by Dalton Fury
It was our first meeting with the Northern Alliance fighters, and they were of all ages and already dressed in fresh U.S. camouflage shirts and fatigue pants, with many wearing sneakers. Since turbans were the trademark of the oppressive Taliban, they were forbidden to wear them and instead had on a camouflage hat or a traditional Afghan wool hat. Each carried an AK-47 assault rifle and had three thirty-round magazines.
The overloaded trucks struggled to start and then eased into convoy formation and inched out of the parking lot, axles already screaming under the enormous weight of supplies. We wondered if they were mechanically fit enough to make the long trip over uneven rock-strewn riverbeds and torn asphalt.
Not to worry, called out Billy, who was going along on the ride. Just another character-building opportunity. He rode away waving, with a big wide smile on his face. The next time I ran into Sir Billy would be in January 2004, when he was strollin’ and grinnin’ in Baghdad.
Our own convoy loaded up, a couple of large trucks carrying a thousand AK-47s and hundreds of pounds of ammunition, all from the CIA. Our soon-to-be hosts, the Eastern Alliance, were also customers now and wanted their share of supplies. Well, I thought, the more, the merrier. At least our friends would be well armed.
In about an hour, as the midmorning sun ducked behind dark clouds, we drove through the guarded gate of the CIA house and slipped into eastbound traffic, heading for Jalalabad.
We passed through two Northern Alliance checkpoints without incident, reached the edge of Kabul, and got onto the main highway to Jalalabad. First would come twenty miles of deeply potholed and uneven road, and it was hard to imagine how the road could get any worse. Then it did. After the pavement gave out, the next seventy miles would be rocky and rutted, hardened, dusty ground that kept our pace to a tortuous average of only ten to fifteen miles per hour.
The route was what happens to a road in twenty years of thundering Communist tank treads, exploding land mines, and Soviet artillery shelling, the fighting of the Taliban, the muhj and our warplanes. Beyond the damaged hardball, the road was light brown dirt covered by three or four inches of dust as fine as talcum powder. In the wake of every passing vehicle, the dust rose up and then settled again over the latest tire tread marks.
Every mile demonstrated that Afghanistan was truly a war-torn country. We drove by old Taliban outposts, empty barracks, and onetime motor pools that were littered with dozens of banged-up tanks and vehicles. American airpower had ensured they never made it out of the starting blocks. Soviet War-era armored vehicles differed from more recently destroyed Taliban armored vehicles only in the amount of rust on the hulls and carriages, and all of them were now derelicts.
We had not slept well before leaving Bagram, and though Ironhead was still driving our Toyota truck, even he would need to be spelled out at some point on this hellish road. I popped two speed pills to help stay alert.
A few hours east of Kabul, we stopped before reaching the chokepoint village of Sorubi. Adam Khan said it was planned that we meet a second Afghan security force there, which would safeguard the convoy through what he termed “the lawless land from Sorubi to Jalalabad.” Bands of thieves and bandits have raided that highway for centuries. We were not afraid of them, but staying in any one place too long while carrying valuable cargo invited unwanted trouble, and our mission was to go meet General Ali, not fight crooks along this sad stretch of road. The Afghan force didn’t show, and we pressed on without them.
Sorubi was a small village straight out of the Wild West. Fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the former prime minister and mujahideen commander, had controlled passage through the village for the previous decade. Everywhere we looked stood an armed man of fighting age, deeply tanned and curious, with piercing eyes that warned all strangers. When we came upon a half-dozen armed men on the road who were carrying four or five RPGs and assorted rifles, they looked us square in the eyes. Our presence didn’t bother them, and once we had passed, they began to climb a rocky outcrop, likely to one of the many ambush positions that had been successfully used by men just like them against the Soviets. After seeing this tough bunch, we not only wondered who they planned to ambush, but how in the world we would ever be able to distinguish friend from foe in this strange land.
