With the New Year came the continuing deployment of 30,000 additional US troops, 9,000 of these to be in place by the end of March and another 18,000 by June. When completed in August, the total would be approximately 98,000 US forces in Afghanistan. NATO and allied countries pledged over 9,000 additional troops, for a coalition total of about 150,000 personnel.1
Along with the increase in troops and US Special Operations Forces in country, General McChrystal requested the CIA to increase the number of Special Activities Division (SAD) paramilitary officers. In Iraq the combination of SOF and SAD teams had been deemed the key to the success of the surge.
ISAF headquarters identified 80 Afghan districts as “key terrain,” with another 41 being designated as “Areas of Interest.” These were areas of concentrated population and high economic importance, whose stabilization would be the primary focus of ISAF operations.2
There were changes on the political front, too. On January 28 an International Conference on Afghanistan was held in London to discuss a new course for the future of the country.3 Attending the conference was Afghan president Hamid Karzai, the Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Spanta, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, UN envoy Kai Eide, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, the former Afghan Minister of Finance Ashraf Ghani, and the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Other attendees included senior representatives and foreign ministers from more than 70 countries as well as members of international organizations.
One purpose of the conference was to formulate plans for transferring responsibility for security from ISAF and NATO to Afghan forces province by province over the next five years, with Afghan forces securing the most volatile provinces within three years.4
To accomplish this, in January 2010 the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, the formal decision-making body for Afghan and international coordination, endorsed increasing the growth target for the ANA to 134,000 by October 2010 and171,600 by October 2011. It also endorsed the growth target for the ANP to 109,000 by October 2010 and to 134,000 by October 2011 through expansion of training facilities and increased use of contractors to carry out training.5
Operation Moshtarak (Dari for “Together”), the first major operation of the year, was launched on February 13. The attack force consisted of 8,000 Afghan national security force personnel and 7,000 RC-South units including US, UK, Canadian, Danish, and Estonian forces with a total of 33 coalition nations providing aviation support. Afghan forces consisted of six ANA Kandak battalions, two special commando kandaks, and approximately 1,000 Afghan gendarmerie (ANCOP, special police force nationally recruited).
Also, approximately 1,000 new ANP were inserted into Nad Ali and Marjah once the “Hold” phase of the operation started to become effective. Intelligence estimates on Taliban strength ran from as low as 400 upward to 2,000.
One of the main objectives was to gain control of the Marjah, the center for most of the world’s opium, which had been controlled by the Taliban and drug lords for many years.6 In a briefing on February 18, British Major General Nick Carter, commander of NATO-ISAF Regional Command South, indicated that they expected it to take 25–30 days to complete the military objectives, and another six months to judge the overall success in wresting control of the region from the Taliban. Unlike on previous occasions, following active combat operations ISAF and Afghan military and police forces would remain to provide security for the population, the governmental administration, and those undertaking the economic reconstruction of the region. If operations went as expected, it was anticipated that within the next six months a similar effort would be undertaken in neighboring Kandahar province. The operation was scheduled to last until December 2010.7, 8, 9
The Marines of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division were part of the initial air assault on February 9.10 “I felt the assault went well,” said Captain Stephan P. Karabin, commanding officer of Charlie Company, 1/3. “We got in here quickly, under the cover of darkness on the helicopters, moved into position, set everything in place and were able to seize the objective. This area is important because it’s the one intersection which links northern Marjeh … to [eastern Helmand province] and it blocks that supply route. The Five Points intersection and surrounding area is also part of the main route from Marjeh to Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital.”
The Taliban reacted quickly and began firing machine guns at the assault teams. Marines and ANA soldiers fired back with heavy machine guns, rockets, and small-arms fire, wounding and killing several Taliban fighters, forcing them to retreat.
“While we were reinforcing our position on a roof, we came under fire again,” said Sergeant Stephen Y. Roberts, Weapons Platoon, Charlie Company, “It was three or four of the same fighters we had seen firing at us earlier.”
Roberts responded to the enemy machine-gun fire by launching a Javelin shoulder-fired missile into the position the fighters were firing from, immediately silencing the heavy machine gun. Marine AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters flying over the area followed Roberts’ fire to strike with a volley of cannon fire and rockets, putting an end to the engagement.
Five days later Charlie Company finished construction of a new COP and christened it Combat Outpost Reilly, in honor of Lance Corporal Thomas J. Reilly Jr., the only Marine from 1/3 killed in action during the battalion’s deployment to Karmah, Iraq, in 2009.
The COP was built near a key intersection Marines called “Five Points,” a junction of major roads connecting northern Marjah with eastern Helmand province. Marines of Charlie Company conducted a helicopter-borne assault to seize Five Points and the surrounding area on February 9, days before Operation Moshtarak began in Marjah. “We pushed west along Route Olympia and cleared the way for Bravo Company on the ground, clearing IEDs, and bridging gaps to get them out to Five Points,” said Lieutenant Justin P. Murphy, Combat Engineers platoon commander, 1/3.
Approximately 300 Marines and Afghan security forces air assaulted into Marjah, under the hours of darkness on February 13. Twelve UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters and CH-47F Chinook helicopters, command-and-control helicopters, and aerial security provided by AH-64 Apache helicopters from TF Pegasus facilitated the air assault of Kilo Company, 3/6 Marines, in seizing their objective area.
“Protected by Apache air weapons teams, the Marines and their partnered Afghan security forces quickly began moving to their initial objective, seizing key terrain and preparing to link up with their parent headquarters scheduled to begin a ground assault into Marjah [mere hours after the air assault],” according to 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade commander, Colonel Paul Bricker.
Shortly after the Marine insertion, additional TF Pegasus aviation assets concurrently assisted a coalition air assault into nearby objective areas in Nad Ali. Task Force Pegasus’s 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment (TF Wolfpack), was one of three rotary wing aviation units involved in the operation in support of the Royal Air Force TF Jaguar’s No. 903 Expeditionary Air Wing Sea King Surveillance and Control helicopters.
