Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man

by Dalton Fury

  I gathered the team leaders to update them on the changes in our concept of operation since we had departed the ISB a few days earlier. We had little patience for sitting around or hoping to get lucky with a golden nugget of intelligence. Instead, with the full support of our CIA friends, we were determined to make our own Delta luck by forcing the issue, by making things happen, and by pressuring General Ali to crank up the pressure on Usama bin Laden. Did the American people expect anything less?

  Our first call was to split Kilo Team in half to augment the pair of observation posts already in place. OP25-A, occupied by Green Berets of Cobra 25 for the past two days, was located in the eastern foothills several kilometers short of the front lines and abreast of the Agam Valley. The other Green Berets had just joined the second one, OP25-B, which covered the western portion of the battlefield, near the Wazir Valley.

  These two observation posts were either unknown to bin Laden and his fighters, or at least al Qaeda had chosen to do nothing about them. Both had done incredible work before we arrived, but were located four miles from the front lines and could not see over the distant ridgelines where the muhj were attacking. We were planning to move beyond both of the current OPs and establish new and flexible forward positions to take over those duties.

  Although the Green Berets were in those OPs first, we needed to put Delta men in there, too, because our guys were familiar with the current game plan, our techniques and tactics, carried compatible radios, and understood the commander’s intent. To maintain unity of command, we needed tactical control of the positions in order to synchronize the fight. The last thing we wanted or needed was another friendly-fire incident like a recent tragedy in Kandahar on December 5, when a bombing strike was called in to block the Taliban from crossing a bridge. The errant JDAM struck the wrong spot, killed three Green Berets, and wounded a halfdozen other Americans with flying shrapnel and rocks.

  As expected, the requirement for us to take control became a source of significant friction with Green Beret commanders at higher headquarters, but as often happens when two elite units find themselves occupying the same piece of the battlefield, the guys on the ground eventually worked things out for the common good.

  We tapped Kilo Team snipers Jester and Dugan to enter the battle-field first and prepare for insertion to OP25-A that afternoon, December 9. Once they linked with the 5th Group Green Berets and had a chance to acquaint themselves with the terrain, they were to move farther forward and scout for deeper spots where we could establish future OPs and would cut the angles to let us see past the high ridgelines.

  We desperately needed human eyes on the back sides of those ridgelines to conduct what the military calls terminal guidance operations—TGO—a fancy way of saying directing bombs to intended targets, either by a laser designator or by providing GPS coordinates.

  The other half of Kilo Team would get ready to move the following morning to augment the other post, OP25-B.

  The rest of the reconnaissance troop would be preparing for an intended insertion within twenty-four hours, with the assaulters on standby as both an emergency assault force, should we receive actionable intelligence about bin Laden’s location, and as a quick-reaction force should observation posts 25-A or 25-B get into trouble.

  The reconnaissance troop was pumped. Seeing the look in the assaulters’ eyes, I knew it would be hard to hold these guys back. I prayed for a bin Laden sighting.

  After returning from his recon of the front lines, Troop Sergeant Major Jim took one of the CIA guys around the schoolhouse to examine the mountains. He looked up at the highest point he could make out with the naked eye, referred to his map, looked up again, and set his finger on that peak on the map. The map legend confirmed he was looking at Hilltop 3212, which was nestled in the middle of several other slightly lower peaks. Jim raised his compass and made a mental note of the 172-degree magnetic azimuth.

  The CIA guy thumbed the edges of his own map and began to explain what they were looking at. He pointed left.

  “Half of ODA 572 is over there, up on that piece of high ground. That’s OP25-A,” the CIA man stated.

  Jim nodded. “Okay, now point out the other OP.”

  “Ummm, over there. That’s OP25-B,” said the CIA guy, pointing to the southwest. “See those three hilltops that are fairly even? Well, that tallest one is Hilltop 3212, the tallest one in the area, and it lies directly on the border with Pakistan.”

  Jim paused for a moment, and then turned to look at the CIA operative. You must be kidding. He wasn’t. The CIA man had misidentified the highest peak within view from the schoolhouse.

