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

by Dalton Fury

  Again, it was my decision. I stood there for a moment before reaching for the handset and calling Ashley, who was now at the schoolhouse. I passed him our intentions. We were coming back.

  I was uncertain if Sergeant Major Ironhead agreed until he simply said, “Good call, sir.”

  I’m still not so convinced that it was. My decision to abort that effort to kill or capture bin Laden when we might have been within two thousand meters of him still bothers me. In some ways I can’t suppress the feeling of somehow letting down our nation at a critical time.

  On our way back to the schoolhouse the boys up at OP25-A tracked our movement through their long-range spotting scopes. They weren’t the only ones watching. Skoot intercepted an al Qaeda transmission: “Don’t wait for the lights, just fire.” They didn’t even come close.

  I laid my M-4 assault rifle against my ruck next to the gray wall. I removed my black Kevlar helmet and the attached NVGs and gently laid them on my cardboard sleeping mat. The flimsy door creaked open as I bent over to take off my black assault vest and I saw Lieutenant Colonel Al silhouetted by the yellow flickering light of the kerosene lamp. He was shaking his head slowly, and I could faintly make out his slight grin.

  “Man, you guys are some brave-ass mothers,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Coming from a Special Forces officer and longtime member of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, it was quite a compliment.

  “Just another day at the office, Al. It’s what we are here for,” I offered.

  “Yeah, I know all that shit. But your guys just got here, someone yells ‘bin Laden,’ and y’all haul ass into the fire. Any other unit would have thought about it for a day or two, developed a risk assessment, called for permission, or figured out a way not to go.”

  “Well, Al, that was the pre-nine-eleven military. I’d like to think all that conventional bureaucracy crap and risk aversion went out the window when the Towers fell.” I dug into my pouch of Redman tobacco. “Want some?” I mumbled with my mouth full.

  I slept the sleep of the righteous that night, curled up next to Adam Khan.

  While we were dead to the world, one of the CIA ’terps reported that the journalists over on Press Pool Ridge had heard the helicopters’ arrival at the schoolhouse and were stirring for a story.

  Ali’s subordinates reasoned it would be bad publicity for the general if the QRF was still around when the sun came up and the reporters and photographers spotted American and British faces. That just would not do!

  So the MH-47 Dark Horses, pride of the 160th SOAR, returned, landed only meters from the schoolhouse and took away all of the new arrivals, including Ashley, to resolve the delicate situation.

  I slept through it all.

  The boys in OP25-A were magnificent that night. While we rested, they didn’t sleep a wink, and that yielded the payoff moment for Ski’s decision to have his India Team spend the night at the observation post. One of his boys was Dallas, who was using a MilCAM Recon thermal sight that we affectionately called the Darth Vader, and Dallas finally saw what everyone had been hoping for—the signature flash of an outgoing mortar round as it left the tube.

  Fellow sniper Dugan slipped his wool hat back and grabbed his Izlid infrared marking laser. Dallas talked Dugan onto the mortar location by using the horizon lines of Larry, Curly, and Moe, and the OP25-B opposing ridgeline as reference points.

  That may sound simple, but writing about it and executing it are two entirely different things. Words can’t do justice to how difficult this was because the difference between the view through a hot thermal system and a set of night vision goggles is literally night and day. As Dugan and Dallas worked their side of the magic, Ski and Jester came up with a target grid, which they handed to Spike, the team’s air force combat controller. Spike rang up the gunship. The clouds that had shielded the enemy had moved away, and the Spectre was eager to pounce.

  As the AC-130 bored circular counterclockwise holes in the sky, the boys labored to tag the mortar tube for the gunship, and Dugan managed to get the Izlid’s infrared laser exactly on the spot that Dallas had found, although they were working with entirely different tools. Dallas’s thermal imager picked up heat sources, not infrared sources—so he couldn’t actually see the laser that Dugan was using to sparkle the mortar.

