.’