8

NO SURRENDER

IT WAS THE night of 23 November when Mat and Sam deployed by Chinook to Mazar-e-Sharif, via a short refuelling stopover at a secret US airbase in Uzbekistan. The two men slept the whole of the flight, as the physical and emotional strain of the Naka Valley mission caught up with them. The highlight of the journey was their arrival at Mazar airport, whereupon they were met by an SBS reception party including Mat’s old teammates, Jamie and Tom. The last time they had seen each other was back at Bagram, when Mat had landed the Naka Valley mission and Tom and Jamie had got Mazar. They loaded all their kit into a couple of Land-Rovers and set off on the drive into the city.

‘What’s with the paint job, mate?’ Mat asked Jamie, indicating the Land-Rover’s bright white bodywork. ‘They shipped you out an Arctic vehicle by mistake, or something?’

‘I wish, mate,’ Jamie replied. ‘It’s worse than that. Cos we’re here on an “advisory” role to the Northern Alliance, we’ve been told to make like aid workers. We’re supposed to look like we’re the UN or something.’

‘What, like we’re the UN – despite the fact there’s a great big fuck-off GPMG mounted on the back of the truck?’

‘Yeah, well, it makes no sense to me, either,’ said Jamie. ‘Something about the place crawling with press and them not wanting it known there’s Brit special forces in with the Northern Alliance.’

‘Northern Alliance – sounds like a bloody building society,’ Mat grunted. ‘So what was all that shit in the OC’s briefing about “drawing blood quickly”, if we’re to make like UN aid workers? The UN’re hardly known for kicking arse, are they?’

‘No idea, mate,’ Jamie replied. ‘This op’s been a crock of shite since day one. It’s you guys who’ve been having all the fun, calling in the mother of all air strikes down south so I heard.’

‘Calling in air strikes?’ Mat snorted. ‘Calling off air strikes more like it. Ace quad-bike drivers, us, mate.’

‘How d’you mean, mate?’

‘Tell you all about it sometime,’ Mat said, pulling his woolly hat down over his eyes. ‘I got to get some kip, mate. What’s on the menu tomorrow? Bugger all, I take it?’

‘Watching a bunch of AQT surrender, or some such shite,’ said Jamie. ‘You might just want to spend the whole day snoozing, mate.’

On arrival in Mazar city, the two Land-Rovers made for the SBS’s base at the Old Turkish Schoolhouse (once a working school, until the Taliban shut it down). The three-storey building was the US military’s combined services headquarters for the Mazar region. The top floor housed the Delta Force operators and the CIA, the first floor housed the US 5th Special Operation Forces group (5th SOF) and the Rangers, while the ground floor was for the 10th Mountain troops. The British special forces had an ill-defined place in that hierarchy. Strictly speaking, the SBS lads were co-located with the 5th SOF, as they jointly made up the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) with responsibility for the Mazar region. But they spent most of their time on the top floor of the Old Schoolhouse, where the CIA and Delta boys loved to get a brew on for their British counterparts, swapping stories about what they’d been up to in various obscure corners of the world.

The US special forces community is far larger than that in the UK, and more disparate. There are some 45,000 US active and reserve Special Operation Forces (SOFs) across all the services – comprising some 1.3 per cent of the US military. By contrast, there are less than 2,000 active and reserve SAS, SBS and related units in the UK. In the US military, SOFs are known as Tier 2 Special Forces. The level of training and specialist military skills achieved by the Tier 2 troops puts them on a par with the British Parachute Regiment’s Pathfinder Platoons or the Royal Marine’s Recce Troops. The only US units that rival the SBS and SAS are Delta Force and the SEALs, their Tier 1 Special Forces, who number no more than a few thousand.

By the time that Mat and Sam had reached Mazar, the whole of the US Delta Force contingent was away at the siege of Kunduz. So for that first night they were billeted on the top floor of the Schoolhouse in the deserted Delta Force quarters. It made no difference to Mat and Sam where they spent the night, as they were dog-tired from the Naka Valley op and could sleep just about anywhere. At 10 a.m. the following morning the eight SBS soldiers making up the Mazar mission gathered for a briefing by Captain Lancer, their OC.