  The gunship aimed at the tip of the laser and fired a single round from its 105mm howitzer and scored a first-round direct hit. Spike followed up with the order to fire for effect and the gunship lit up the target area with more 105mm rounds and a great many pickle-size bullets from the ripping 25mm Vulcan cannon.

  The boys didn’t need to see warm bodies flying through the air to know they’d hit the mark. After taking a moment to pass high fives around the OP and to slap Dugan and Dallas hard on their backs, they all got back to work. Knocking out that pesky mortar was just another piece of business.

  Signals intelligence would confirm there were no further enemy transmissions from that location. The elusive and persistent enemy mortars that had nagged us for several days were finally out of the game. It had taken less than ten minutes from the moment they were spotted.

  Spike continued to control close air support missions throughout the night while India Team worked the thermals and Kilo Team worked the NVGs and radios. Spike orchestrated the dropping of payload after payload on known and suspected enemy locations, sending the clear message that darkness no longer would protect the al Qaeda mountainous sanctuary.

  * Michael Smith, in his book Killer Elite, discusses in detail the history of these special signal collectors.

  12

  Press the Attack

  So let me be a martyr, dwelling high in a mountain pass among a band of knights who, united in devotion to God, descend to face armies.

  —USAMA BIN LADEN

  After only a few hours of rack, we awoke to a gorgeous and peaceful view of the majestic mountains on December 11. We sipped freshly brewed green tea or coffee to cut the morning chill, picked through a cold MRE, and hoped that bin Laden was still around up there, that he had stuck around for another day’s fight.

  During the night, our signal interceptors monitored numerous radio calls between al Qaeda fighters, many of which went unanswered. The descriptive but choppy intercepts indicated that mass confusion, uncertainty, and a sense of vulnerability pervaded their camps.

  Trying not to underestimate the man’s physical courage, we all assumed bin Laden would be true to his word and would fight to the death—to martyr himself in those mountains if necessary, and not duck out that open back door into Pakistan. He could probably travel overland and crest the 14,000-foot peaks within a few days, or he could descend to the major north-south valley and cross into Pakistan at only a 9,000-foot elevation.

  He had definitely been on the run that night, but all indications were that bin Laden would man up and stay put. I liked that choice.

  His personal magnetism remained strong among Muslims and would be a factor in his decision on whether to stay, for he had a lot of local support. Our signals intelligence interceptors regularly picked up radio calls when bin Laden attempted to motivate and recruit fighters. He played on the Muslim faith of General Ali’s men by offering them an opportunity to live and redeem their Muslim honor. All they had to do was drop their weapons, stop supporting the infidels, and return to their homes. Let the Americans, the “Far Enemy,” enter the field and fight us, he said. He reminded them that Muslims fighting Muslims at the urging of Americans was clearly counter to Allah’s will.

  His words always found an audience. Numerous times throughout the battle, whenever a muhj subordinate commander believed he was listening to bin Laden himself, we would hear that officer call out excitedly to his men. They would gather around, and the commander would hold the radio high overhead so all could hear the words of the man they considered to be larger than life. As they listened, the mesmerized muhj would turn to the south and stare off into the forbidden mountains
, as if they knew exactly which group of fir trees bin Laden was behind, or which cave he might be using, and that he was speaking personally to them.

  But after the aerial beating that had been laid on his nest the evening before, first at the hands of the Admiral and then through the long night from the boys perched up in OP25-A, it wouldn’t have surprised any of us to find out that the Lion of Islam had been killed.

  Alive or dead, the most obvious thing to do today was deliver an encore presentation—press the attack!

  Another six hours passed before we learned the details about General Ali’s sudden disappearance from the battlefield. After leaving us along the side of the road, the general had continued north for another two hours to his comfortable home in Jalalabad. When he finally showed the next morning, he explained that had rushed away in order to mass two hundred more fighters and had planned to return. Oh, well, in that case, we forgive you. We didn’t buy it for a second.

