Operation Dark Heart

by Anthony Shaffer

  I’d never felt my responsibility as heavily as I did that night.

  The connection between action and reaction, decision and execution; intake and execution of concepts; this was the use of intelligence information in its purest form to affect the real battle.

  This 10th Mountain band of brothers had been baptized in the ways of modern warfare by retaking the vital Moray mountain pass just days earlier, but there would be no time to celebrate or note the event by much more than a few scrawls in personal journals.

  With orders issued by CJTF 180 that directed the soldiers to rally at the assembly area for pickup, the CH-47s were refueled and flying, and crews—ever watchful for the telltale glow of an SA-7 or Stinger missile rocketing up from the mountainside in the partial darkness of a half-moon night—choppered over the silent mountains en route to collecting the two companies of a very tired infantry.

  On the leeward side of a plateau at just over 5,000 feet, a small landing zone was set up using chem lights that burned in the infrared spectrum so that anyone without night-vision goggles (NVGs) would not be able to see them, but they showed up clear and crisp to the aviators as they made their approach to the LZ. Two squads had been set up on and around the key compass points of the ridge to provide security and, if necessary, suppressive fire, should the Taliban attack during the consolidation of troops and load-up onto the choppers.

  As dawn approached, with just a hint of color showing on the eastern horizon, the three CH-47s came lumbering into the rendezvous. In the shadows, watching the dark, whalelike shape approach, half the GIs would be longing for a cup of coffee, the others wishing for a smoke. All would be wondering if this would be the day that something bad would happen in a firefight.

  As two goggle-eyed Apaches moved in slow circles around the LZ, pilots scrubbed the mountains for signs of Taliban by using the FLIR of their weapons systems. The typhoon gusts buffeted the soldiers now crouching in the shadows of the ridge, preparing for their rapid move into the relative warmth of the belly of the CH-47s. Hours of orders, preparation, and synchronization came down to this moment. Men and machine became one, lifted into the beginning of a late-summer Afghani dawn.

  The sixty-mile movement to the LZ near Deh Chopan was swift, less than an hour from one LZ to another, even with a circuitous route designed to throw off anyone from knowing exactly where the assault force was headed.

  A small Special Forces team prepared the LZ northwest of Deh Chopan, and readied to receive the inbound 10th Mountain troops. **** *** ** ******* **** ** *** **** ************ ******* **** *** ********** *** ** *** **** ** *********** ******** **** **** **** *** ****** ******* As the troops came off the Chinooks, they would be led into the short hills that lined the valley just to the northwest of Deh Chopan.

  The three helicopters were on the ground for less than five minutes depositing the majority of the two companies. One lifted off still carrying a reinforced squad of soldiers that would be deposited near a blocking position, just to the east of the still sleeping village, to obstruct the road and the possible arrival of reinforcements.

  The sky was almost a blue and burnt orange as the sun moved over the eastern mountains. The soldiers would have checked their weapons, conducted final rehearsals, and then found quiet places to break into groups and eat their MREs for breakfast. Officers and senior NCOs in their newly established makeshift command posts reviewed maps, now in the daylight, one last time, and finalized their attack plans and synchronized troop movements. Within an hour, the troops would be on the march toward the village in overwatch formation, with scouts and snipers a good half klick out ahead.

  The stage was now set, and all indications were that the move had been made without observation by the Taliban. It appeared that the cavalry would at least be in the game. Now we’d see if they could get into town before the Taliban and avoid inadvertently killing Ray’s guys, who were in town as well.

  Young men, many of whom were playing Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell on their Xboxes twelve months ago, were now all grown up. In their new reality, many were set up as pickets all around the assault element or were moving with stealth a good half a kilometer out front, ahead of the force now preparing to sweep into Deh Chopan. All were facing the prospect of another armed clash with Taliban insurgents.

