The Hazaras were of special interest to me. They spoke Dari so when I first learned that there were some of them with Shirzai, I was hopeful I could speak to them using my Farsi, a closely related language. I spoke Farsi at a professional level, however, meaning it was proper Farsi and was intended for an educated audience. The Hazaras with us were illiterate, backcountry people and spoke Dari with a thick colloquial accent. They called my Farsi “Khatab-e-Farsi” (book Farsi). In my attempts to converse with them, they seemed to understand me, but I could understand scarcely a word they said. They enjoyed our conversations, however, if their outbursts of laughter were any gauge.
That night as I watched the Hazaras march out of the compound to reinforce the line, I saw they had traded their cooking pots and utensils for grenades, AKs, and RPGs, which hung from them like pieces of industrial-sized jewelry. No longer cooks, they had transformed into formidable warriors.
The consensus opinion among the members of Foxtrot team was one of skepticism about the Taliban being able to pull off an attack. Still, our lines were vulnerable, and as a precaution I told everyone to start getting their gear together in case we had to abandon the village in extremis. Under this contingency, the plan was to fall back to the defensive position we had occupied the night before we had captured Takhteh-Pol.
As everyone started to go pack their rucksacks, John cautioned that the Afghans were watching, and if they got the idea that the Americans were getting ready to leave, it would weaken their determination to fight. He had a good point, so I modified the plan; we held off packing but made sure we could lay our hands on our gear quickly if we had to move.
Either the intelligence was bad, or the Taliban changed their minds, for there was no attack against Takhteh-Pol that night.
* * *
One day, the ODA got a message that their headquarters wanted to send to our location a Special Forces Command and Control Element (CCE) of 15 personnel commanded by a lieutenant colonel. Neither Hank nor myself thought it was a good idea for the same reasons that I had not wanted all five CIA paramilitary officers to join us. It just didn’t make sense. In the case of the CCE, what was there to command and control? In all of southern Afghanistan, there were only the two ODA’s co-located with Foxtrot and Echo teams, for a total of around 23 Special Forces personnel, and they were doing quite well on their own, thank you. Did they really require a headquarters element to supervise them? To bring that many people into tiny Takhteh-Pol would significantly increase the American presence, making a bigger bulls eye with no discernible mission benefit. With my support, Hank pushed back on the idea and the CCE did not come to Takhteh-Pol, but instead joined the ODA with Echo Team and Karzai.
* * *
Mark and I decided to drive out to the observation post on the bridge one morning. We cleared it with Hank, as that was his operational area, and I knew he did not want non-essential personnel hanging around the bridge while his ODA called in airstrikes. At the last minute, one of Shirzai’s senior advisors, who we referred to as “Engineer Pashtun,” joined us. He mentioned he had to be back in Takhteh-Pol in a couple hours to be present at a meeting with some local tribal elders that Shirzai was hosting. I told him we would get him back in time.
We made the drive on Highway 4 crossing a wide expanse of desert terrain that gently sloped to the bridge over the Arghastan River. The highway was severely deteriorated and most of the way it was simply a dirt road, so movement was slow. Upon arrival at the observation post, we watched as high flying jets were vectored in to drop their bombs on designated targets around the airport complex. I could see a small force of Shirzai’s fighters driving forward toward the airfield in pickup trucks. They parked and dismounted the pickups and continued forward on foot to probe the al-Qa’ida defenses. They were a considerable distance away from the bridge, perhaps 1,000 meters or more, but close enough to see without the aid of binoculars. Aircraft were circling overhead ready to provide close air support.
Suddenly, the Afghans began to withdraw, appearing to take fire from unseen enemy positions. The ODA combat controller kneeling on the ground beside us called for close air support to protect their retreat. He craned his neck to look up at the incoming attacking jet.
“No, this is wrong. That bird ain’t tracking right,” he said.
The jet let loose with machinegun fire and the rounds began chewing up the ground around the Afghan fighters and the pickups.