On February 18 the Afghan national flag was raised over Marjah’s bazaar, marking the conclusion of the heaviest fighting. Having lost control of the city, the insurgents turned to IEDs, sniping, and intimidation as a means of continuing the battle, all of which undermined the Afghan government’s control.
Ironically, with the center of opium production now in friendly hands, the Marines were ordered to avoid damaging the poppy crop since this was the main source of income for two thirds of the local population. Officially, Operation Moshtarak continued through December, at which time US casualties were 45 killed, UK casualties were 13, and ANA over 15. In exchange, intelligence estimated that 120 Taliban had been killed.
USAF Major Robert Lee, an F-15E pilot, flew CAS for the operation:
We were right in the thick of it. More generally our squadron was supporting the operation in Marjah when they said we were going to plus up troops and go through Marjah. A lot of us were involved in supporting that and of course, that’s always a pretty good feeling because it went off relatively successfully without a whole lot of trouble. That was pretty good. I think the most rewarding event wasn’t necessarily a specific mission. As we were redeploying to come home, we were in the staging area just basically waiting for the planes, and of course it’s not specifically a USAF transport ride home; you’re going to be going with whoever needs to be going from the AOR to home.
There were some Army guys there and we just started talking with them because we had hours to wait. They said, “Oh, yeah. You guys were the Strike Eagle guys. You went by ‘Dude’ call sign. We remember you guys. You did some great work for us.” They told us some stories from their perspective, on how it was just great to hear the Strike Eagles show up and drop munitions.
They said, “One time you dropped a 2,000lb bomb on the hill and it made this huge explosion. We all had to get down.” They just had some great stories and they were thankful for all the work we’d done over the past four and a half or five months. I think that was probably the best way you could ever leave; for the guys you’ve been supporting to come and say, “Hey, I know who you are,” maybe not specifically you but, “It was the ‘Dude’ call signs, the Strike Eagles, the 15Es that we loved to hear overhead.” They had some great stories and they even had some pictures.11
After more than eight years of war, ISAF and ANSF had yet to gain complete control of Kandahar province and the city of Kandahar. Operation Omaid’s (“hope”) objective was to change the situation. It was also a key part of General McChrystal’s strategy to reverse the Taliban’s momentum in RC-South.
It was the largest operation in Kandahar province to date, and consisted of two major offensives, one covering the Panjwayi and Zheray districts, located next to each other, while the second concentrated on the Arghandab district located north of Kandahar. The combined offensives were to clear Taliban forces from major population centers and extend government into the cleared areas consistent with the COIN “shape, clear, hold, and build” strategy.
According to James Appathurai, NATO’s chief spokesman, Operation Omaid was not about killing Taliban fighters. “It is about protecting the population, about changing the political culture and perception. Kandahar is, from the psychological and communications point of view, the heartland of the Taliban,” he said. “The biggest problem in Afghanistan is not the Taliban, but the lack of strong governance and the delivery of services.”12 A nonmilitary priority objective of the operation was to eliminate bribery and corruption in the city, an almost impossible task in and of itself.
Unlike previous operations, information about this was published in advance, which led to a series of deadly Taliban-led bombings in Kandahar on March 13. Countering the Taliban pre-operation offensive, coalition and Afghan forces secured key routes in the province, and as many as 70 significant Taliban commanders were seized or killed ahead of the operation.
The operation was not universally greeted with enthusiasm. “Operation Omaid will bring more insecurity, instead of peace,” said Salaam, who lives in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province. “We have just seen that the opposition has accelerated its attacks. There are more and more explosions in the province. You cannot bring peace through war.”13
Launched on March 30, operations started with approximately 8,000 coalition troops and 12,000 ANSF troops and police. Since the operation was planned to extend for several months, coalition strength was to increase by 3,000 in June by adding a US brigade. The operation was timed to be completed shortly before Ramadan started on August 11. No casualty figures were posted when the operation ended.
Operations in RC-South following Operation Omaid remained focused primarily on Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Operation Hamkari (Dari for “cooperation”) in Kandahar began on May 11 and was to run through December.
Major General James L. Terry, Regional Command South commander, summed up the mission this way: “I think we all realize it takes more than knives and guns in this counterinsurgency campaign. It really requires that governance and development aspect that’s out there.” But knives and guns were still needed to gain control of some Kandahar districts. The Australian SASR and 2nd Commando Regiment, along with ANA forces backed by US helicopters, fought a three-day battle in Shah Wali Kot. No coalition forces were lost in this engagement, but on 21 June three Australian commandos were killed when a US UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed in northern Kandahar province. One of the UH-60 crew chiefs also died, while another seven Australians and a US crewman were seriously injured.
Over in Helmand province, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, in partnership with the ANA, established an observation post in support of Operation New Dawn in Southern Shorshork on June 17.
“We’re going to be conducting patrols, vehicle checkpoints and looking at the population, making sure there aren’t people from out of the area coming in and causing harm or issues for the local people,” said Captain Luke Pernotto, L Company commander and commander for 3/3’s ground force in Operation New Dawn.14
We want to make sure enemy forces can’t be reinforced, and don’t fall back to regroup in this area. We’ve made extreme progress in Nawa, and to have it all go to waste, especially when we’re doing our last bit of clean-up in the Trek Nawa area, would be a shame. We’re essentially on the line where the desert ends and cultivation and civilization begins. Once the population realizes that a lot of their fears are unwarranted and we really are here to help them, that’s when we can begin to work with them and show that the government of Afghanistan, along with the partnership of the Marines, are here to help them and are here to make their lives better.15
Up in RC-East, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, along with ANA and ANP units, launched Operation Strong Eagle on June 27 to take the village of Daridam in the Marawara District, Kunar province. There was a strong insurgent force in the Ghaki Valley, which had occupied local villages and threatened government centers in the district. The plan was to take Daridam, which would block the insurgent advance and eliminate the top commander, Qari Zia ur Rahman, holed up in Chinar, the next village over.