  The general’s trusty sidekick, Ghulbihar, later unwittingly revealed that his general was tired this morning because he had been up most of the night entertaining selected journalists and providing colorful commentary about bin Laden’s fate.

  Jim and I caught up with Hopper and the Admiral to hear details of their drama, and when they were finished, I asked them to put their experiences in writing. We used those personal accounts, and Adam Khan’s description of events over the next few days, to write Silver Star recommendations for both of them. A few years later, Hopper earned a second Silver Star during the first days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As of this writing, Hopper and the Admiral are both still in the SOF community.

  Adam Khan later told me that Hopper and the Admiral were the “two bravest sons of bitches” he had ever seen, and had he known that we were sending him out with two guys who had no fear of dying, he wouldn’t have gone along. Right. His humility was evident. We couldn’t pin a medal on Adam Khan’s chest, but the Delta commander signed a personal letter for his boss back in Washington, D.C., commending the man’s extraordinary bravery and other qualities.

  The majority of Delta operators are products of the Ranger or Special Forces community. The solid foundation of skills necessary for success in those elite organizations—shooting, moving, and communicating—provide a base mold that, with some advanced tooling, can be forged into an idiomatic counterterrorist icon. But every now and then a candidate with less of a warriorlike background defies the odds and surfaces during the Delta tryouts. By design, the right guy for the unit might have been the barracks computer whiz kid, the barracks lawyer, or even the barracks rat in some other unit.

  Hopper was one such person, coming to Delta without Ranger or Green Beret experience. His previous military specialty had been as a Russian linguist, and he had been standing near the Berlin Wall when the East and West Germans started knocking it down! The unexpected selection of such noncombat types speaks volumes about Delta’s secret recruitment and assessment process, which is as well guarded as the Coca-Cola recipe.* They can teach the new selectees how to fight our way, but the new ones also have to bring intellect and individuality to the table.

  One day, teammate Shrek described Hopper by saying, “Whatever he touches, he can do it better than a pro.” When not on the rifle range working the bugs out of custom-made assault rifle concealment holsters or removing the ten-ring of paper targets at twenty-five meters with his MP5K submachine gun, he was probably out on his hog or jammin’ with his hot guitar. A talented musician with a liking for electric guitars and loud drums, Hopper rocked alone in his private band room at home.

  During our morning review, or hot wash, of the previous night’s work, we all recognized the obvious: Nobody, short of al Qaeda maybe, actually knew where the front lines were. Ground that was contested during the day would serve as the front line only until nightfall, when the muhj would retreat and al Qaeda would reoccupy the ground, light their warming fires, and bed down.

  Delta was not going to play by those rules.

  Our original concept had been to send small teams of a few snipers and air force combat controllers out with Ali’s forces to conduct terminal guidance operations, but since the muhj did not stick around at night, that plan had to be modified. After watching the latest tedious performance of the muhj–al Qaeda minuet, reality dictated that if we wanted to rapidly respond on an ambiguous battlefield then we had better be able to commit immediately. It was as much a force protection matter as a tactical requirement.

  So on the night of December 11, without asking permission, we reconfigured our mission. Instead of holding most of our assaulters back at the schoolhouse to comprise an emergency strike force, we decided that the forward observation posts and the assaulters needed to occupy roughly the same terrain. Nobody was coming to the rescue, so we had to depend on ourselves and would later inform our bosses, “This is what we are doing.” In Delta, you are expected to make decisions when faced with something that doesn’t work.

  Basically, we were creating mobile security forces that could also double as forward observers. For lack of a better term, such a unit was called a mission support site, and known by the acronym MSS. Perhaps the name was awkward, but we all knew what it meant, so what the heck. The packages would be known by the nicknames of the leaders, so one would be MSS Grinch, and the other would be MSS Monkey.

  While Jester, Dugan, and the Green Berets from 5th Special Forces Group occupying OP25-A on the eastern flank stood down for a rest, the other Green Berets now occupying OP25-B, on the western flank, took over managing the bombers for the day on December 11. The original four guys who had established that outpost as Victor Bravo Zero Two went home once the Green Berets arrived, and we never saw them again. Things were starting to move fast.