  “Give me your map, pal,” Jim calmly told him. “That is definitely not Hilltop 3212, it’s Hilltop 2685. Hilltop 3212 is about two thousand meters farther southeast.” He traced his finger across the map before handing it back.

  “Huh? You sure?” the Agency operative said sheepishly, studying his map closely. “Damn, maybe it is.”

  Jim raised an eyebrow and walked away. No wonder bombs were sometimes being delivered to the wrong address.

  He had a low tolerance for bullshit, and I had received that silent arched eyebrow reprimand many times myself during the more than three years that Jim and I spent together as troop commander and sergeant major.

  He was six feet tall, usually wore a ball cap, and sported a dark thick goatee that he only shaved off once a year, for his required annual Department of the Army photo. I considered him to be one of the best operators in Delta, and a twenty-first-century warrior who was the equal of the seventeenth-century French commander Jean Martinet, whose name has gone down in history as meaning strict and stubborn. Jim could be almost a despotic taskmaster at times, but the difference was that he was respected by every person in the building.

  He had grown up in the 3rd Ranger Battalion and moved to the elite 75th Ranger Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment before heeding the call of Delta. Shortly after returning from the invasion of Panama, he found himself in the mountains of the northeastern United States in the Delta tryouts, which were almost a formality since Jim was destined for Delta. The physical portion of the testing was almost ridiculously easy for the thickmuscled but remarkably limber and quick Ranger. He was not as fast as some of the others, but nobody could really outrun him. Jim would stay right next to you until you quit or one of you passed out.

  He was a gifted shooter with his own unique style of drawing his .45-caliber pistol that was indiscernible to the naked eye, but if he slowed his draw stroke down a bit and allowed a good view of his technique, you wouldn’t believe it. It was shocking how much faster he could lift the pistol from the holster and place two hardball rounds inside the space of a dime of a target forehead by using his patented unorthodox draw. We slung a boatload of brass downrange together, and I was usually still looking for my front sight post when Jim was already policing up his spent brass.

  However efficient I became as an operator was a direct reflection of Jim’s extraordinary training skills, his patience, and his genuine friendship. I consider myself darn lucky.

  Around noon, our friend Colonel Al stopped in to our humble corner room for a visit. He brought news that the initial reports received about the BLU-82 being a dud had been untrue. I guess with all the hard sell, almost everyone had expected an explosion of earthshattering intensity. Even better, Al said that back at the Pentagon and in Langley, Virginia, the home of the CIA, the Daisy Cutter was being hailed as a spectacular success.

  All of us who had watched its impact agreed, however, that even if the bomb had not been a mechanical dud, it had been a psychological dud among our allies. The CIA folks out here who had been charged with selling the bomb’s capabilities to General Ali knew the fireworks had been so lame that it had shaken the general’s confidence in American technology. I’m not sure what exactly Ali had hoped to witness, but the BLU-82 obviously was not what he expected.

  In fact, that morning he had summoned his subordinate commanders for an impromptu
war council. Originally, he had planned to exploit the expected devastation of the Daisy Cutter with a ground attack up the mountain as soon as the debris stopped falling. That ambitious plan was now off the table.

  Further, Ali told his men they could no longer rely on giant American bombs to get the job done, and that they needed to make do with the situation at hand and find ways to salvage something of today’s planned attack. He ordered several tanks to move forward and promised them 82mm mortars in support.

  An Afghan fighter burst through the doorway, holding his little radio in the air. He told the general that their fighters at the front were once again pleading for him to stop the bombs from landing on them. Another of Ali’s commanders fidgeted nervously, his body language clearly signaling his desire to get out of the meeting. They must be his men under fire.

  It was hardly a surprise. Ali’s men dressed like the enemy. Hell, we dressed like the enemy! No one could tell us on a map where anyone was located, and everyone looked alike, so how could the bomber and fighter pilots be blamed for any confusion? They were doing their best with the information they had. So, this blue on blue, or friendly-fire, engagement was simply the fog of war. It wouldn’t be the last incident. Unfortunately, America lost face with our allies every time it happened.

