For government is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, because it does not carry the sword for no reason. For government is God’s servant, an avenger that brings wrath on the one who does wrong. —ROMANS 13:4
THE WAR ON TERROR
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA
The date will never again pass unnoticed on the calendars of America. The evil committed against her people on that day in 2001 not only rocked the world by its sheer malevolence, it signaled the end of an era. Terrorism would never again be something that happened to unfortunate travelers outside U.S. borders—never again something Americans simply read about in the news before going back to sleep. America’s apathy died that day, along with almost three thousand of her citizens. Things would never be the same.
September 11 was also a beginning. For the first time in decades, there was near agreement across the land. The emotion was almost universal, a knot in our collective gut as people stood in line to give blood, sat glued to the news, or attended memorial services across the country. And even as we grieved, we wanted justice. Something had to be done. This fresh determination galvanized the free world in the belief that safety would only come when the perpetrators of this evil were sought out and destroyed.
Those dispatched first to deliver America’s response all belonged to an elite group of warriors—the members of United States Special Operations Command. No matter their branch of service, or their unit designation, every one of them knew this crisis was the one for which they had been preparing all their lives.
Within days, American intelligence services collected a mountain of evidence implicating Osama bin Laden—a Saudi-born radical Muslim whose al-Qaeda terrorist organization had declared war on the United States during the Clinton administration. Unfortunately his previous strikes against U.S. citizens and property were all but ignored. But if it was attention al-Qaeda wanted, they would surely have it now.
Above: Emergency response at the Pentagon
Below: Osama bin Laden
For nearly a decade, bin Laden and his radical Islamist allies exported their particular brand of hatred from terrorist training camps first in Sudan and then, Afghanistan. In Kabul, the Taliban regime was rewriting the rogue-state rule book on repression—and quickly became al-Qaeda patrons and protectors.
Before all the remains could be recovered from the rubble at “ground zero” in New York, a handful of American Special Operators from the CIA and the U.S. military were on the ground in Afghanistan, intent on hunting down bin Laden and removing the Taliban from power. Working quickly and quietly with a fractious coalition of anti-Taliban militias and tribal warloads dubbed the “Northern Alliance,” the U.S. teams began the difficult and dangerous task of seizing enemy strongholds—while scouring the landscape for bin Laden and his minions. It took them less than a month to launch the largest covert operation since World War II. The story of their success is the stuff of legend.
OPERATION ENDURINIG FREEDOM
AFGHANISTAN
Just twenty-five days after the 9/11 attack, U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles launched the first air strikes aimed at eliminated the Taliban’s capacity for command and control. Within fourty-eight hours, enemy radar, communications and nerve centers in Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad were elimated. Soon afterward, U.S. special operators—military and civilian—were heading into battle—sometimes mounted on horseback beside their new Afghan allies.
Despite all the high tech weaponry available to our forces, in Afghanistan sometimes they had to resort to more traditional means of transportation.
Among them were men like, then Captain Jason Amerine, commanding officer of ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) 574 of the 5th Special Forces Group. On September 11 he and his “A-Team” were deployed in Kazakhstan, on a training mission for the former Soviet satellite country’s counterinsurgency forces. When news came that terrorists had attacked America, Amerine had no doubt what was coming.
“We knew immediately it was war,” he says. “I was definitely certain that this war was going to take place in Afghanistan.”
Amerine had been preparing for this moment since he was fourteen years old. He joined JROTC in high school, then after graduation applied and was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. There he focused on cultural and language studies with an eye to someday becoming a Special Forces soldier. When he completed his degree in 1993, he was nearly fluent in Arabic—a skill he would put to good use in the years to come. He paid his dues for several years in conventional units, then upon being promoted to Captain, he volunteered for Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), which he describes as less a school and more a rite of passage.
“When you’re in SFAS, the Green Beret cadre run you through the ringer to see how well you operate in a team, see how well you operate individually, and in the end the cadre assess if they want you to go on to the Special Forces Qualification Course.”
Almost a year of highly focused training followed, after which Amerine proudly donned the Special Forces green beret and reported to the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
By September 2001 Amerine’s ODA had been working in Kazakhstan for nearly a year. But when four planes were hijacked half a world away, the men of ODA 574 knew their deployment would be a whole lot longer.