  Back at the schoolhouse we spent the rest of the day preparing for the afternoon infil of MSS Grinch. Troop sergeant major Jim would be in charge, and he was backed up by half of our troop headquarters—combat medic Durango, communicator Gadget, combat controller the Admiral, and an attached Arabic tactical signal intelligence collector.

  Jim also would field a halfdozen snipers, with Hopper leading them, which meant his nickname of Jackal would remain in place for that unit. The other shooters were Murph, Shrek, and Scrawny. Pope and Lowblow, who had been split off of Kilo Team earlier with original assignment of going to OP25-B, would now instead go along with Grinch. The augmentation of the Green Berets at OP25-B would be tasked to others.

  Two teams of assaulters rounded out the package. Crapshoot’s Alpha Team members would be Blinky, Brandon Floyd, Juice, and Mango. The Bravo Team was to be led by Stormin’, and contain Grumpy, Precious, Noodle, and The Kid.

  To fatten the package even more, we attached the first four-man contingent of British SBS commandos.

  This tough and deadly bunch of professionals was about to take the fight to al Qaeda, and would not be coming back when the sun went down.

  For the record, we had no choice about accepting the Brits. When Ashley asked if we wanted any additional commandos from the SBS, our response had been, “No, thank you.”

  It was not because we questioned the skill of these professionals in any way, because we certainly did not. We would have felt the same about anybody. We had never worked with them before. After having acquired a good look at the battlefield, we knew that just resupplying ourselves would be a major challenge, and adding more bodies would increase the difficulty. Their presence also would exacerbate the problem of trying to hide from prying eyes.

  Besides, Adam Khan reminded us of the long trail of bad blood between the British and the Afghans. At the end of the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842, an embattled garrison of about 4,500 British troops and perhaps up to 10,000 camp followers was promised safe passage through Afghanistan’s snow-covered passes to return to India. They were repeatedly ambushed, and, according to legend, all were slain but Dr. William Brydon. The lone survivor was instructed to tell everyone he saw that the same slaughter awaited anyone else who c
onsidered occupying Afghan soil in the future.

  Now the Brits were back.

  Within another twenty-four hours, Ashley asked us to figure out how to use still another eight SBS commandos. Again, I responded negatively, at which time I was told in no uncertain terms that Rumsfeld had said this would be a coalition effort with our most trusted allies and friends and we would just have to figure it out.

  So, another eight British commandos and an intelligence operative from the United Kingdom would be added to our party at various intervals throughout the coming fight.

  Now, this is as good a time as any for me to eat crow. I was wrong. Our British friends fit in smoothly as soon as they arrived and could not possibly have performed better. They were brave, talented, professional, and passionate, and all of us in Delta were extremely impressed with their skill and courage, and proud to call them teammates during that cold December. The relationships established on this battlefield would serve both nations well as Operation Enduring Freedom progressed, and carry over into the next war in Southwest Asia, in Iraq.*

  In the early afternoon of December 11, some of Ali’s fighters were trapped in a valley, and a large group of al Qaeda fighters was looking down on them from the ridgeline. The muhj liaison stationed at OP25-A listened carefully to the radio transmissions and described the dire situation to Jester and Dugan. He pointed over to Hilltop Moe, where some other muhj fighters were trying to relieve the trapped men. The rescue force ran up Hilltop Moe, raised their AK-47s over their heads, and sprayed a few bursts of automatic fire across the valley, toward the dug-in al Qaeda fighters. That tactic didn’t work very well.

  The liaison man in OP25-A then asked the Americans to put some bombs on adjoining Hilltop Larry, which would spring the muhj fighters to take Hilltop 2685. Jester had word relayed to the commander to back his men a safe distance from the anticipated impact area, and the Delta boys went to work with a couple of the Green Berets and the Afghans to match the spotted location to the map.