‘Welcome, lads, to marvellous Mazar,’ Captain Lancer began, nodding in Mat and Sam’s direction. ‘I hope you got a good night’s sleep, as I guess you must be knackered from your last op – you lucky bastards. I trust you’ll brief us all on the Naka Valley mission later. Now, I’m not going to beat around the bush – this is a dead-end op if ever there was one. You’ve seen the Land-Rovers painted for Arctic conditions? Well, that just about says it all. That being said, we’ve got a job of sorts to do, so we may as well do it to the best of our ability. At its simplest, we’re here to hold General Dostum’s hand, not that he needs it. He’s a tough cookie if ever there was one, with a track record it’s best not to delve into too deeply. Suffice to say he commands the loyalty of all his men, some 30,000 troops and irregulars under arms.

‘Mazar fell to the Northern Alliance forces and US air power a few days back – in fact, just before we got here. So, we’ve spent most of our time getting to know our Afghan hosts and our US military counterparts and doing a bit of hearts-and-minds work. The action’s moved east of here, to Kunduz, which is the second city in Northern Afghanistan. There’s some 6–7,000 enemy forces holed up in Kunduz, and the whole of the US military machine has refocused there – as have the majority of the Northern Alliance. And that’s largely why you’re here. With all of the Delta boys and most of the 5th SOF away at Kunduz, it’s left a vacuum. We’re here to fill it.’

‘Silly question, boss,’ Mat said, ‘but why aren’t we off mixing it with the Delta boys down at Kunduz?’

‘Well, we’d like to be,’ the Captain replied, ruefully. ‘Unfortunately, we were ordered not to go – on the personal intervention of the Prime Minister, so I’m told. Seems he fears Kunduz is going to be a bloodbath. US jets are on standby to flatten the place and wipe out the AQT forces. Trouble is, there’s a whole bunch of women and children holed up in the city. That’s probably the wrong word – it’s more like they’re trapped in the city. Afghanistan is crawling with press – newspapers, TV crews, the lot. And Blair’s paranoid that British forces are going to end up involved in some terrible human rights abuse and that it’ll be all over the papers.’

‘Makes you wonder what the fuck we are,’ Tom interjected. ‘Special forces, or some fuckin’ public relations wing of Her Majesty’s Government.’

‘Oh what a wonderful war,’ Jamie added, quietly.

‘Anyhow, here at Mazar we make up the Quick Reaction Force (QRF),’ Captain Lancer said. ‘We’re on standby in case any shit goes down, which is unlikely. Then there’s a skeleton crew of 5th SOF, most of whom are admin staff tasked with manning Boxer Base.’

‘Seems pretty much like the party’s goin’ down elsewhere, boss,’ Sam remarked. ‘I take it “Boxer Base” is the code name for this place?’

‘Yes, Boxer Base is the code name for the Schoolhouse, our HQ,’ said the captain. ‘Other than that, I can’t think of much else to brief you on. We, like you, came in low profile – so we have Diemacos and that’s about it – not that I expect we’ll be needing any heavy stuff. That’s the one saving grace about the Land-Rovers. Although they’re supposed to look like aid vehicles, we do at least have a couple of GPMGs bolted on the back of them, just in case we run into any trouble.’

‘So, what d’you want to do with us, boss?’ Mat asked.

‘We’ve made up two QRF teams, one commanded by myself and the other by Sergeant Major Trent. Now you’re here, we’ll put one of you on each of the teams. If nothing else it’ll give you the chance to tell us your war stories from the Naka Valley op. So, Mat, you’ll join my team, along with Jamie and Ruff. And Sam, you’ll join Sergeant Major Trent’s team, along with Tom Knight and Jake the Snake, OK? Your team leaders can brief you up on your individual call signs, comms and other procedures in your own time. Any questions?’

‘What have we got on the menu today, then, boss?’ Mat asked. ‘I hear there might be a gripping mass surrender.’

