The boys asked me to stop reading out the intelligence reports before we went out into the rhubarb. Too upsetting. After that we just agreed it was going to be fucking Armageddon every day.
MOTHER
At the same time all these terrible events were happening at the river, Don Bolduc’s Task Force 31 (TF 31) was living through its own hell south of M’sūm Ghar. When he had put his task force together at my request in late August, Don had included special forces teams and units of the Afghan National Army, over which he had placed Jared Hill in charge. Jared had arrived a year earlier to serve as Afghanistan assistant operations officer for the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. Now he was commanding Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group. Jared would soon face the challenges of command as he led his troops in some of the most ferocious combat activities of Operation Medusa.
Special forces operational detachment teams (ODAS) typically work in individual units. For Medusa, however, Jared would have three of these teams in the task force, with Captains Hodge, Bruce and Bradley leading ODAs 26, 36 and 31 respectively. These battle-hardened Green Berets would work together immediately before and during the operation to stop Taliban ingress into Panjwayi from the Red Desert and other points in the south. Soldiers of the Afghan National Army would be joining them for the fight. I asked Captain Derek Prohar of the PPCLI to join them as my liaison officer. As special forces units communicate on frequencies different than those used by ground troops, Derek would take one of our radios and keep me informed throughout.
On August 29 TF 31 had headed for its assigned area of operations in the valley between the Red Desert and M’sūm Ghar, where we knew the Taliban were still active. Through phone chatter we had determined that Taliban commander Amir Sabar Mohammand had been mustering fighters in the general area to join the effort in Pashmul. To elude unwanted attention as they drove their eleven-vehicle convoy to the valley, the task force avoided roads and headed straight across the Red Desert in 50-degree Celsius heat. Based on intelligence gleaned en route both on the ground and over radio, it became clear to TF 31 that they were facing an enemy attack, one of significantly larger size than our earlier intelligence had led us to expect. When they exited the desert, they were immediately spotted as they had anticipated. Guessing that the attack would come soon, they positioned themselves on a ridge overlooking the valley and waited. As the sun set, they checked their gear, readied their weapons and dug in. Monitoring Taliban frequencies at dusk, they could hear the Taliban saying prayers. Then the radios went silent. Darkness fell.
The turret gunner in Jared’s vehicle was the first to see them coming. One vehicle appeared. Then two. Then dozens. The Taliban were piloting their Hilux trucks to position their forces for attack around the battlefield. The task force’s ground commander called for air support; we sent in a B-1 bomber, closely followed by an AC-130 gunship armed with 105mm and 40mm cannons. The AC-130 is a Hercules with an unpressurized cabin, its weaponry mounted down the port side of the fuselage. During an attack, the pilot will fly around the target in a slow pylon turn, making it possible to fire at the enemy for a sustained attack. It’s a beast.
An ODA air controller called in the enemy’s positions and, for safety, the position of our own troops. The AC-130 floated in, weapons ready to open fire on the Taliban—who were now taking flanking positions around the task force—if rules of engagement permitted. Under these restrictions, no aircraft has the authority to shoot unless an enemy weapon is visible, and the Taliban knew it. They hid their weapons immediately. Eventually, they simply moved off. The attack was over, for now.
Once again we had learned that the Taliban were becoming more sophisticated in their tactics, this time using our own rules to avoid slaughter from the air. The takeaway of this was that the Taliban were becoming significantly better organized in their ability to coordinate complex attacks. This was another new development.
The next day TF 31 waited in position. They were ready, but nothing came. As darkness fell again and no one approached, they concluded that the plan for an attack had been abandoned. The night was quiet. On August 31 they moved out, deliberately leaving fires burning so Taliban scouts would assume some of them were still in place. They then headed out of the valley and into the hills.
As they moved north, streams of locals passed them on the way out of the area. With our own information campaign and announcements by Governor Khalid, they all knew that a major showdown was coming. Even back then, one of my concerns was how quickly we could bring these people back to their homes once it was over. The disruption to their lives and livelihoods would be difficult.