“Abort, abort, those are friendlies!” he told the attacking aircraft.
We were thinking the worst—that there would be casualties—but we lucked out, or the Afghans lucked out. Miraculously, no one was hit.
After spending a little more time at the bridge I told Mark and Engineer Pashtun that we needed to get back if he was going to make his meeting. As we prepared to leave, the observation post received word from the Afghans that they suspected the enemy might be planning to mount an attack. We waited for a while but could see nothing from our position to help assess the situation. I thought it was unlikely that al-Qa’ida would attempt a direct attack against the bridge as it was broad daylight, generally open terrain, and aircraft were already on station striking targets. I was more concerned that on our return trip our one-pickup convoy would be vulnerable should there actually be an enemy force maneuvering in the area. I told Mark and Engineer Pashtun that we had better get going, and we loaded up and headed back to the village. It was an uneventful trip back to Takhteh-Pol, and we arrived in time for Engineer Pashtun to make his meeting with Shirzai and the local leaders.
Later, Mark approached me and said that he was worried that we could have lost credibility with the ODA by not staying at the bridge given the report of a possible attack. I had not considered it from that perspective at the time, but he had a point. I felt badly that I had not thought about it before if it might have put us in a bad light with the ODA. Although no attack on the bridge occurred, it was a mistake on my part all the same.
* * *
Occasionally, Shirzai’s fighters found documents on the bodies of Taliban and al-Qa’ida that had been killed in the bombings or in the firefights that sometimes took place. These were passed on to us for reporting to Headquarters. One day we received a batch of around 15 passports collected from the dead, which was a higher number than usual. In addition to the passports, there were passport-sized photographs of the deceased. It was evident from the photographs that the men were trying to change their appearance from the photos in their passports. Some had shaved their beards or changed their hairstyle, or in some cases, put on or taken off a pair of glasses. My assumption was this had been done in anticipation of using the photographs to obtain other identity documents under false names.
Probably half of the dead were holders of Turkish passports, the others were Saudis or Yeminis, and a couple of them were from Morocco. I was surprised at how young the men were, most no more than their early 20’s. As I typed up the identifying data taken from the passports and looked at the photographs of the young men, I wondered about the thought process they went through to arrive at a decision to leave their homelands to come to Afghanistan to fight, and in their cases, to die. They certainly didn’t look like fanatic religious ideologues. I suspected some of them had no idea of what they were getting into.
30
Lightning Strikes—Twice
It WAS THE 4TH of December, and John and I were sitting in the compound courtyard on director-style camp chairs, basking in the late afternoon sunshine. John was on a satellite phone talking to Headquarters, while I was taking the opportunity to relax. It was such pleasant weather and the thought occurred to me that if this was a “normal country,” people might come stay here for a winter haven. The thought quickly passed as the sounds of more bombing of the airport intruded on my musings.
As John continued his phone conversation, I noticed an unusual little hissing noise mixed in with the sounds of the distant bomb explosions. Hmm, I’ve never heard that before. Then KABOOM! A powerful ex
plosion erupted a couple hundred meters outside the south side of the compound wall. Several other equally powerful explosions followed in rapid succession. John and I jumped up out of our chairs and looked at each other, eyes wide. Like a scene from a movie, John yelled into the phone, “Got to go. We’ve got incoming! . . . Yeah, really, incoming!”
“Those were rockets, six in total,” he said to me.
With 20 years in Delta Force behind him, plus his having been rocketed once during the first Gulf War, I took his word for it. I was amazed that he had kept count.
A few seconds later, we heard the now not-so-funny hissing noise again. We had no foxholes to dive into and the mud house we lived in wasn’t going to provide any protection either, even if we could get there in time—which we couldn’t. So we just stood there, looking at each other, and I wondered if John’s face would be the last thing I would see on this earth. For a lot of reasons, I hoped not.
Once again a volley of six jolting explosions rocked the compound in rapid succession. This time the rockets had flown over us hitting a couple hundred meters to the east, indicating the gunners were adjusting their fire as they tried to bracket our position.