  Precision was needed in the dangerous business of calling in those air strikes, so the sooner we got our guys going, the better.

  Still, General Ali remained surprisingly upbeat and appeared highly motivated in the presence of his lieutenants at the meeting. George, the senior CIA man on the scene, had been noticeably frustrated by the BLU-82 debacle and then was further chagrined by the new blue-on-blue incident, but Ali told him to lose the long face and promised that his army would win the day.

  For two days, George and his Agency operatives had been promoting this bomb drop as the singular event of the young campaign, maybe even the decisive point that would clear the way for Ali to advance en masse and roll over al Qaeda. Now, despite what Washington was hailing as a success, the CIA chief here was quite logically concerned about the Agency’s credibility with Ali. From my point of view, George still held all the cards. The BLU-82 was one minor event in one minor battle, and there would be many more ups and downs before the fighting was done in Tora Bora. I sensed that Ali knew that as well.

  Our special intelligence interceptors, set up inside the room that separated Ali’s bedroom from our room, eavesdropped around the clock on all al Qaeda’s transmissions, so bit by bit we learned that the BLU-82 had been much more effective than originally thought. The enemy was overheard repeatedly calling out in anguish, crying, obviously hurting bad and requesting help from others located a valley or two away. Frantic calls from one fighter outside the blast area to his brother, and then to a third brother, went unanswered. Even if it was off the intended mark, the big bomb had put a big hurting on al Qaeda. It had left them bloodied, weakened, and introduced them to the rare feeling of being vulnerable. It was definitely time to reinforce success with a full-scale attack.

  Jester, Dugan, and four muhj started their journey for OP25-A at 1500 hours. The two Delta operators were close friends, in many respects cut from the same cloth, but were exact opposites in just as many ways.

  Jester was famous for pushing even the relaxed grooming standards enjoyed by the Unit and consistently received flak from some less flexible superiors. He proudly grew a thick blond Fu Manchu mustache, a facial hair style that gave him the look of a 1970s porn star. But he had an extraordinary intellect that forced a person to really have his act together before entering a debate with him on almost any subject. Best of all, Jester’s sniper skills were second to none. He could tell you the ballistic characteristics of every cartridge in the book, read the winds blindfolded, and manipulate a laptop computer with the knowing touch of a repair geek.

  Dugan, a former Georgia high school state wrestling champion, was the brawn of this unlikely pair. I think he was born with a scoped boltaction rifle in one hand, a turkey call in the other, and wearing a jujitsu gi. Often during hunting season back home, he skipped breakfast with us in favor of prowling outside the compound in one of the training areas, calling turkeys and tracking deer. He never missed a day in the gym, with the result being a perfectly shaped body, biceps the size of cannonballs and a chest that was like a power plant.

  Their trip started out with a half-hour pickup truck ride to a rendezvous point where they met up with two teenage boys and a couple of shabby donkeys to provide porter duties for the long uphill move. The snipers strapped their heavy rucksacks to one of the animals and loaded the other with a couple of cases of MREs and water cans to resupply the Green Berets already in the OP.

  Our snipers followed the donkeys and young guides and watched with disgust as one of the boys constantly smacked the trail donkey’s backside with a big switch. With every whack, the donkey was building a grudge. About halfway to the OP, they stopped for a short break.

  The teenager with the switch was about five feet behind the same donkey he had been whipping when the animal suddenly raised her tail high and her rear end exploded with a gush of the most awful green diarrhea imaginable. The stinking, liquid crap bathed the boy from the waist to the top of his bare feet. The two Delta snipers tried to hold back their laughter so as not to embarrass the switcher, but that was impossible, and the totally humiliated kid started beating the donkey hard before Jester and Dugan stepped in to calm him down. The Delta boys needed that poor donkey. Anyway, they thought the animal had done the right thing.

