Hunt for Bin Laden Task Force Dagger

CHAPTER 1 The Tiger Roars "On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaida terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime." -President George W. Bush, address to the nation, October 7, 2001 Darye Suf Valley, northern Afghanistan November 5, 2001 Late morning It was dawn when the two dark matte-green Special Operations MH-47 Chinook helicopters landed on the alien moonscape of the Darye Suf Valley floor in northern Afghanistan. One dropped off half of the twelve-man A-Team that would be known as TIGER 02. The other held the quick-reaction force (QRF) that would be needed if the insertion turned out to be hot. Flaring out above the desert sands, the long, fat chopper reduced the power to its rear rotor blades and brought its nose slightly up. Thick, coarse sand blacked out the windshield's view as the Green Berets on board checked the magazines on their weapons, made sure a round was chambered, and took off their safeties. The first two ran off the tailgate and took up security positions in the sand as the others threw off their rucksacks and bags of equipment. A fine-tuned killing machine had just been inserted into northern Afghanistan, and the prey would be Osama bin Laden and his terrorists. Once the twelve Green Berets touched down, Captain Mark Nutsch, the team leader, had his team sergeant, Paul Evans, split the A-Team in half once again. Six of the twelve-man team separated into two three-man close air support teams. Close air support, also known as CAS, or "calling air strikes," would be one of the key components in fewer than four hundred Green Berets winning the war in Afghanistan in just under six months. In fact, in the first ninety days of the war, there were fewer than 120 Green Berets on the ground, fighting a Taliban and al-Qaida (AQ) army composed of tens of thousands of hardened "holy warriors." Nutsch and Evans had been assigned in early October to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Northern Alliance warlord commanding the troops who would bear the brunt of the fighting. The young captain and the tough master sergeant were preparing to advise and assist Dostum in taking back the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif before Christmas, when the Afghan winter would turn its worst. The Taliban forces were arrayed against the Northern Alliance in vastly superior numbers, and they held defensive posts all along Dostum's intended route of attack. General Dostum was a big man, over six feet tall, and ethnically, he was Uzbek. He had been trained by the Soviet Army to fight against the Afghans, but defected after becoming disenchanted with the Soviets' methods. Dostum spoke almost no Arabic, but communicated in a smattering of Dari, Russian, and Uzbek. He was viewed by his enemies as a brutal military commander, with an intense hatred of Islamic fundamentalists that was documented back to the 1980s, before the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan. With his crew-cut graying hair, barrel chest, and imposing presence, Dostum was a gregarious commander who had changed sides many times. As the press spent their time hypothesizing about America's tactics, the Green Berets laughed at the notion that the war would take a hiatus during the terrible Afghan winter and, of course, Ramadan, the Muslim month-long period of fasting, contemplation, and prayer. So did their ultimate commander, President George W. Bush. Two Air Force personnel were assigned to each of the Special Forces' twelve-man A-Teams, after Green Berets were already on the ground. The Air Force combat controllers were experts at calling in air strikes and performing air tMoore, Robin is the author of 'Hunt for Bin Laden Task Force Dagger' with ISBN 9780375508615 and ISBN 0375508619.