As we waited to see if there would be any more rounds, across the compound Mark stepped out from Shirzai’s headquarters building, stood at the top of the concrete steps, and shouted to no one in particular.
“I’ve been shot at and missed, and I am not putting up with any more bullshit for the rest of my life!” He then turned and walked back inside the building.
Mark’s outburst was reminiscent of Churchill’s statement that “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” If “exhilarating” included learning precisely where the pit of your stomach was located, then Churchill and I were in complete agreement.
But I had another insight on the failed attempt on our lives: Total strangers have just tried to kill me. Twice. They don’t even know me, that I’m really a good guy, and that I have friends and family who love me. It doesn’t matter to them. They just want me dead.
Up to that moment I thought I already understood that about the enemy, but the rockets had taken that abstract thinking and made it concrete and tangible. A moment of clarity had come. Their trying to kill me wasn’t personal. It was the opposite: it was completely impersonal.
The artillery rockets also taught me something else: that my equating those rockets with lightning was an accurate analogy, though with one major difference. They don’t come out of nowhere—they have a return address.
Almost immediately after the second round of rockets, a report came in from a perimeter lookout who saw the rocket launch site in a small valley. The ODA called for an immediate air strike. As chance would have it, a B-52 was already inbound for a bombing run on Kandahar, and it was only a couple of minutes out. It was diverted and dropped its payload on the rocket launcher. The entire area was turned upside down by the strike. They had fired 12 rockets at us, and we almost instantaneously hit them with an arc light strike. That had to be demoralizing for the enemy.
Before dark a detail went out and searched the area where the rockets hit. They found the motors for the rockets, which enabled us to identify them as 122mm caliber. It was also discovered that the ordnance that had been taken out of our compound and moved to a “safer” place when we first moved in had actually been stacked up against the back wall of the house Foxtrot occupied. Had one of the rockets impacted the pile of ordnance, it would not have gone well for any of us.
We thought we were done with the rocket attacks but the next morning a single rocket struck at us. It impacted 800 to 1,000 meters to the north, kicking up a plume of dust. We learned later that a patrolling jet had spotted the offending mobile rocket launcher and destroyed it with a missile strike.
31
Friendly Fire
The DAY AFTER THE rocket attack on Takhteh-Pol, a message came in advising that Echo team’s location had been hit. Three Americans were dead and many others wounded. Two of the dead were members of ODA 574, and a third was from the Special Forces Command and Control Element that had planned to come to Takhteh-Pol, and only recently joined Echo team. Miraculously, no CIA officers from Echo team were killed or injured, but dozens of Hamid Karzai’s fighters were, and Karzai himself was slightly wounded.
The initial report said that it was a car bomb attack. Later, we received clarification that it was a U.S. Air Force 500 lb. J-DAM that was dropped directly on the ODA’S observation post. The deadly mistake was due to a procedural error made by one of the members of the SF CCE who was directing the air strikes.
The news of the deaths and injuries stabbed at my heart. I immediately thought of the ODA members I had gotten to know in Jacobabad when I was with Echo team. Among the wounded were Jason, the team leader, and Mag, the intel sergeant, who received a severe head injury. The two dead from the ODA included a young sergeant referred to as “JD” who I did not have the chance to get to know very well, and Dan, the team sergeant. Dan had joined the team at the last minute, just before it had departed from Jacobabad and the only contact I had with him was to shake his hand when we were introduced upon his arrival.
I pictured the guys on Echo team who had escaped the fate of the ODA but who, nonetheless, had to be living through a nightmare. I remembered the day I last saw them, loading their gear in preparation for their infiltration into Afghanistan, and how intensely proud I had felt. Should I have had an inkling that such an enormous tragedy was going to befall them, I think my heart would have burst.