This time the three ODAs split up, taking various positions on the mountains north of M’sūm Ghar, standing by to stop Taliban fighters from entering the area as their mission demanded, and ready to end the careers of any enemy fighters trying to flee the area once Medusa began. Jared Hill’s Green Berets waited through September 1 and 2, listening to our aviation and Omer’s artillery pound Panjwayi before the advance across the river. On September 2 they could feel the crash and explosion of the Nimrod not far behind them. On September 4 they listened to the news of the A-10 strafing of Charles Company and heard that our main battalion was again going to have to pause and re-plan. They knew, as we did, that the operation was now in danger of failing.
As they were waiting, they could see the hill known as Sperwan Ghar to the south in an area we had designated as Objective Billiards. Though not even twenty metres high, it afforded any observer a 360-degree view of the surrounding valley and the battlespace north of the Arghandab. TF 31 figured that if they commanded the hill, they would have a vantage point from which to help target our air support. And we all knew that if the enemy were allowed to take the ground, it would severely restrict our future movement in the valley. We would be unable to manoeuvre when it was time to do so.
We hadn’t paid as much attention to Sperwan Ghar as we had to Pashmul. We knew it had been a Soviet outpost in the eighties. A road circled up and around the hill to a summit into which the Russians had dug a circular depression, likely for a weapons battery. We were pretty sure the hill and the pit weren’t being used for much now. At the foot of Sperwan Ghar stood a building complex with roads leading to its front and back walls. And that was it.
The plan to take the area was simple. Move in, sweep the roads, clear and take the buildings, then move up to the summit dealing with anyone in the way. Don Bolduc approved the plan and the teams rolled out, moving past villages, huts, ditches and abandoned vehicles, from which any Taliban snipers would have a clear shot. As Derek Prohar reported to me, nothing happened but, when they reached the Sperwan building complex, that all changed.
Just as Charles Company had experienced at the schoolhouse, all hell broke loose when the task force rolled up and the convoy was ambushed with small-arms and RPG fire from multiple directions. The enemy was entrenched, organized and fierce. All these Green Berets now knew they were somewhere of great strategic importance, and that the Taliban wasn’t going to let it go easily. Once again Jared’s team called for air support and were told they could have aviation on-site in twenty minutes. They guessed those twenty minutes were going to be brutal. They were right.
Out in the open, the vehicles of TF 31 were easy targets, and the enemy rained machine-gun fire and RPGs on them. But this was not the first time the ODAs had faced this kind of situation. They swung their vehicles around as screens, kept them all moving and returned fire with equal energy. At one point, they were engaged by a machine gun nest in one of the buildings, which upon inspection was obviously a mosque. Not a holy site that day, however, at least under our rules of engagement. The ODAs focused their firepower on the structure, eventually firing a round into the building from a portable, anti-tank AT-4. That silenced the occupants.
But the enemy around them seemed to be getting bolder, more determined. And at this rate of fire, the ODAs had already gone through half their ammunition. Predator feeds back at our operations centre were revealing that the Taliban were far more numerous than any of us expected, and we now knew this fight was going to be long and messy. Apache attack helicopters and A-10 Thunderbolts moved in and, while the risk of hitting our own soldiers was high because of their proximity, Jared’s controllers were able at least to walk the nimble Apaches onto target with pinpoint accuracy. The firefight continued, with Taliban rising from the surrounding ditches to target the ODA vehicles, silenced in return by volleys of grenades. But the ODAs pressed on, even as the supporting aircraft had to leave to refuel. They cleared buildings, blew up weapons caches and killed Taliban fighters. But soon, within minutes, their ammunition would be gone. The order was given to break contact, and under full fire they withdrew. They drove south to a desert strip near a range of mountains and stopped to assess their damage. No one came after them.
The cost? One injury. No one killed. So far.