  While we didn’t know it at the time—but we sure suspected—scenes like this would play out again and again for the next six years. The same circumstances would reoccur: coalition and Afghan forces fighting to take ground in hundreds of villages like Deh Chopan throughout the region, holding it long enough to push out the Taliban, and then leaving, only to see the Taliban reemerge into the district unopposed.

  Under the watchful eyes of Ray’s nearly invisible spies, the 10th Mountain scout element, unopposed and unobserved by the Taliban, entered the village and secured its perimeter without incident. As these soldiers moved carefully into the village, consisting of a dozen or so mud brick buildings that were a slightly darker shade of tan than the Desert Combat Uniform pattern, the villagers, mostly men wearing the traditional hajji hats and flowing robes, watched them with knowing eyes, almost patient in their gaze.

  While the 10th Mountain officers and noncommissioned officers did not trust the handful of Afghan National Army soldiers assigned to them as scouts, a mission that required a great deal of trust and autonomy, they did rely on them to be the spearhead of the main body moving in to occupy and secure the village. It was their territory, so it was only fair that they should go in first.

  The late summer sun was now high in the blue sky and shadows were short as the two sides moved into this engagement—soldiers of the twenty-first century and civilized society versus warriors with a mentality similar to the tenth century, though using modern firearms to enhance their ancient warrant to kill the infidel.

  The Taliban left no doubt that they were insurgents (a.k.a. partisans, guerrillas, illegal soldiers, bandits, etc.). They did not wear any uniforms; they all looked just like any other Afghan national living in the mountains, but their weaponry and manner of movement gave sufficient justification for operating under the current rules of engagement. This was going to be a legal and honorable firefight.

  While I wasn’t there, I could picture from my seat in Bagram how it played out: Within five minutes the ANA soldiers would be in line, facing the Taliban as they slowly, and carelessly, moved toward the village. The remainder of the coalition combat forces would fall into a rough crescent running from the northwest to the southeast of the village, with its bulge at a northeastern point just outside the village.

  Two Squad Automatic Weapons (SAWs) would be set up just to the right and left of the ANA soldiers, who were easily distinguished from U.S. troops by their woodland patterned battle-dress uniforms (BDUs). The SAWs would not only add fire support to the engagement but also set up a field of fire to the left and right of the primary ambush area to try to keep the enemy pinned down in the center.

  I could just imagine that the first thirty seconds of the engagement were probably almost comical. A Taliban insurgent, now less than 50 meters from the first mud building, would glance at a low wall at the very end of the building. He would stare at the wall, while continuing to walk toward the village center. He would see the ANA solider in his defilade position—and they would stare at each other.

  Perhaps it was disbelief that ANA soldiers could be at a village about to be occupied by the Taliban, perhaps it was sheer shock—but for whatever reason the Taliban and ANA solider would eyeball each other for another thirty seconds as the Taliban insurgent continued to walk forward with his buddies.

  Finally, in what must have been a flash of realization, the Taliban insurgent would yell a warning to his comrades, now showing two dozen in strength and completely exposed.

  All hell would break loose, and a wall of lead would welcome the insurgents. There would be shock and disbelief by the Taliban as most of them froze in place—the mind going into a “black” state where all fine
motor skills go away, all primary body functions focus on preparing the body for a fight, and “tunnel vision” focuses the senses and slows down time.

  Getting caught out in the open in a firefight is never a good thing, and within thirty seconds, half the Taliban would have been down, the others running for the ridge they had just come down, or toward a mountain range to the north of the ridge. Only a handful of Taliban managed to get off a few rounds from their AK-47s in the general direction of the village and the coalition forces within. All the bullets would be wild and wouldn’t come remotely close to any of the ambushers.

  The captain would call in a strike, his radio operator changing the frequency for him to speak directly to the B-1 aircraft now orbiting over the ocean, 500 miles from the village (a few minutes’ flight for a B-1) at 40,000 feet, with a belly full of JDAM bombs.