We had just cleared the village when one of the large trucks in our convoy, which was hauling the heavy AK-47 crates, blew an axle. It was no surprise. Adam Khan took the initiative and directed an Afghan leader to commandeer an approaching large and brightly painted truck. An Eastern Alliance fighter yanked the driver from his seat and pulled him to the roadside, where Adam Khan stepped in and gave the man a wad of cash for his troubles.
With a dozen or so muhj, we went to work cross-loading the one hundred crates, each of which contained ten rifles, and several more large cardboard boxes holding load-bearing equipment, into the newly purchased vehicle. The Afghan convoy leader happened to finally notice that nobody was standing guard! He barked orders and waved his hands wildly until several young fighters obediently moved away and took up security positions by squatting down, placing the butts of their rifles on the ground between their legs, and staring out into the vast countryside.
The longer it took to cross-load the equipment, the more attention we drew from locals, who drifted out of the village to see what all the fuss was about. Some were allowed to approach and cautiously moved around, eyeballing us out of curiosity. Some were brave enough to shake hands. None accepted my offer of Redman chewing tobacco.
There was little danger, and no doubt existed about who was in charge. The Afghans in their new U.S. camouflage with their AK-47s had things well under control. After throwing the last few crates into the back of our Toyota and into Adam Khan’s pickup truck, we were back on the road again, heading into the “lawless land.”
For another seven hours or so, the convoy gained and lost thousands of feet in altitude. High in one mountain pass, a little boy with dirty feet and disheveled hair heard us coming before he saw us, and had already jumped into action. He scooped a small makeshift shovel’s worth of dirt and poured it into one of the hundreds of small potholes that characterized every turn of the switchback road. I am sure he thought himself to be a road repairman, and waited for passing vehicles in hopes of securing a small reward for saving the occupants from the heavy jolt of another reverse speed bump.
Dark had fallen by the time the torturous dirt road gave way to the smooth and fast asphalt highway on the western edge of the historic city of Jalalabad. Our opportunity to enjoy the level asphalt did not last long, because the lead vehicle of our convoy abruptly stopped in the middle of the road.
It was a place called Darunta, which was known in terrorism circles as the former site of one of bin Laden’s more sophisticated training camps. As we rolled to a stop, our rearview mirrors showed that some welcomers were banging on the driver’s-side door of one of the transport trucks and barking orders. A moment later, several more men stepped from the darkness, a few gripping small handheld radios and most of them armed. A few of the more hardened ones peered into our windows and things were getting pretty tense. We reached down and checked our weapons.
We had no way of knowing whether this was a friendly encounter, but if these guys were not our scheduled link-up with General Ali’s forces, we might be in trouble.
We were in the middle of fighters loyal to Ali’s rival, the fairly notorious Pashtun warlord Haji Zaman Ghamshareek, who would become very familiar to us all. [12] They tried to intimidate and threaten our drivers by telling them that Zaman controlled the whole city of Jalalabad, so the trucks and that valuable cargo were intended for him. In other words, they intended to hijack the convoy.
We were outnumbered roughly four to one and did not want to get into a scrap with men who might be our allies, so the quick-thinking Adam Khan pulled an ace out of his sleeve. He agreed to follow Zaman’s men into the city, because he had a good idea where General Ali’s people were located and the new convoy r
oute we had been ordered to take would drive us right by them.
We started up again and continued east for a mile or so to an intersection at a place called Du-Saraka, where two more pickup trucks loaded with a half-dozen armed men intercepted the convoy. Once again, we stopped.
This new force of gunmen approached Adam Khan, who filled them in on what was going on. The crew was led by Ali’s nephew, just a teenager, who simply went over and started beating on the guy in charge of Zaman’s group and yelling at him. The rest of Zaman’s people, so brave a few minutes before with a few truck drivers, scurried back into their vehicles like whipped puppies and sped away. In this part of the world, direct and forceful action speaks loud.