‘Yes, some six hundred AQT have agreed to surrender to General Dostum’s forces, somewhere to the east of Mazar. We’ve been asked along simply to “observe” today’s surrender. So once again, we’ve got no role, really. I reckon it’s just our US buddies taking pity on us and inviting us along for the ride.’

By mid-morning, the two SBS teams were in their Land-Rovers following a US 5th SOF Humvee out of Mazar. The SBS soldiers trundled along the baking tarmac in their gleaming white vehicles, with their faces wrapped in shamags and wearing battered jeans and T-shirts – so that no casual observer would be quite certain who the British soldiers really were. They headed out into the desert towards the east of the city, on the main Mazar–Kunduz road. They made for a fortified mound that housed a vehicle checkpoint manned by NA soldiers. From the top of the mound, they would have a clear view of the surrender taking place about a mile or so to the east of them.

They had been ordered that on no account should they allow themselves to be seen by the surrendering enemy. General Dostum feared that the sight of British and American forces might inflame the situation and jeopardise the surrender deal. To the east there was a sea of tiny, indistinct figures shimmering in the distant heat haze. Mat broke out his binoculars to take a closer look. Under high magnification he could just make out what was going on. It looked like a scene from some period action movie, with a crowd of berobed and beturbaned AQT on one side of the desert, and a bunch of Northern Alliance soldiers in a motley collection of uniforms on the other. They appeared to be in the middle of some kind of stand-off, with the six hundred heavily armed AQT refusing to give up their weapons. Like anyone else of any import, General Dostum was away at Kunduz, and perhaps that accounted in part for the enemy’s reluctance to surrender. Perhaps they wanted the General on hand to personally vouch for the terms under which they would be laying down their arms.

The tense negotiations dragged on for hours. Finally, Mat observed the first weapons being handed over. But the Northern Alliance soldiers were making little or no attempt to search the AQT fighters. According to Captain Lancer, that was the nature of the deal struck between the enemy and General Dostum – that there would be no degrading body searches of the AQT fighters. In the Afghan tradition of warfare, you were supposed to surrender with dignity, and with a respect that was reciprocated by the victors. As an honourable Muslim it was taken as given that you would have handed over all your weapons, which meant that no search was required. It all struck Mat as being more than a little suspect, but who was he to criticise such ancient traditions?

From the fortified mound on which they were standing a road ran some three miles south to Mazar airport. At first, the six hundred AQT were scheduled to go to the airport after their surrender, as hundreds of prisoners were incarcerated there already. But US warplanes had now started operating from out of the airport. Not surprisingly, the US military didn’t want any more enemy prisoners to be held in such close proximity to their air operations. As a result, the prisoners were loaded on to trucks and diverted to the only other large structure capable of holding so many captives – the ancient, mud-walled fortress at Qala-i-Janghi, about eight miles to the west of Mazar city.

The first truck to rumble past the checkpoint where Mat and the other lads were standing was piled high with surrendered weapons: AK47s, rocket launchers and heavy machine guns. Shortly after that, the first truckload of prisoners drove past the checkpoint en route to Qala-i-Janghi. As it did so, Mat, Sam, Jamie, Tom and the other SBS lads hid their faces from the enemy captives’ gaze.

After several hours of suffocating travel in the baking heat of an ancient Soviet truck, Ali and his brothers finally arrived at a location they immediately recognised, Qala-i-Janghi – the ‘Fort of War’. Until a few days earlier, this ancient, mud-walled fortress had been one of the Taliban’s key bases, which was how the brothers knew the place so well. But now, General Dostum’s forces had seized control. During the journey there had been much animated discussion among the sixty brothers crammed on to the back of the truck – and it was clear to Ali that his was not the only group of foreign Taliban who had no intention of surrendering.

Ali knew that Qala-i-Janghi was used as a major arms store, and was kept permanently stuffed full of weaponry. It seemed inconceivable to him that General Dostum’s men could have already removed all the arms that were stored there. In which case, being incarcerated there might just serve Ali and his brothers very well. If they could only get their hands on those weapons and the ammo dumps, then the much hoped for counter-attack would have every chance of succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. Insh’Allah, they could equip a whole army for jihad with the hardware stored in that fort.