Assigned to support an Afghan opposition unit, days and nights of intense preparation for ODA 574 followed. On 14 November, Amerine and his ten-man team, augmented by a USAF Combat Controller (CCT) to rain destruction on the Taliban from U.S. aircraft overhead, flew into Afghanistan for the first time.
The small band of Afghan freedom fighters and CIA officers ODA 574 was ordered to guide and protect was being led by a relatively unknown Pashto, whose father was murdered by the Taliban. His name: Hamid Karzai.
Maj Amerine (2nd from right in back row) with ODA 574 and Hamid Karzai
Karzai struggled unsuccessfully against the Taliban regime for years. But on the night of November 16, aided by ODA 574, Karzai’s handful of Afghan freedom fighters took Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in the heart of Taliban territory north of Kandahar. Intelligence gathered there warned Taliban forces were en route, intent on retaking Tarin Kowt from the south and wiping out Karzai’s bid for Afghan freedom before it got started.
Working urgently through the night, Amerine prepared his men for a showdown at the south end of the city. Using satellite radios, he and his CCT flashed messages back to higher headquarters that the team would need nonstop air support in order to survive. The American soldiers and a few of their Afghan counterparts moved to a scrub-covered hilltop at the edge of town from which they could observe the enemy’s approach.
A portable laser designator being used by a Special Operations captain in Afghanistan 2001 directing Air Force and Navy bombs.
They didn’t have long to wait. Shortly after daylight the Taliban assault force came rolling across the valley below. “It looked like a scene from Mad Max,” Amerine recalls. The Taliban were riding in pickups with machine guns bolted to their roofs along with a motley assortment of armored vehicles and heavy trucks carrying troops, ammunition, and even anti-aircraft artillery. The ODA feverishly pinpointed targets for the bomb-laden aircraft circling above, using laser target designators to mark where the guided munitions would have the greatest effect. The results were spectacular. One by one, the Taliban advance evaporated in flame and flying debris. The concussion of the bombs was so intense that some of the Afghan freedom fighters, unaccustomed to such a display of firepower, dropped their weapons and ran for their lives.
Maj. Amerine in the streets of Afghanistan
Forced to scramble back to the village, Amerine held a hasty council of war with Karzai—urging him to have his countrymen rejoin the Americans in the fight before the Taliban could mount a second attack. It was imperative they stop the enemy advance before they entered the village, at which point all the American air power in the world would be useless. The American was blunt: “If the Taliban get past us, we’ve lost the town.”
The tough talk worked. Karzai’s tribesmen regrouped and joined the Americans on a hilltop closer to the capital. For the next eight hours ODA 574 and their newly invigorated Afghan allies fended off wave after wave of enemy attacks, both with precision guided munitions and their own weapons. When the smoke cleared, the Taliban force was routed, leaving hundreds of dead fighters and scores of wrecked vehicles on the battlefield.
The 17 November victory at Tarin Kowt was decisive. ODA 574 and the American airpower they brought to bear set the stage for further advances by Karzai and his growing column of Pashtun irregulars, culminating with the Taliban surrender at Kandahar on 5 December 2001.
For his actions leading ODA 574 during this crucial time, Major Jason Amerine was awarded the Bronze star with “V” device for valor. In an interview several years later Amerine called his service, “The greatest privilege of my life.” Then he added, “In Afghanistan, I commanded American and Afghan soldiers, each fighting for his own nation and his people, yet united in a common cause as they entrusted one another with their lives. There is no greater courage than for people to fight side-by-side against the terrible odds they faced with such impenetrable faith in one another.”
Maj. Amerine receives the Bronze Star with "V" device for valor.
THE BATTLE OF QALA-I-JANGI
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, AFGHANISTAN
While Americans at home were prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving, a desperate situation was developing in northern Afghanistan, near the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly Arabs and Pakistanis, surrendered to U.S.-backed Northern Alliance troops. Lacking a suitable place to sequester nearly five hundred prisoners-of-war, the Northern Alliance general, Abdul Rashid Dostum, transferred them to a nineteenth-century fortress he used as a headquarters. In the chaotic environment surrounding the surrender of so many, some of the prisoners were not properly searched. It proved to be a costly oversight.
BLU-82 "daisy cutter" bombs, like this one, evened the odds for vastly outnumbered Special Operations troops on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001.