That left us with the correct welcoming party and the nephew, who said he would now escort us directly to meet General Ali. If the kid was such a badass, I could hardly wait to meet his uncle.
After a few more checkpoints, we reached Ali’s quarters in the middle of the city and pulled into a walled compound. An Afghan guard directed us specifically where to park, as if we were arriving at a crowded theme park. The two-story tan house was much more upscale than we had imagined. Guards were dutifully posted along the ten-foot-high walls and the building’s rooftops to keep the general and his guests safe, perhaps not so much from the Taliban, which was no longer in power, as from rival tribes.
Inside the walls sprawled an uncanny contradiction to the rest of the town. The yard was well landscaped and manicured. Blooming pink and red flowers hung in large flowerpots from the window ledges, and nothing seemed out of place. Whoever was in charge of Ali’s security was doing a fine job. So was his gardener.
Our bones, backs, and butts were happy to get out of the trucks after the long and grinding ride. One of Colonel Sutter’s men, Manny, was waiting in the parking area and took us inside. He had been one of the first Delta operators in the country after 9/11, and now sported a thick black beard and long hair. He accompanied the CIA team that occupied Bagram Air Base during the Northern Alliance advance toward Kabul, and when the capital city fell, he moved in to scout the city and provided valuable information to our higher headquarters. Manny knew his stuff.
He took us inside and introduced us to a few of the CIA fellows before saying that we wouldn’t be meeting the general as expected that evening, after all. Apparently, the general had been away all day at the front and was now a few kilometers from the battle line. With him was the forward CIA field commander, a veteran operative named George, who was Gary Berntsen’s deputy.
Manny filled us in on current information. An American bomber had inadvertently struck a small town near the mountains called Pachier Agam, which just happened to be next door to the small village of Kolokhel, the general’s current location, and a place where we were soon to go. The locals were not expected to be keen on foreign visitors for a while.
Part of an A Team of fourteen Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was also at General Ali’s headquarters. They bore the code name Cobra 25, and had entered Afghanistan from Uzbekistan.
The previous day, six of them had attempted to infil to an observation post near the front lines but pulled back after running into a firefight between Ali’s men and al Qaeda. They now were awaiting insertion to an OP several kilometers short of the front lines, and once established, they would become Observation Post Cobra 25-A. That was verbally shortened to OP25-A, and was a place that would loom large in the coming action.
The rest of the Green Berets were prepping to infil farther to the west, and would be called OP Cobra 25-B.
There was a serious internal struggle going on between the Americans. The Green Beret commander, Task Force Dagger’s colonel Mulholland, who had been initially reluctant to commit any of his Green Berets to assist General Ali, apparently was still unconvinced. [13] He had been burned before by unreliable warlords.
A few weeks earlier, Colonel Mulholland had reviewed the CIA plan to go after bin Laden in the mountains and declared it was “flawed” and wanting on several counts. With no ability to evacuate casualties by air, winter growing worse by the day, no American quickreaction force, and the prospects of a treacherous uphill slugfest-and working with a warlord who had not yet been vetted-the Task Force Dagger commander opted to pass until the CIA could present better intelligence. And who could blame a prudent commander for deciding not to risk his men against a well-prepared defense while supported only by an indigenous force of unknown reliability and quality?
Mulholland was also fully aware that the Soviets had failed to take Tora Bora. If the estimated enemy strength in the mountains today was valid, he could foresee a meat-grinder fight awaiting American forces.
Given his initial resistance, and with no other American troops available, Berntsen and Sutter adjusted their plans. The only choice remaining was to look internal, to pool their resources and retask the missions to their own people.
Both believed strongly that bin Laden was in Tora Bora and that to not act quickly would border on negligence, would be irresponsible and practically criminal. The experienced field commanders felt that not grasping the opportunity smacked too much of the slow-moving pre-9/11 culture that both the intelligence and special operations community had sucked down year after year.