The operation began with an air assault on three peaks along the main road. However, the Taliban retained control of the key ridge overlooking the road and had fortified the village. Headquarters Company Captain Steven Weber and his men staged at the Marawara District Center at the entrance to the Ghaki Valley. Lieutenant Stephen Tangen and 15 men from Headquarters Company, 1st Platoon, along with 60 Afghan soldiers, would lead Weber’s armored vehicles up the valley road on foot, while 1st Lieutenant Doug Jones’ 2nd Platoon, teamed up with ABP, walked the ridgeline to the north.
As five ANA troops neared a tree at a bend in the road, the Taliban opened fire from three different ridges. One Afghan soldier was killed and the others wounded. Tangen and his men headed for the tree to reinforce the Afghans. One of Tangen’s men, machine gunner Private Stephen Palu, was shot in his arm and leg. “At least we had a little bit of cover,” said Specialist Adam Schwichtenberg, a squad point man. “The ANA were pinned down at the tree.”
The unit’s armored vehicles pushed forward to lend their firepower and provide protection. Staff Sergeant Eric Shaw, one of Tangen’s squad leaders, ran up to alert the Afghan soldiers that they were stopping and to find cover. As Shaw maneuvered back behind the truck where Tangen was standing, a bullet found its way under his helmet, shattering his face and killing him instantly.
“There is no way to train for a squad leader that you spent a year of your life with to receive a gunshot wound to his head and die right in front of you,” Tangen said. “There is no way to prepare his squad for that… You have to keep moving.”
On the road, air support helped suppress the insurgent fire, allowing the men to evacuate their dead and wounded. But the Afghan soldiers had had enough. As the wounded were evacuated, the rest of the Afghans retreated with them.
Up on the ridgelines, men of 2nd Platoon looked on as the battle unfolded below them, too far away for them to effectively contribute. “We saw RPGs hitting Shelton’s vehicle,” Schwichtenberg said. “We saw smoke everywhere. They were down there getting whupped.”
Across the road on the other ridge, Lieutenant Doug Jones divided the 2nd Platoon into two groups to engage several enemy positions. One group took shelter in a small compound a few hundred yards from where the insurgents were dug in. The other group took position behind a wall in the roofless ruins of an old building about 50 yards away. Jones’ men battled on the ridge, several men surviving by a hair’s breadth. Private Jeremy Impiccini had a bullet come straight for him, but it hit the magazine casing in his bullet pouch instead.
“We were crossing one of the terraces and Impiccini said ‘Sergeant, I think I got shot!’” recalled Sergeant Cole McClain. “But we were good.” With all his men in heavy contact, Captain Steven Weber was commanding from the rear, working to relay positions to the air assets so they could bomb the enemy positions.
On the ridge, Staff Sergeant Matthew Loheide heard the call for men to take cover ahead of CAS fighters coming in on a bombing run. Loheide was more concerned with the men on the road below. “We thought the bomb was going to hit 200 yards away from us,” Loheide said. But something went terribly wrong. Instead of striking the insurgents, a 500lb bomb hit approximately 5m from Loheide’s position in the roofless ruins, causing three casualties. Following the blast, Loheide immediately began to assess and take control of the situation, despite his brain being severely injured.
Identifying the three casualties that were not able to move, he quickly called up Lieutenant Jones and led the movement down the mountain, where he established and prepared a hot landing zone. Loheide moved out into the open, with enemy small-arms fire impacting inches from him. Jones and his men made two trips down the mountain under heavy fire to evacuate the wounded. They were all rattled and dazed. Miraculously, not a single man had been killed. Loheide cleared and marked a landing zone with yellow smoke for the MEDEVAC helicopter, then had the rest of the element take cover against the terraces so no more casualties would be sustained by the platoon.16
The fight continued in hot temperatures. The Americans ran out of food and water but kept fighting. Finally, as the sun went down, the fighting died away.
At 1:30am the next morning, Afghan commandos pushed into the village of Daridam. The commandos, joined now by the returning ANA, the ANP, and the Americans behind them, walked into the village of Daridam. There was no one there; the insurgents had retreated during the night.
The battle along the road and on the ridgelines lasted 18 hours in blistering heat. US soldiers believed they faced as many as 250 insurgents, and before the fight ended about half were dead.17
US and ANSF members cleared the village of Chenar from Taliban control in four hours during Operation Strong Eagle II, on July 19. According to Captain Joseph L. Holliday, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment’s intelligence officer: “Strong Eagle I dealt a strong blow to the Taliban network in the area. They did not have the ability to mass forces against us.” There were no ANSF or US forces reported killed or wounded in action, but four individuals were detained.18
When the operations ended, US forces stayed for a month after Afghan police returned to Daridam. The police didn’t stay for long on their own before retreating and refusing to go back without US forces to back them up. Without a strong military or police presence, the area slipped back under Taliban control.
As the 101st fought to control RC-East, ISAF made a significant organizational change by dividing RC-South into two parts, establishing RC-Southwest on July 3. The change was made due to the increase of ISAF and US troops from 35,000 in late 2009 to 50,000 by July. RC-Southwest was tasked with the responsibility of overseeing operations in Helmand and Nimruz provinces. Commanded by USMC Major General Richard Mills, the forces assigned included the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (1 MEF), 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division (Combined Task Force Strike [CTFS]), and ANA 215 Corps, together with British, Norwegian, and Georgian forces for a combined total of approximately 27,000 personnel, with headquarters at Camp Leatherneck.
