The Shahikot Valley, which translates as the “Place of the King,” stretches some 9km in length and is some 5km wide at its widest point. It is composed of two distinct areas, the Lower and Upper Shahikot, which run roughly parallel to each other.
In the Lower Shahikot, several imposing mountains dominate the landscape; chief amongst them is Takur Ghar at the southeast end of the valley. Farther to the northeast is Tsapare Ghar, dominating the northern entrance to the valley. On the western side of the valley is Tergul (Tir Ghol) Ghar to the northwest, again looking down on the northern entrance, and Khosa Chinah to the south, dominating the southern approach.
During the 1980s, the valley had become a sanctuary for Afghan mujahideen and their foreign jihadist comrades fighting against the might of the Soviet Union. The valley was one of three key logistics hubs for the mujahideen during the 1980s. The famed Afghan authority Lester W. Grau has established that a mujahideen commander called Malawi Nasrullah Mansoor ran the logistics node in the valley and invited foreign jihadists travelling into Afghanistan to base themselves in the Lower Shahikot to fight their jihad against the Soviets.
Mansoor soon fortified the valley, digging trench systems and building caves and bunkers into the ridges, many of which would be put to deadly effect some 20 years later. After the withdrawal of the Soviets, Mansoor became a provincial governor before being assassinated in 1993. His pro-Taliban son took over the valley in the wake of his father’s death and was soon inviting the foreign fighters of Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda to use the Shahikot as a logistics base, in much the same fashion as his father had once done with the “Afghan Arabs” in the 1980s.
A map displaying the provinces and principal cities of Afghanistan in 2002. Of particular note is Paktia province to the east along the border with Pakistan showing the location of Gardez and Khowst, both central to the story of Takur Ghar (also note the distance from Bagram to the north). Also note Tarnak Farms, further to the south, in Zabol province. Tarnak Farms was both a former training camp for al-Qaeda and home to bin Laden, and a Coalition live-fire range where half of Captain Nate Self’s Rangers were training when the March 4 battle occurred.
The “Afghan Arabs” were a collection of Arabic volunteers who journeyed to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight jihad (“holy war”) against the Soviet invaders. Financed primarily by Saudi sheikhs, the “Afghan Arabs” eventually numbered some 30,000 fighters. Although disliked by many Afghan mujahideen, the “Afghan Arabs” assisted in eventually forcing the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the country.
Among these volunteers was a young Saudi millionaire, Usama bin Laden. Bin Laden established a guesthouse for foreign insurgents, which came to be known as al-Qaeda (“The Base”). From these humble beginnings he organized a personal force of “Afghan Arabs” who pledged fealty to the young Saudi. At the end of the Soviet–Afghan War, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia for a short time before being forced out by the Saudi Government, and moving on to Sudan.
Al-Qaeda and the jihadist networks developed further in Sudan and Yemen until eventually Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, after pressure from the American Government led to his expulsion from Sudan. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he found strong allies in the Taliban. The Taliban gained prominence in 1994, during the bitter civil war wracking the country. The Talibs (religious students) were led by Mullah Omar, a charismatic Pashtun who garnered much popular support due to his stance against the warlords and their opium trade.
With al-Qaeda’s assistance (bin Laden recruited a large “Afghan Arab” force known as Brigade 55 to fight against the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, or Shura Nazar), the Taliban won the civil war in 1996 and imposed their brutal interpretation of Sharia law. By this time, bin Laden and al-Qaeda had begun to export their fight to the “Far Enemy,” the United States, and its allies. Responsible for bombings in East Africa, Kuwait, and finally the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, al-Qaeda was fast becoming the principal asymmetrical threat to the West. The group cemented this reputation with the attack on September 11, 2001. After the terrorist hijackings, the United States asked the Taliban government to hand over bin Laden; they refused, and Operation Enduring Freedom was launched.
An iconic early image of Special Forces in Afghanistan riding into battle on horseback alongside their Afghan allies of the Northern Alliance. (DOD)