They agreed with Mulholland that the risk was extremely high; they just were not going to take no for an answer.
After considering their options, which were not many, Berntsen and Sutter picked four of their best operators and sent them out to locate and kill as many al Qaeda forces as they could. And if they could develop the picture a little more, and maybe prove for sure that al Qaeda had in fact taken up refuge in Tora Bora, then perhaps Mulholland or Central Command might be more willing to commit some muscle.
On December 4, Berntsen and Sutter’s men took several donkeys and a half-dozen Afghan guides and reached their first observation post in the Spin Ghar Mountains. Brought together by the unpredictability of warfare, this small team consisted of a quiet and deadly Delta operator code-named Warf, an air force special tactics combat controller named Joe, a skilled CIA paramilitary operative, and a second CIA guy who was a former Army Ranger and Delta operator. Within hours, they confirmed a large presence of al Qaeda in the small village of Milawa, tucked deep in the mountains, and the killing began.
For the next several days, their “Victor Bravo Zero Two” call sign was summoning the pilots of inbound bombers and fighters looking to make their underbelly loads useful. The team went without sleep for fiftysix hours straight, and was the first to spot and direct ordnance on bin Laden’s purported location.
I am certain they were thinking, Where in the world is the rest of the army?
They did their job in spectacular fashion, made believers out of CENTCOM, and generated enough pressure on Task Force Dagger for Mulholland to commit an A Team. However, Mulholland still was not ready to give the team outright authority to seek out and destroy the enemy face-to-face. Instead, the Green Berets of Cobra 25 went into Tora Bora with strict orders-“NO MANEUVER, TGO ONLY.”
TGO meant “terminal guidance operations.” They essentially were to establish a static observation post from which they could control aircraft and drop bombs. That constraint did not sit well with a bunch of warriors and specialists like the Green Berets.
Mulholland also required his men to follow a strict interpretation of the law of land warfare by wearing U.S. military uniforms, ostensibly to prevent friendly-fire incidents. As often happens when unrealistic demands are placed on independent-minded soldiers by a commander who is well removed from the skirmish lines, obedience becomes largely selective. The men from 5th Group determined that they could meet the intent of their commander’s orders by wearing U.S. desert tan uniform pants, but everything else came straight out of an Afghan wardrobe. They had to blend in to have any hope of success.
Manny reported that intelligence was saying that bin Laden’s second-incommand, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al
-Zawahiri, had been killed in a bombing raid in the mountains. A similar report came from British intelligence sources, which added an interesting interpretation.
Mohammed Atef, bin Laden’s military commander and numberthree man, was killed in Kabul several weeks earlier. Now with the number two, Dr. Zawahiri, also reportedly eliminated, the Brits assessed that the weakness in leadership would make bin Laden remain in the mountains and slug it out to the finish.
However, the CIA followed that British report with sharply contrasting news that Pakistan forces had detained an unknown number of al Qaeda foot soldiers who had fled the mountains and attempted to cross the border.
Interesting. So which was it? Why were some of the bin Laden fighters running for Pakistan if bin Laden himself was planning to stay in Tora Bora? Was he planning to make a valiant stand and fight to the finish against the invading Westerners, something reminiscent of how Muhammad, the seventh-century messenger of Allah, would have acted? Or were the reported foot soldiers captured crossing the border just scouting a possible escape route for the boss, so bin Laden could also attempt to flee, and live and fight another day?
We had no answer, but it indicated that we needed to move, and fast. We were growing anxious to get to the battlefield…but first we needed some sleep.
Our new accommodations were reminiscent of a college frat house, sans the smell of alcohol, the pounding of loud music, and the sharp crack of colliding pool balls. Besides the Green Berets, the current guests ranged from local Afghan fighters to cooks and housekeepers to your standard mix of commando types. Before we bedded down for a few hours, Manny gave us a morning departure time of 0700 hours.