On June 23 General McChrystal resigned as ISAF and US Forces Commander. His resignation was due to the publication of an article in Rolling Stone magazine in which he and his staff made unflattering remarks about Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Advisor James L. Jones, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry, and Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, among others. General David H. Petraeus took over the position on July 4.
Operation Dragon Strike on September 16 was the first major offensive launched by the RC-Southwest command. At least 8,000 troops were deployed in the traditional Taliban strongholds of Arghandab, Zhari, and Panjwai districts, an area dubbed “The Heart of Darkness.”
“Operation Dragon Strike is one of many operations designed to secure the majority of the Afghan population in the Zhari and Maiwand districts,” said Colonel Arthur Kandarian, CTFS commander. It was also part of the anti-Taliban offensive projected to extend until the US and NATO forces withdraw in October 2014. German NATO spokesman Brigadier General Josef Blotz believed that Afghan and international forces could anticipate strong battles and that the goal of the operation was to wipe out Taliban positions around Kandahar and force the militants to leave the area.
A point of contention in the operation was that the military push in Kandahar would force insurgents to shift to other provinces, particularly in the northern regions. This was a problem, since the gains from this operation would be limited if it worked only to force insurgents out of Kandahar and into Helmand, northern Afghanistan, or even across the border.
The operation got off to a quiet start with no casualties for the first several days. “Since the Operation Dragon Strike began, we have seen an increase in freedom of movement for the Afghan people on Highway One,” said Kandarian. “We have also seen an increase in the amount of elders and leaders coming to the district center and we have been able to have the district governor go to more of the villages in the district to conduct shuras with the locals.”
“By removing the firing points the Taliban use along Highway One, we remove the Taliban’s ability to limit our movement in the area,” said Lieutenant Reily McEvoy, platoon leader with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, one of the units in the operation. “This is what we trained for and this is a classic dismounted fight.”
But it wasn’t all that simple. The roads, fields, orchards, and seemingly every house were laced with IEDs. By the third week in September the battalion had suffered seven men killed and 14 who have sustained life-changing injuries, including four double leg amputations, and, according to one account, dozens of others had been wounded within a square mile of the “The Gardens” of the Arghandab Valley.
“I have been lying in the middle of a road doing my job, with bullets skipping off the dirt and I’m laughing,” said Sergeant Jay Huggins, a Texan who served with one of the US Army bomb disposal teams in the Arghandab. “But, man … when I step out into those fields … it’s a different matter. My wife gave me a piece of scripture from Isaiah 54:17: ‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.’ Thinking about that is how I get through a day in the gardens.”
At Strongpoint Lugo, a US manned compound, a 101st Airborne soldier was blown in half by a device on the other side of the compound wall. Another had lost a leg in the assault to take it. Often the only way to clear an area of IEDs was to either bomb it or, if it was a structure, bulldoze it flat. Before the operation began, hundreds of families, and in some cases entire villages, were abandoned due to pressure from insurgents. Taliban militants took over hundreds of deserted homes and other structures, turning some into homemade bomb factories, fighting positions, or weapons stores. Taliban bombs hidden in buildings, ditches, walls, and other structures in the region killed at least 97 Afghan civilians and injured another 167.
When the operation ended on December 31, 34 US soldiers, one Canadian soldier, and more than seven Afghan police had been killed. Another cost of the operation was the $1.4 million in compensation paid to Afghan civilians whose properties were rigged with explosives by Taliban militants and later demolished by Afghan and coalition security forces. General David Petraeus said: “Remember that it is the insurgents who rig these buildings with IEDs and use them as weapon caches that threaten local Afghans. It’s that Taliban tactic that has necessitated the targeted destruction of buildings too dangerous to inhabit or rehabilitate.”
In January 2011 families began returning to their villages, and each family was greeted by the ANSF with a “welcome home” gift of humanitarian aid supplies. “Helping the residents back into the village is a huge victory,” said Captain Walter Tompkins, commander of Company B, 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment. “Not only does it show huge gains in perception of security, but also presents a great opportunity to truly partner with the residents of the village. We want to develop this village and make it a model for the surrounding communities. We want to show them that with improved security comes rapid development.”19
This was part of “build” phase of COIN. Its success rested on the ANSF’s ability to keep the districts secure. Based on previous post-operation experience, reliance on the ANSF to ensure long-term security was not something to be taken as a given.
As the size and tempo of operations increased in RC-Southwest, forces in the mountainous RC-East fought to contain the flow of insurgents coming over the border from Pakistan. The Pech River Valley, in Kunar province in RC-East, was a transit route for insurgent fighters from Pakistan. It was also only five miles from the Korengal Valley, where the US had lost 42 men before shutting down all combat outposts earlier in the year. After the pull back, insurgent activity increased, which, in turn, led to a series of counterinsurgency operations by ANA and US forces.
The first was on October 15 in response to an attack by a number of insurgents, reportedly from the village of Matin, just north of the Shuryak Valley in the central Pech River Valley, that purposefully damaged the road in neighboring Tarale. Tarale elders asked the insurgents from Matin to stop, but their requests had no effect. Local Afghans from Tarale then attempted to forcefully remove the insurgents from their village. The insurgents fired into Tarale and escaped back to Matin. No injuries were reported, and ANSF responded, but could not track down the attackers.20
A day later, soldiers from 2nd Company, 1st Commando Kandak, partnered with US Special Forces and elements of the 101st ABD Division (Task Force Bulldog), killed 13 insurgents and recovered and reduced four weapons caches during combat operations in Darah-ye Pech district. The four-day operation was to clear known insurgent strongholds in Tsam, Chenar Now, and Matanga villages. On the last day, CAS aircraft engaged a group of armed men maneuvering toward high ground, killing 13 insurgents with precision-guided munitions.21
“[ANSF] have said that they will pursue the insurgents until they can be assured that the security situation in the Pech Valley improves,” said US Army Lieutenant Colonel Joe Ryan, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment commander. “They have brought the fight to areas where they believe the enemy now feels the safest, but will not feel safe there any longer.”22
This may have held true for Kunar province, but apparently not for the insurgents over in Paktika. On October 30 soldiers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne manning COP Margah in Paktika province were attacked by more than 120 Haqqani Network and al Qaeda fighters for the second time that month.