On 25 November several members of the CIA’s ultra-secret Special Activities Division arrived on the scene and began preliminary interrogations of the prisoners. One of the CIA officers, Johnny Michael Spann, had served as a U.S. Marine Captain. As he and his team sorted the enemy detainees, they discovered an American, John Walker Lindh. Lindh was a twenty-year-old convert to Islam from Silver Spring, Maryland, whose life choices were as treasonous as Spann’s were patriotic.
When one of the detainees detonated a grenade hidden in his clothing, the blast killed a Northern Alliance commander and violence erupted throughout the compound. Suddenly, hundreds of prisoners rushed their guards. In minutes they seized control of the makeshift prison, capturing arms stored in the fortress and trapped the CIA team inside. According to Afghan doctors who witnessed the scene, Spann “held his position and fought using his AK rifle until out of ammo and then drew and began firing his pistol.” Though Spann was killed when he again ran out of ammunition, his selfless courage enabled all but one of his teammates to escape. A CIA officer named “Dave” was still barricaded inside.
Twenty-five kilometers away, Major Mark Mitchell of the 5th Special Forces Group was busy setting up an aid point to deliver humanitarian assistance to displaced Afghan civilians when a Northern Alliance soldier breathlessly told him about the uprising at the fort. Mitchell, a veteran of the first Gulf war, quickly organized a rescue force from the only allied troops available: sixteen American and British personnel.
When he arrived at the fortress, Major Mitchell grabbed his weapon and climbed to the highest point on the wall to assess the situation. From this vantage point he could see the prisoners had armed themselves with rifles, grenades, RPGs, rockets, and even mortars from stockpiles found in Dostum’s headquarters. Mitchell and his men immediately engaged the enemy with small arms fire, and eventually, by calling in strikes from U.S. aircraft overhead.
By the morning of the 26th, it was clear the previous night’s bombing did little to quell the uprising. Though vastly outnumbered by the now-heavily-armed prisoners, Mitchell continued to press the attack until an errant U.S. bomb landed almost on top of his position, wounding half his men. Shaken and exhausted from two days of heavy fighting, the Major turned his attention to his injured comrades, working for most of the day to stabilize and get them evacuated for treatment. He then went back to killing the enemy.
Throughout the second night he directed more air strikes and coordinated the action of Northern Alliance forces. They eventually brought in a tank to punch holes through the ten-foot-thick walls and rescued those still trapped inside.
When the smoke of battle cleared on the morning of the third day, all but eighty-six of nearly five hundred Taliban fighters were dead. Those who lived surrendered only after the Northern Alliance diverted a stream to flood them out of their hiding places in the fort’s ancient dungeon. One of the survivors was John Walker Lindh, who was eventually sentenced to twenty years in federal prison for his treasonous actions.
In stark contrast, Major Mitchell became the first recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross since the Vietnam War.
Soldiers from the 5th Special Forces Group using a laser target designator to call in aerial bombardment while Northern Alliance soldiers look on.
One of the rescuers, Chief Petty Officer Stephen Bass, a U.S. Navy SEAL, was attached to a British Special Boat Service unit. The citation for the Navy Cross awarded to Stephen Bass offers another perspective on the desperate fight to rescue the two CIA officers.
NAVY CROSS:
STEPHEN BASS, CHIEF PETTY OFFICER, UNITED STATES NAVY
For services as set forth in the following citation: For extraordinary heroism while serving with the British Special Boat Service during combat operations in Northern Afghanistan on 25 and 26 November 2001. Chief Petty Officer Stephen Bass deployed to the area as a member of a joint American and British Special Forces Rescue Team to locate and recover two missing American citizens, one presumed to be seriously injured or dead, after hard-line al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners at the Qala-i-Jangi fortress in Mazar-i-Sharif overpowered them and gained access to large quantities of arms and ammunition stored at the fortress. Once inside, Chief Petty Officer Bass was engaged continuously by direct small arms fire, indirect mortar fire, and rocket propelled grenade fire. He was forced to walk through an active anti-personnel minefield in order to gain entry to the fortress. After establishing the possible location of both American citizens, under heavy fire and without concern for his own personal safety, he made two attempts to rescue the uninjured citizen by crawling toward the fortress interior to reach him. Forced to withdraw due to large volumes of fire falling on his position, he was undeterred. After reporting his efforts to the remaining members of the rescue team, they left and attempted to locate the missing citizen on the outside of the fortress. As darkness began to fall, no attempt was going to be made to locate the other injured American citizen. Chief Petty Officer Bass then took matters into his own hands. Without regard for his own personal safety, he moved forward another three hundred to four hundred meters into the heart of the fortress by himself under constant enemy fire in an attempt to locate the injured citizen. Running low on ammunition, he utilized weapons from deceased Afghans to continue his rescue attempt. Upon verifying the condition and location of the American citizen, he withdrew from the fortress. By his outstanding display of decisive leadership, unlimited courage in the face of enemy fire, and utmost devotion to duty, Chief Petty Officer Bass reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.