  The B-1’s navigator/bombardier would program in the geocords (geographical coordinates) to the JDAMs in the bay as the B-1 moved onto an axis that would bring it within 25 miles of Deh Chopan.

  By now the firefight would be less than twenty minutes old and already over. Yet the Taliban were about to get the second surprise of the morning.

  In defiance, the escaped Taliban fighters would have shown themselves along the mountain ridge—taunting the coalition troops, hoping the soldiers would attempt to follow them up the ridgeline and into terrain of their choosing that would give them an advantage.

  “Gecko, stand by” came the call in prep of the strike.

  The targeting of the bombs took about five minutes—the solutions were plugged in, and the bomb bay opened as the B-1 reduced its speed from its ten-minute near-supersonic dash toward Afghanistan to a more reasonable 250 knots for the safe and effective release of the bombs.

  “Weapons hot,” stated the bombardier to the pilot, who had already opened the bay and was now checking the airspeed to make sure of the safe weapons release.

  “Release,” said the bombardier as six JDAMs rolled off the rotary bomb system into the thin, clear air.

  In total silence to the troops below, large mushrooms of black and gray smoke would begin to blossom on the ridgeline directly north of Deh Chopan—followed in seconds by the sound (and force) of the shockwave.

  So ended the battle for Deh Chopan. In less than thirty minutes, a force of 80 Taliban was reduced to fewer than a dozen able fighters, with nearly 40 killed, and nearly all others wounded in some way.

  Ray’s guys in the village reported on the success of both the firefight and of the JDAMs’ devastation to the remaining Taliban on the ridgeline. Frankly, the body count was low because at least a dozen of the fighters were vaporized by near direct hits of the JDAMs—there was just nothing left of them to count.

  This was touted as one of the first successful integrations of tactical clandestine human intelligence into a major combat engagement in Afghanistan. Skeptics of the “dark arts,” like Colonel Negro and the CJTF 180 deputy commander, Brigadier General Bagby, who always thought that we spooks were not worth the trouble we brought, were seeing things differently. This was the good news, but from the good news came the reality that while we’d won this round, it was only the beginning.

  Other crises were looming.

  Kelly Broom, the civilian in the military affairs shop, came looking for me one day shortly after in the SCIF.

  “Brother, we’re in a world of hurt,” he said in his down-home Texas accent.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “We got a problem with Karzai, and he don’t even know it.”

  “Didn’t I hear he’s out of the country right now at the UN?”

  Kelly nodded. “Yep, that’s right,” he said, “and that’s exactly the problem. Looks like one of his ministers is lookin’ to take over.”

  “And that’s a problem because …?” I asked.

  He grinned. “We ain’t ready to change horses right now.”

  “OK, so what’s going on?”

  Kelly explained. Karzai’s defense minister, Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who had been the military leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance that had defeated the Taliban in 2001, was planning a coup attempt against Karzai. The United States had known that Fahim had designs on the office, and it looked like he was now making his move. Fahim believed that the Afghanistan central government should be more effective at taking control of the countryside for Afghan citizens. He, like some of the other powerful warlords who had some sort of control over their own militias, believed Karzai was too weak. The attacks on the police stations were happening with impunity with no response from the central government. The Afghan government was in the midst of converting from the Afghan militia—the collection of warlords’ armies that had banded together to defeat the Taliban—to the better-trained and better-equipped Afghan National Army. Fahim believed that he would be the better man to do that.

  He had started by putting out feelers to the United States to take over bloodlessly while Karzai was visiting America, but the U.S. ambassador turned him down.

  That didn’t stop Fahim, who started staging his troops around Kabul.