It started at around 1:20am, but before the attackers got to the COP Private James R. Platt, on guard at the northeast corner in the turret of an MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle) spotted movement and reported it to Sergeant Donald R. Starks, a fire team leader. The insurgents fired an RPG at the vehicle, followed by concentrated small-arms fire.
“I began to lay down suppressive fire, to give Platt a chance to exit the vehicle,” said Private Michael T. Landis. “At this time, the enemy had 30-plus men [attacking] the OP,” said Landis. “We got into firing positions so the enemy couldn’t flank us.”
The situation developed so quickly that some of men didn’t have time to put on all their battle gear. “Sergeant Starks, even though he didn’t have time to put his boots on or find all his gear, still maneuvered through the enemy while being fired on,” Landis said. “It was almost unreal for him to keep positions manned and keep in contact with Margah Base while engaging the enemy.”
With the observation point under attack, the soldiers down the mountainside at the COP below prepared to defend their outpost. Specialist Matthew D. Keating, a gunner, picks up the story: “Under heavy small-arms fire, my team immediately ran to the rooftop mortar position and started preparing rounds to provide suppressive mortar fire for the soldiers under attack at the observation point.”
With the rounds prepared, the soldiers wasted no time and began raining down mortar fire on the enemy. “Shortly after I reached the roof top, Sergeant Reed and Specialist Keating made their way to the roof and manned the 60mm mortar system,” said 1st Lieutenant Christopher S. MacGeorge, a platoon leader. “I let them know we were taking contact from the [valleys] to the west and they immediately began dropping mortars in that direction.”
Meanwhile, at the OP, the enemy was massing more men for the attack, and the six soldiers were giving their best effort to continue pushing them back. “Private Timothy James had run across open ground under fire to reach the southeast machine-gun position, which ended up being essential to defending our ground,” said Starks. “While at that position, he was able to fire the [rocket launcher] as well as throw two grenades in the direction of the enemy.”
Landis says: “Sergeant Starks positioned himself on the [light crew-served machine gun], Private James was on the .50-cal on the northwest, and Private Platt and I were behind the bunker waiting on more enemies to come up the road.”
With the enemy surging, Starks realigned his men to better defend against the threat. “Private Platt yelled to me that they were coming up on the OP from the road entrance, so I sent Private Morehouse to assist in eliminating the threat by [increasing] fire from the bunker,” Starks says. “At that time, I informed Margah Base that our situation was getting worse because they were beginning to rush us and that I had observed more insurgents running up the road to increase their numbers.”
“Private Platt and I were both laying down a steady rate of fire, engaging the enemy to the southeast of the OP,” said Private Livingston D. Morehouse, an infantryman with C Company. “They were so close we could hear them speak to each other.”
Margah Base soldiers at the bottom of the mountainside were on the rooftop doing everything they could to assist their brothers in arms while they battled a surging enemy at the OP above. The insurgents breached the outer defenses, briefly captured an MRAP vehicle and used its weapons against the COP’s defenders.
“Sergeant Clifford Edwards was now acquiring enemy targets with the [grenade launcher] from the firing position located on the rooftop directly to our front,” Keating said. “I fired one HE round to the northwest and Sergeant Edwards immediately came back with a correction of left 50ft drop 50ft, he was also firing his personal weapon while giving these corrections.” Keating said they kept adjusting the mortar fire as they spotted muzzle flashes or enemy movement, and fired rounds to the northwest, south, and southeast.
An OP provides early warning of attacks for the main COP. Since the warning had been provided and the OP was running low on ammo, Starks decided it was the ideal time to withdraw and pull back to Margah Base. “Everyone was reporting that the ammunition was running low so I made an attempt to reach the ammo bunker, which was between our position and the enemy,” he said. “Due to heavy small-arms fire and grenades, I was not successful in retrieving any ammunition.”
The men continued to stave off enemies coming toward them, but it became increasingly difficult because they were within 15–20ft, so Starks began making preparations to tactically reposition his men back to Margah Base. “Right then we started taking RPG fire again, which had wounded two of my men with shrapnel,” Starks said. “All of us took cover behind some cliffs about 100m down and I gave the mortarmen on the roof the signal that we were clear from the OP.” Both soldiers, despite their injuries, were able to move down the mountain toward Margah Base.
Once the signal was given that the OP had been repositioned, MacGeorge explained that Specialist Brett Capstick moved off the roof to assist with the 81mm mortar system and the team began to bombard the OP with 155mm mortars from Forward Operating Base Boris, as well as 81mm mortars and 60mm mortars on the roof. “I tried to direct them best I could,” Starks said. “I told them they were hitting danger close and that they needed to fire higher up the hill to the east.”
Soon after the barrage of mortar and artillery fire was laid, the air-weapons team (AWT) was on site with AH-64 Apache helicopters to finish the job by accurately targeting the enemy from the sky above. “Once the AWT was on station, everything calmed down as they began engaging the enemy,” MacGeorge said.
The AWT continued to engage the enemy until 2:00pm. When the dust settled, five soldiers were wounded, but 92 enemy combatants were killed, two were wounded and captured, and numerous enemy weapons and communication systems were confiscated.
With the wounded treated and medical evacuation complete, the complex attack was defeated. It would not have been possible without the bravery of the soldiers involved. “We knew air was red. We knew we were outnumbered, and we knew that the insurgents wanted to take over the COP, but all hands were on deck that night ready to fight, backfill, and give everything we asked of them and more,” said Schulz.