  An hour later the snipers arrived at OP25-A and met up with the current team which was in place there, a Special Forces A Team augmented by an air controller, about a halfdozen men led by Warrant Officer Dave. The group had been handling a majority of the close air support missions for the past two days,

  There is no doubt that the Green Berets wanted to slug it out with the al Qaeda fighters, too, but had been prohibited from taking one step closer to the battlefield beyond their position four miles away. That emphatic order had come straight down the pipe from their commanding officer, Colonel Mulholland. They were restricted from moving forward, but somebody had to.

  With Delta now in town, the Green Berets knew the handwriting was on the wall: They would no longer be running the show, although official word to turn over control had not yet reached them. It was understandably not an easy pill for those professionals to swallow, although it was just the wheel of war, rolling along.

  The two Delta snipers immediately recognized the effect of their arrival at that desolate little place, but there was a war to fight, and the elite Green Berets were having to take a major hit to their pride. Some handled it well, such as the air force combat controller who had worked with Delta in some previous assignments. He didn’t really care who was in charge. The team leader at the observation post, Dave, and one other Green Beret would prove to be enormous assets. Others were ready to simply call it a war, and remained well to the rear of the OP, goofing off and bitching like all good GIs, and just waiting to exfil. Hobbled by headquarters and unable to take the fight to the enemy, they had good reason to grumble, and I could not really blame them.

  By the end of the day Jester and Dugan had taken charge.

  To the south, the majestic mountains rose to the clouds, and deep valleys divided by steep ridgelines snaked generally south before merging together at the mountaintops. Shades of green, tan, and brown slowly gave way to various tints of gray as the sun began to set.

  For the next thirteen hours, the snipers, the combat controller, and the willing hands among the Green Berets directed several AC-130s, B-52s, B-1s and an unmanned Predator that slammed al Qaeda positions.

  At the schoolhouse, we heard the radio calls as they orchestrated the warplanes, and we could see the flashes of bright orange-and-red fireballs that lit up the dark mountainside. Meanwhile, we continued preparing a rescue force of Delta assaulters. Should an OP need emergency help, we wanted Americans to be ready to
go. The assaulters prepped their gear and vehicles, and Jim implemented needed sleep rotation.

  Delta was finally in the game, and things would start changing rapidly.

  10

  The Decisive Point

  Gunfight at the Afghan Corral

  How are things in Tora Bora? Do the bombs rain every night?

  Al Qaeda fortunes turning, do they shrink away in fright?

  How are things in Tora Bora? U.S. made, now terror run.

  Does Osama feel the pressure as he reaches for his gun?

  How are things in Tora Bora? Frozen caves in mountain tops.

  His supporters’ numbers falling, U.S. pulls out all the stops.

  How are things in Tora Bora?

  Long ago and far away, ’twas the land of tribal warfare.

  Where it ends, no one can say.

  —AUTHOR UNKNOWN

  On the morning of December 10, Jester and one of the Green Berets headed southwest, out toward the al Qaeda lines. The primary intent was to locate a route that the incoming India Team could use in leapfrogging past OP25-A later that evening. Jester also hoped to identify a spot that might provide a better angle to look into the mountains and at suspected tunnel entrances. Beams of bright and glowing sunshine seen from a different angle might reveal a cave entrance or bunker that had so far escaped detection.

  Moving a few hundred meters, they found a couple of promising spots, but after about a thousand meters of stalking, Jester realized that they were not going to find anything in the area with a better angle than the original OP provided, so they returned, frustrated but with no good options.

  The Delta snipers were uncomfortable with the terrain association the Green Berets used to direct the bombs; the map terms did not match actual features on the ground. The disparity convinced the Delta team that naming the prominent terrain features in the target area would make it easier for the pilots to recognize the correct spot on the ground. The Green Berets had named one hilltop already, but there were dozens. Once it was agreed to expand the recognition template, everybody chipped in and named the remaining significant terrain features. The most prominent three hilltops on the primary ridgeline became Knuckles One, Two, and Three… and then became even easier to remember as Larry, Curly, and Moe, of the old Three Stooges comedies.