  Christ. A freakin’ coup. We didn’t need this right now. Our forces were either dispersed at border locations, at strongholds like Khowst and Kandahar, or were formed into small mobile teams located at Asadabad and ******. The only combat power we had at Bagram was Special Forces guys and the military police (MP) who provided base security. Our intelligence told us that Fahim personally controlled up to 2,000 Afghan forces that he had moved into the environs around Kabul. We had maybe 100 to 200 in the area. ISAF had 4,000 to 5,000 troops, but they were not combat power. They were primarily civil support, intel types, and those involved in infrastructure support, such as quartermasters, transporters, and engineers. It would have been hugely difficult to counter him force on force. The U.S. policy in Afghanistan was in danger.

  We took it up with Colonel Boardman. He had been tracking the situation for a while, but now it was focused. Some U.S. embassy officials had official contact with Fahim’s people. Fahim was getting restless and telegraphing to the United States that it was his intention to become president of Afghanistan. He told us it would be a bloodless coup—Karzai could stay in the United States in exile and Fahim would take over here. Clearly, Fahim wanted a buy-in from the U.S. government.

  Personally, I wasn’t sure whether a change would make much difference, but our policy was to retain Karzai. I was asked to become involved in the creation of a Concept of Operations—essentially, a plan to “influence” Fahim and convince him we were serious. We had to scare this guy because scaring him was pretty much the only option we had.

  We came up with a process to bluff him. I put out the word through the diplomatic, military, and intelligence channels that we knew he monitored that we were not backing down. The message was unequivocal: We are not going to allow you to become president of Afghanistan. If you do this, you will die. We had to make him blink. And if he didn’t blink? We were going to lose.

  We went through demonstrations of force to remind him of the power of the U.S. military by putting out word to increase the physical presence of troops in Kabul with more troop convoys coming into the city. Moreover, to deliver the message in a distinctly more intimate fashion, we sent a B-1 bomber at full afterburner buzzing over his house—and I mean over his house—just about 50 feet above.

  Message delivered. It was two days later that we knew, through intelligence and diplomatic channels, that Fahim had backed down.

  We were kicking ass all over the place. On the battlefield, the Taliban were on the ropes. Wherever they were, we were. This was modern combat, where fewer than 800 men, with 400 or so newly minted ANA soldiers, using the best that modern technology had to offer, took on a force slightly larger than themselves—and dominated.

  The one advantage that the Taliban did not have, which more than leveled the playing field for the purposes of Mountain Viper, was aviation. It turned mountain warfare into a game of deadly hopscotch
that, with the right intelligence, allowed even a small force to move with vigor and determination that not even the Russians could match during their occupation.

  We had solid intel on everything they did and we were able to blunt their all-out attack. They made the mistake of thinking they could take us on symmetrically—force on force—and bully their way back into power in Afghanistan. It failed abysmally. It was a huge miscalculation on their part.

  Even so, like all good terrorist networks, they learned from it. It was a mistake they have not repeated since.

  As Mountain Viper was winding down, Kate and I continued our cigar-smoking habit. One night, after we had our break for the evening, she hung around with me in the back of the tent I worked in at the SCIF. While chatting with me as I sat across from her, reviewing reports and e-mailing back to the States, she mentioned she had a sore leg.

  During her intelligence training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, she had sustained damage to her lower left Achilles, so severe that she couldn’t run. She’d had surgery on it, but it still wasn’t right. We spoke about the Huachuca Cannon run: a tough, two-and-a-half-mile dirt road that went straight up and down the mountains resembling those surrounding us at Bagram. I told her I’d torn a ligament in the same general area at Fort Huachuca while on the Cannon run.

  “Well, it’s acting up,” she said. She was sitting on one of the desks, and she bent forward and dug at it. “I’m kind of having trouble walking.”

  In situations like this, it was always prudent to be polite and respectful, but I figured, there would be medicinal purpose in offering a foot massage. You know, one soldier helping another soldier.

  “How would you like a foot massage?” I asked. “I’m sure that would help”—knowing that any such act would still require some privacy … and it would take an effort to remove the boots.

  She straightened up, looked at me with those big, brown eyes, and a slow smile filled her face. She stood up, still smiling.