More than 90 insurgents died in a counter-barrage of gunfire, helicopter-fired missiles, and bombs. There were no US fatalities.23
On the overcast night of November 8, COP Margah was attacked again. “They believed the heavy cloud cover and fog would prevent CAS from blowing them up,” Captain DeShane Greaser said. “It did not. There was a VBIED heading to the COP and after the first bombs hit we got reports that the enemy said, ‘We’re turning around, there are jets overhead.’” No fewer than 70 Taliban dead were counted outside COP Margah when this attack ended.24
Major Aaron Ruona, 336th “Rocketeers” Fighter Squadron, an F-15E Weapons Systems Officer (WSO), talks about what it was like flying CAS:
We flew seven days a week; all the days were the same. Get up, try to get a couple of hours in the gym, get a brief from squadron, a brief from intel, fly from three to six hours depending on the tasking, land, do some paperwork, go home, watch a movie, repeat day in and day out. Sometimes get food in there at the chow hall. I stopped doing that a couple of months and then ate cereal at the squadron the last four months.
On my first mission I was recovering from food poisoning so I threw up a few times before the mission and a couple of times during the flight. It was a real eye opener. First sortie, talking to four or five different JTACs, being sick at the same time was pretty interesting.
You could write a whole novel for everyday missions covering the guys on the ground. Even when nothing happens or they don’t get shot at, just talking with them. The tenseness that can be in the air when they’re concerned about a particular person walking down the road, that alone could be a novel – 50 of them are all the same but two that stand out were in the fall of my deployment. There wasn’t snow on the ground yet and it wasn’t all that cold.
In one a group of JTACs got stranded out in the middle of a patrol somewhere, low on food, low on bullets up in the mountains. They had taken some casualties so they were bringing some helos in to get those guys MEDEVACed out while they were still under fire. We were the only two planes on station. The helicopters were rolling in dropping speedballs: big bundles of food and ammunition. So me and our wingman were on three different frequencies trying to coordinate between the helos, MEDEVAC, JTACs on the ground, and the guys back in the FOB. The guys on the ground were taking sniper fire, walking through trails, and at one point they got lost.
It was three or four hours of nonstop talking and tension. Every few minutes we were putting bombs on the ground trying to suppress fire. If you ask me I would say it was about a two-hour mission but in fact it was four or five hours. When you come back and land you’re just exhausted. We were able to get the guys out. It’s not one I’ll forget.
Another tough mission for Major Ruona was in October flying support for teams looking for the British aid worker Linda Norgrove. She had been abducted by insurgents as she travelled in a convoy of two vehicles in Kunar province to attend a ceremony to inaugurate an irrigation project and was being held in the village of Dineshgal, Kunar province.
There were small [SF] teams set up along the ridgelines in the northeast in very isolated locations and apparently one of these teams got compromised. Maybe three to six guys were on this very small peak. They said there were between 6 to 12 Taliban coming up the ridge and the team was taking fire.
We had to isolate their location to a peak where we couldn’t actually see them, but they wanted us to engage only a couple of hundred yards down the ridge from them. It was a situation that I wasn’t really comfortable with. There was a little saddle and I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the close part or the near part but it was still Danger Close. I told him “I’m not going to drop here, but I’ll drop back here and start walking closer.”
I put the first bomb down just further out from where the team was and then adjusted fire. I felt really good [as the] first one went. Okay it wasn’t near them and then more a little bit close. Three or four seconds prior impact where the ground commander said the attackers were they opened up with RPG right before the bomb hit. I was satisfied but nervous because it was so close. That’s when you tell them on the radio “Bombs gone, thirty seconds, take cover.”
It’s a gut wrenching feeling.
Although the team was safe, Linda Norgrove was killed by her kidnappers during the rescue attempt by US SOF teams.
To keep the pressure on insurgents moving through Kunar province in RC-East, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division and 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, along with an ANA Kandak, air assaulted into the mountains surrounding the Watahar Valley, part of the eastern region of the Pech River Valley, on November 12.
Codenamed Operation Bulldog Bite, the multiple nighttime air assaults hit small villages to dig out insurgents. “There’s a myth, I think, amongst us coalition forces and International Security Assistance Forces that there are some places we can’t go,” said US Army Lieutenant Colonel Joseph A. Ryan, TF Bulldog commander. “That is absolutely and unequivocally untrue. We can go anywhere we want to go. We have the technology to support it, but most importantly … our infantrymen are tougher, stronger, more capable, and better trained than the enemy is.”
After conducting an air assault onto the high ground the troops moved out. “Picture the rockiest, crappiest terrain you can think of at 7,500ft with 75lb on your back taking you down the mountain,” said Kammerer, a squad leader assigned to Company B.
The first US soldier was killed during combat on November 12. Two days later, US troops encountered heavy resistance, and five soldiers from Alpha Company were killed. A significant number were wounded during the six-hour-long firefight.
HH-60 Pave Hawk rescue flights Pedro 83 and 84 from USAF 33rd Rescue Squadron were first on scene at the firefight. The 33rd had been tasked to provide medical and casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) support for ground operations while deployed to Afghanistan. Captain Brown said he can recall the unsettling feeling he had the day his team was called to assist the Alpha Company of the Army’s 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. “I had a gut feeling it was going to come to us,” he said.
“It was a fairly routine call,” pararescueman Master Sergeant Roger Sparks from Alaska’s 212th Rescue Squadron said. “I thought: ‘No big deal.’”
Within minutes of receiving the call to evacuate two wounded soldiers, Captain Marcus Maris (the flight lead and pilot for Pedro 83) and his team launched both helicopters, establishing on-scene overwatch of the battlefield. But on the five-minute flight into the zone, Sparks began to feel that something was wrong. The number of reported casualties jumped to six. “The guy on the radio was super emotional,” Sparks said, “Cursing, freaking out.”