I also had to consider what would have happened if the CCE had come to Foxtrot’s location instead of joining Echo team. All those men who were killed and wounded would still have been alive and well. But would the same mistake have been made at our observation post, and would some of the living among us now be dead or wounded? These were imponderable questions, but they nagged at me. I was not keeping a diary, but if I had been I would have written: Impersonal and random. These are two things I have learned are true about war.
* * *
Back at home, while preparing to go to work my wife heard the news report of the American deaths and injuries in southern Afghanistan. Believing that there was only one team of Americans in the south, she assumed I was with that team, and she feared I may have been among the casualties. She immediately got in touch with a point of contact at CIA who assured that I was safe and had not been with the team.
32
Kandahar
On DECEMBER 6TH, GUESTS from Great Britain arrived at our compound. It was a Royal Navy detachment that brought with them two Land Rovers equipped with heavy machine guns. I was partial to Land Rovers, having owned one in the past. I liked the look of the sturdy vehicles, bristling with their mounted machine guns, parked in our little compound. As I looked out past the Land Rovers at the miles and miles of dehydrated terrain I found some irony in the fact that our entourage included both U.S. Navy SEALs and Royal Navy personnel. I was happy to have them “on board,” all the same.
Over the next couple of days it became apparent that our bombing and probes at the airport were paying off, as we could observe less and less activity there. Karzai was at the same time trying to negotiate a surrender of the Taliban. While we were hopeful that the end was near, we were receiving reports that the Taliban and al-Qa’ida were taking advantage of the negotiations and using the time to secretly flee Kandahar or otherwise melt into the local populace. The only thing we knew for sure about the enemy was that he wasn’t stacking arms and turning himself in, so we proceeded accordingly.
In an effort to find out what exactly was the situation in the city of Kandahar, Shirzai sent in a recon party to check it out. Pat, dressed in Afghan garb, accompanied them. In downtown Kandahar, they made it into the Governor’s Palace, which the Taliban and al-Qa’ida had been using as a headquarters, and discovered it was abandoned. Learning this, Shirzai told me that he wanted to move into Kandahar the next day.
Neither Han
k nor I could see any tactical reason to delay going in, although in my reading between the lines of Headquarters cables, my sense was that their preference was for Karzai to enter the city first, probably for political reasons. The problem was that Karzai’s forces had just taken a major hit with the errant bombing, and it was not clear just how quickly they would be able to move down to Kandahar. It reminded me a bit of the question of who would enter Paris first during War World II, General Patton or Field Marshal Montgomery. I did not see it as a competition between Karzai and Shirzai—and by extension Echo and Foxtrot teams—but I did believe that both forces and their respective teams should try to enter the city as soon as possible. The sooner we were in Kandahar, the sooner we could begin our hunt for al-Qa’ida and related time-sensitive intelligence. To my mind, this trumped any other consideration.
Late that evening as we prepared our gear for the next morning’s move, we received intelligence reporting that indicated Taliban leader Mullah Omar planned to escape from Kandahar sometime that night. Headquarters requested that we be on the lookout for a convoy trying to get through our lines. Shirzai sent word out to his fighters to be on the alert, but the night passed without incident.
The next morning, as we loaded our gear into the pickups for our movement into Kandahar, a follow-on request related to Mullah Omar came in. A convoy had been spotted from the air during the night about 20 kilometers from Takhteh-Pol. It was bombed and destroyed, and Foxtrot was tasked to go check it out and see if any of the bodies were that of Mullah Omar. The cable specified that no U.S. military personnel could be involved in the operation. I was not clear why there was a restriction, but I suspected it was due to legal restraints related to the Title 50 and Title 10 authorities. As we did not want to delay our arrival at Kandahar any longer, I asked John to take a security force of Shirzai’s fighters and go locate the destroyed convoy to see if Mullah Omar was among the dead, and then join us in Kandahar at the Governor’s Palace. We also decided to leave a presence of fighters in Takhteh-Pol in case the situation in Kandahar proved to be untenable and we needed to withdraw.
Foxtrot in Kandahar Page 14