Special Operators calling in fire at Qala-i-Jangi fortress
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS:
MAJOR MARK E. MITCHELL
The Distinguished Service Cross is awarded to Major Mark E. Mitchell, Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment, 3d Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), for extraordinary heroism in action during the period of 25 to 28 November 2001, while engaged in combat operations during Operation Enduring Freedom. As the Ground Force Commander of a rescue operation during the Battle of Qala-i-Jang: Fortress, Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, Major Mitchell ensured the freedom of one American and the posthumous repatriation of another. His unparalleled courage under fire, decisive leadership, and personal sacrifice were directly responsible for the success of the rescue operation and were further instrumental in ensuring the city of Mazar-i-Sharif did not fall back in the hands of the Taliban. His personal example has added yet another laurel to the proud military history of this nation and serves as the standard for all others to emulate. Major Mitchell’s gallant deed was truly above and beyond the call of duty and is in keeping with the finest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon himself, the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the United States Army, and the United States of America.
Author’s note: Major Mark Mitchell has served in the war zone for a total of five deployments since 2001.
THE BATTLE FOR TORA BORA
TORA BORA, AFGHANISTAN
On December 7, 2001, Taliban rule in Afghanistan officially ended. By then, they had been driven out of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul, Kunduz, and Kandahar and tens of thousands of Taliban and their foreign allies were dead, captured, or fled into Pakistan. But not all were ready to concede.
Since mid November, the CIA had been warned about enemy forces gathering along the Pakistan border in the White Mountains south of Jalalabad. The locals, including former Mujahadeen fighters who opposed Taliban rule, called the place Tora Bora. SAD Paramilitary Operations Officers already on the ground in the region reported on al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters taking refuge in fortified caves and fighting positions used during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan decades earlier. It turned out to be an uphill battle—in more ways than one.
Dug-in al-Qaeda fighters occupied the high ground, so an attacker was always at a disadvantage. And while the local warloads were enthusiastic about the copious amounts of cash being handed out by the CIA, the men under their command were considerably less fervent about fighting fellow Muslims, especially after dark or when the weather was bad. This reticence would likely have blossomed into outright mutiny had the United States committed large numbers of conventional forces to the region, given the long local memories of the 1980’s Soviet occupation.
Tora Bora, known locally as Spiøn Ghar, is a cave complex in the White Mountains (Safed Koh) of eastern Afghanistan.
As the weather turned colder, the CIA advisors watched in frustration as tribal fighters fought tit-for-tat battles with al-Qaeda and Taliban holdouts without measurable progress. In early December, they convinced tribal elders to allow a select few U.S. commandos to join the fight in early December. Fewer than one hundred American soldiers were engaged, mostly Delta Force operators and men from the 5th Special Forces Group.
This tiny band was given the daunting task of doing what the entire Soviet army failed to do—dislodging a determined foe from the steep slopes of Tora Bora. Chief among those to be targeted: the terrorist who started the war on 9/11/01—Osama bin Laden.
Accompanying these elite warriors were a handful of USAF Special Operators—Combat Air Controllers (CCTs) and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs). Their job was—and is—to bring to bear the most powerful weapon the United States had in the fight—air power.
Calling in fire during the opening stages of Operation Enduring Freedom
In the special operations community, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) are admired for their ability to call down fire from above. They aren’t Old Testament prophets—just highly trained and equipped U.S. Airmen who can summon bombers, fighters, unmanned aerial vehicles, evacuation helicopters, and gunships to support a unit on the ground. JTACs specialize in putting heavy ordnance on ground targets with pinpoint accuracy, often while under fire and inside the “danger close” radius of their own munitions. They carry the same personal weapons as the Special Operators they accompany into battle. But their most valuable weapon is the radio they wear on their backs.