The PJs (pararescue jumpers) were told that the area had been calm for 15 minutes, however, Sparks and Bailey prepared to be lowered by cable from the hovering chopper. Despite their rapid response, intensified RPG and machine-gun fire, interlocking enemy fields, and steep rocky terrain had forced Alpha Company into a defensive position, leading to a total of 11 casualties. A split second after Captain Koa Bailey, a combat rescue officer, and Sparks touched ground, the ear-shattering explosions of RPGs rang out overhead. “I don’t know how we didn’t get killed,” Sparks said, “or why the helicopter didn’t get hit and come crashing down on us.”
Heavy machine-gun fire raked the area. The helicopter crew shot back, showering the two prostrate PJs with empty shell casings. “I cannot imagine a more comforting sound than the .50-cal firing and casings raining down on us,” Sparks said. “You could feel the concussion from the RPGs while we sat in the hover,” said Staff Sergeant Brandon Hill, a flight engineer with Kadena’s 33rd Rescue Squadron. “The whole time we were being shot at.”
Unrelenting enemy fire coupled with Alpha Company’s depleting ammunition and increasing casualties made establishing a clear landing zone and protective cover for CASEVAC nearly impossible. The rescue mission quickly became a dangerous race against the clock.
“We knew based on the situation and the severity of the injuries, if we waited any longer, the risk of more US casualties expiring would increase exponentially,” explained Captain Maris. “We devised a game plan and committed.”
The two aircrews held a risky but offensive position that allowed them to suppress enemy aggression while hoisting down Captain Bailey and Sergeant Sparks to assess the situation on the ground and set up a small triage area. Technical Sergeant Mike Welles, the chalk two aerial gunner for Pedro 84, remembers the moment enemy forces focused their attention on the rescue teams: “I remember looking at them (Pedro 83) in the hover and looking at their gunner engaging. I could see a 3ft flame of discontent coming out of his gun. I followed where the rounds were going and could tell they were under our aircraft. As soon as you can hear your .50-cal on the other side of the aircraft go off, it’s a good feeling.”
Staff Sergeant James “Jimmy” Settle recalls an enemy round coming up through the deck of the helicopter he was riding in. The round struck him in the forehead between his skull and his combat helmet. With a now-wounded PJ onboard, the helicopter diverted to an emergency aid station where Settle was treated for 24 hours, as per protocol. “I wanted to get back into the fight,” he says of this period on the ground. “I saw my guys bringing wounded in and going back out… I just knew I had to be there, too.”
For the next two hours, Pedro 83 rotated through to a forward refuel and armament point, dropping “speedball” water and ammunition pouches to the remaining Alpha Company soldiers. By the end of the fight, both teams had resupplied the remaining soldiers and completed multiple pararescue insertions and patient extractions, saving the lives of seven wounded soldiers and bringing back the remains of four soldiers who had died.
“The people we’re going to pick up, fellow Americans, are what it’s all about,” said Captain Thomas Stengl, the co-pilot for Pedro 84. “At the end of the day, we will do whatever it takes to bring them home,” he added.25, 26
When the firefight ended there were only eight unwounded soldiers left in Alpha Company. The six-hour fight was one of the deadliest incidents of Operation Bulldog Bite.
Captain Joseph Andresky, an HH-60 pilot, says it was his worst mission. “It was madhouse. Five or six days of sustained operations. Pulling people out like cordwood. You compartmentalize, wait to the end, then bottle it up in a jar someplace, lock it in a safe, throw away the combination, and try not to go back there.”27
After being wounded, Staff Sergeant Settle tended to the wounded and injured under constant fire. He was credited with saving 35 lives by the end of the operation and a high number of assists in supporting his fellow PJs. “I joined the PJs to help people, to save lives,” he says.
By the time Operation Bulldog Bite ended on November 25 six members of the 101st, one Army Ranger, and three ANA soldiers had been killed. An estimated 52 insurgents were casualties, the majority occurring during the attack on Alpha Company. Major General John Campbell, 101st Airborne Division commanding general said: “This is a huge blow to the enemy. The operation also caught the fighters by surprise.”
It turned out to be the last operation of the year by either side in RC-East.28
Down in RC-Southwest 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (3/7) took over the infamous Sangin District, Helmand province. In four years the British had lost 106 men, including 36 in 2010 alone. In September, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (3/5) relieved 3rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment.
After taking over the Marines closed more the half of the 22 British bases around the town of Sangin. One British officer said: “It’s a hard pill to swallow that the Rifles put so much sweat and blood into establishing these patrol bases only for them to be dismantled by the Americans. They are trying a new approach, but it was one tried by us in the past and gave the Taliban the chance to plant IEDs wherever they wanted.”29
This proved to be the case. Between October 6 and 13 nine Marines were killed by IEDs. The rise in IED casualties was caused in part by the increased numbers of directional fragmentation-charge IEDs contained in a coffee can or another small, metal device and packed with nuts, bolts, or spark plugs, attached to 10–20lb of homemade explosives.
The area was on the road to the strategic Kajaki hydroelectric dam, which turned the deserts of the province into Afghanistan’s breadbasket. The Marines found Sangin to be a major transit point for Taliban fighters and drug runners. Major General Richard P. Mills called Sangin, “the last piece of prime real estate that the insurgents are contesting [in Helmand province]. Once he loses that, having already lost the entire lower valley and the lower river basins, he will have a difficult time re-establishing himself in the province. He will be resigned to living in the desert, living in the fringes of the province.” Lieutenant Colonel Jason Morris, commander of the 3/5, said, “Sangin has been an area where drug lords, Taliban, and people who don’t want the government to come in and legitimize things have holed up.”
The casualties kept rising even as the Marines tried to work with the local population. In November, a Marine was shot in the head and killed in an alley just off Sangin’s bazaar shortly before a Marine civil affairs team arrived. The team was forced to lob green smoke grenades into the alley and sprint past to avoid being shot at themselves. Working with the people meant working with Afghans affiliated with the Taliban.