As the brothers were unloaded from the truck, Ali noted how lightly they were being guarded. The Northern Alliance fools seemed to have learned little from the events at Balkh and elsewhere – where the brothers’ so-called ‘surrender’ had turned into a bloodbath for the enemy. Well, the whores would be made to pay for it with their lives. At their surrender earlier in the day, the brothers had been made to give up their main weapons – their RPGs, AK47s and their heavy and light machine guns. But scores of them had secreted smaller weapons under their traditional Afghan robes. All they had to do now was fight their way into one of the weapons stores. Then the glorious uprising would be underway, and, if Allah so willed it, unstoppable.

Ali glanced around him, checking out the fort’s defences and the number of guards. As he did so he caught sight of a group of foreigners chatting with some of the Northern Alliance soldiers. They were dressed in jeans, T-shirts and baseball caps, and Ali knew that they had to be either Europeans or Americans. At last he had sight of the people that he had come here to kill. He felt his blood thrill at the very thought of it. Before now, the hated kafir had always appeared as the pilots of distant aircraft screaming through the skies, cowards dropping steel and high explosives from the safety of 10,000 feet. Until now they had always been out of reach and untouchable.

Ali watched as three of the men separated themselves from the group and wandered over to where he and the brothers were waiting in line to be processed into the fort. They were carrying a large video camera, microphones and a tripod, so they had to be news journalists. They were members of the despised kafir media, Ali reflected, the propaganda machine of the Great Satan. All of the kafir media were biased and evil, because they ignored the murder of innocent Afghan women and children by US warplanes, focusing instead on their so-called victories. Just as they ignored the suffering in Palestine, because the kafir media was controlled by the stinking Jews. Ali hated the kafir journalists almost as much as he hated the kafir soldiers.

‘Hi. Mind if we have a word with you guys?’ the sandy-haired man at the front of the group asked one of the brothers. ‘Just roll the camera, Brad, and let’s see what we get,’ he added, speaking over his shoulder. His accent was clearly American, and Ali just stared over at him without saying a word, hatred burning in his eyes.

‘You mind if we have a word? OK? No? Yes? Well, I guess that’s a “no”?’ the journalist continued. ‘Hey, maybe he doesn’t have any English,’ he said, turning to his cameraman, who just shrugged his shoulders. ‘Hey, you know, you speak any English? I just wanna know why you’re here and why you surrendered? I guess he’s got no English. Hey, Brad, I guess we may need to get the translator over here, eh?’

‘I speak English,’ Ali spat out. ‘And we have NOT surrendered. We have not surrendered to the kafir dogs and we will never be surrendering.’

‘Hey, well, y’know, it looks to me pretty much like a surrender,’ the journalist countered. ‘And I guess that’s what the Northern Alliance guys think too, or you wouldn’t be here, now would you? Anyways, where’re you from?’

‘When the time comes, insh’Allah, you will be the first American pig to die,’ Ali snarled, deliberately speaking in Arabic so the journalist wouldn’t understand him. ‘Remember this kafir dog’s face, brothers, and remember it well.’

‘Hey, you’re defeated, disarmed and being held prisoner, buddy: looks pretty much like surrender to me,’ the journalist said, walking away. While he couldn’t understand Ali’s words, the sentiment was crystal clear. ‘But, whatever. Go figure.’

‘Brothers, we have waited so long to get the chance to fight the kafir,’ Ali continued, turning his back on the journalist. ‘Sooner or later, we knew that chance would come. Now, by the grace of Allah, we are being granted that chance. Brothers, by the grace of The One who makes the sun shine, the wind blow and the oceans roar, may we now be worthy to the call of the jihad.’

Within the hour, Ali and his fellow brothers were processed into the fort, along with hundreds of other prisoners. Before being taken down into the fort’s basement – where the majority of the prisoners were being held – Ali and his brothers suffered the indignity of having their hands bound. But none of them objected. They were waiting for the right moment to take the initiative and attack those holding them captive. They would only do so when the time was right – when some of the kafir American or British dogs were close enough at hand for the killing.