U.S. airstrikes on Tora Bora
Nowhere was the effectiveness of the Combat Air Controller more evident than Tora Bora. For days on end small teams of three or four operators would occupy observation points on windswept ridgelines and work the airwaves, lining up dozens of attack aircraft and guiding their munitions onto enemy fighting positions and cave entrances. The citation for the Silver Star awarded to USAF Tech Sgt Michael Stockdale for action during the Tora Bora fight exemplifies what they endure—and what they can do.
In one sense the battle for Tora Bora was an unqualified victory—the U.S. Operators neutralized thousands of al-Qaeda fighters and destroyed most of their mountain stronghold. But tribal double-dealing by local commanders compounded by the fog of war caused a failure of the stated mission—to kill bin Laden. By the time fierce winter forced an end to the operation in Tora Bora, nobody could be sure whether he’d escaped or survived.
Members of some SOCOM units yet to be deployed to Afghanistan lamented their misfortune at having “missed out” on the war. What no one knew then was that there were many more Special Operations missions ahead—including one that would etch in history the name of an obscure mountaintop in southeastern Afghanistan: Takur Ghar.
SILVER STAR:
TECHNICAL SERGEANT MICHAEL C. STOCKDALE
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918 (amended by an act of July 25, 1963), takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Technical Sergeant Michael C. Stockdale, United States Air Force, for gallantry in connection with military operations against an armed enemy of the United States from 6 December to 20 December 2001. During this period, Sergeant Stockdale excelled in multiple missions where he was directly engaged in combat actions against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces. He provided surgical terminal attack control of close air support aircraft at a volume and accuracy not yet seen until this major offensive in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan. Sergeant Stockdale volunteered to move to the forward most lines of battle to assist the local Afghan opposition group’s assault on the key enemy fortified stronghold. While moving to the front, he came under heavy machine gun and eighty-two-millimeter mortar fire as close as twenty-five meters. Though the other government forces stopped, he continued to press forward with complete disregard to his own personal safety. Positioned in front of the most forward troops, Sergeant Stockdale directed numerous close air support missions against the enemy dug-in positions while under intense two-way direct and indirect fire. His actions rallied the other government forces and directly resulted in their most successful single day advance of fourteen hundred meters, seizing the previously impenetrable key enemy stronghold. Sergeant Stockdale expertly controlled well more than three hundred close air support aircraft sorties of multiple F-15, F-16, B-1, B-52, F-14, AV-8B, and the full combat munitions expenditure of five AC-130 gunships. He skillfully ensured the pinpoint delivery of an incredible six hundred thousand pounds of munitions on enemy targets. In this three-day period he averaged thirteen hours of uninterrupted close air support control daily, an amazing display of dedication, expertise, and deadly destruction. By his gallantry and devotion to duty, Sergeant Stockdale has reflected great credit upon himself and the United States Air Force.
An AC-130H/U Gunship aircraft from the 4th Special Operation Squadron
Not your everyday meteorologist.
The term weatherman might sound like the furthest thing from the shadowy world of special operations. But the Air Force has a few Special Operations Weather Technicians (SOWT) who represent some of the most highly trained Special Operators in the U.S. arsenal.
Originally known as “air commando weathermen,” these Air Force meteorologists have participated in every conflict since World War II. They went ashore on D-day in Normandy. They set up clandestine weather stations in the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam war. Their advice has literally changed history—invasions pushed up or missions successfully executed because of time-sensitive weather intelligence provided by the SOWT.
A SOWT checks wind readings in a sandstorm during a Special Forces mission in Afghanistan. Air Force Special Operations Weathermen are the only career field in the Department of Defense that provides Special Forces with meteorological data in support of SOF missions.
Today, Special Operations Weather Technician candidates must complete two and a half years of training before becoming qualified. They are then deployed with other Special Operations units to war zones across the globe, where they gather, assess, and interpret vital weather intelligence data to assist commanders in mission planning. They also train members of host nation countries to do the same. And because they have all trained in special tactics and advanced skills, these operators do more than just predict the weather. They train alongside other Special Operations forces in airborne school, survival school, and even learn to pilot unmanned aerial vehicles.
All this specialized training makes the Special Operations Weather Technician one of the rarest creatures in the Special Ops community. Worldwide, there are fewer than a hundred currently serving today.
A SOWT pilots a RQ-11B Raven, an unmanned aircraft system, that provides real-time reconnaissance of the local environment, such as rivers, at a forward operating base in Afghanistan.