“There are checks and balances, but there is an inevitability that some money is going into people’s pockets,” said Phil Weatherill, a British government advisor. “Whether it’s small-t Taliban or corrupt contractors, I don’t know. But this is Afghanistan.” Lieutenant Karl Kadon said it could be difficult to accept that Marines were coordinating with, and possibly even helping, the enemy, but saw no choice. “This is a tough job because I have friends who have gotten hurt or killed, and I know I’m conversing with Taliban on a daily basis,” he says. “But it’s one of those things where you have to give a little to get a little.”
The Taliban was not always willing to cooperate. One case in point was a woman running an orphanage. “The woman said the Taliban told her that if they ever saw her taking any assistance from international forces, they would kill her or one of the children,” Kadon said. Shortly after the message was delivered, a suicide bomber blew himself up nearby, but luckily he didn’t harm the woman or the children.30
The Marines continued to take casualties. In November alone they lost 12 men in Helmand province, seven of them in Sangin. By early December they had lost 16 men and over 50 wounded in more than a hundred firefights.
When RC-Southwest was established, TF Wolfpack (3rd Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, or 3-2 Stryker), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Denny, was assigned responsibility for the Maiwand District on the border between Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Task Force Wolfpack noted insurgents had previously been able to move with little difficulty along cultivated farmland south of Highway 1, which permitted them to bury IEDs along main routes across the district.
In late 2010, 3-2 Stryker constructed an 8km wall of barriers through a dry riverbed from Highway 1 directly southward to the Arghandab River, approximately 10km west of the Zhari border. The “Wolfpack Wall,” named for 3-2 Stryker’s Task Force call sign, had two primary crossing points along east–west routes of travel into Zhari district. Task Force Wolfpack established watchtowers, set up traffic control, and conducted inspections to limit the amount of illicit material traveling along those routes. Channeling civilian traffic through the monitored access areas forced insurgents away from cultivated land and into open exposed lines of travel. Although insurgents targeted the Wolfpack Wall with IEDs, 3-2 Stryker employed mine-clearing line charges (MiCLCs), a rocket with a long line of explosives attached to it, in an effort to detonate the buried explosives, the idea being that the explosive force from the MiCLC would set off any IEDs buried in the road. Once the wall was completed, 3-2 Stryker established overwatch through the winter months.31
The Marines also undertook to clear the main route into Sangin of IEDs. Starting on November 29, Operation Outlaw Wrath focused on clearing Route 611, an important route used to keep Sangin’s patrol base supplied with food and water, and one known to be strewn with IEDs. “We’ve traveled that road plenty of times and every time we do, we get hit,” said Lance Corporal Matt Dahlman, a heavy equipment operator attached to 3/5. “If eight days being stuck in a bulldozer is what it takes to stop that from happening then it was well worth it!”
The Taliban had set up checkpoints along portions of Route 611 where locals were taxed for money and items they had bought at the nearby bazaar. The taxation became so serious that the local economy was affected, causing prices to inflate.
“Our engineers were not only able to open up the route for mobility purposes, but also to better the economic problems that the citizens of Sangin were facing,” said Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Niebel, the battalion commander for 1st Combat Engineering Brigade (CEB).
MiCLCs were the main tool used to begin the clearing. After shooting an MiCLC, bulldozers would push away the rubble and uncover any unexploded IEDs, a dangerous job for those involved in the process.
“I never stopped getting chills while I was out there working, but the training the Marine Corps gives you helps a lot when trying to manage your fear,” Dahlman explained. “It was easy to clear my mind and be unafraid. It is just one of those things that you have to deal with.”
While the road was being cleared by the CEB, 3/5 along with ANA soldiers provided security and overwatch to the left and right of Route 611. Both groups worked together, ensuring that neither got too far ahead or behind.
Local Afghans were friendly toward many of the coalition forces, and appreciated their work to remove IEDs and push the Taliban out of the area. “It is important that we show them we are here to help them by keeping the roads free of IEDs,” said 1st Lieutenant Chris Thrasher, a platoon commander.
After eight days of route clearing in Sangin, the Marines of 1st CEB and 3/5, along with ANA soldiers, had made Route 611 safe to travel along for the first time in three years, according to Bock. With more than 50 IEDs found and destroyed, coalition forces had helped bring security and stability to one of Helmand province’s vital roadways.32
As casualties rose and COIN efforts continued, Major General Mills stated: “We are making steady progress. Overall we’re all pointing in the right direction.” According to the general, most of the Taliban’s top commanders in Helmand had now been killed or captured: “Militarily we are hammering them. We’re going to pressure this guy every step of the way. He won’t get his two weeks in Florida this year, he won’t get his vacation during winter time. We’re going to push, because I want this battlefield to be completely different come spring.”33
In November, NATO leaders endorsed a plan to wind down its combat mission by 2014. However, the announcement came with a warning that there would be “inevitable setbacks” in the work to complete the transition by the end of 2014.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, added another caveat: “It does not necessarily mean that everywhere in the country [Afghan forces] will necessarily be in the lead and it does not mean that all US or coalition forces would necessarily be gone by that date. There may very well be the need for forces to remain in-country, albeit, hopefully, at smaller numbers, to assist the Afghans as they assume lead responsibility for the security of their country.” US commitment remained open ended for at least another three years.
The year of 2010 was the deadliest yet for US forces, with 499 men and women killed and 5,246 wounded. One positive note was that poppy production had halved from 2009, largely due to a plant infection, which had drastically reduced yields. As for the war, US, ANA, and coalition forces had some successes in the field. However, in several instances operations had failed to complete their objective. There was also no measureable decrease in the enemy’s fighting capability, and in fact it seemed to have increased in most of the country. Even though he was no longer in charge, General McChrystal’s enhanced COIN strategy remained in place, but without measurable results.