American Spartan

by Tyson, Ann Scott

  One afternoon a few days later, Obeid and three friends climbed into a station wagon taxi—the kind ubiquitous in Afghan towns—on their way to a meeting outside of Barabat. The taxi slowed as it passed through a crowded market, with wooden carts piled with tomatoes and skinned sheep carcasses hanging on hooks from bamboo stalls. Out of the corner of his eye, Obeid noticed some suspicious men.

  “Stop, turn around!” he told the driver.

  Seconds later, the men opened fire on the taxi with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades from behind a wall on the road. The gunfire shattered all the windows. As the taxi sped away, Obeid started shooting back from his door with the AK-47 Jim had given him. But it was too late: one of Obeid’s companions was dead, and two others were wounded.

  After Obeid’s narrow escape, Jim lobbied his command harder to employ Obeid in starting up local police in Barabat and surrounding areas.

  As usual, the command’s response was slow. Some inside the command objected to Jim’s discussions with Obeid because he was a former insurgent, ignoring the possibility that once he turned he could be of tremendous value.

  Meanwhile, Obeid was exposed, vulnerable. “If I don’t get the ALP, it will be really tough for me to live,” he said. He eventually was given command of a small ALP force, which proved effective at cutting off Taliban movements and supply routes. The Taliban intensified attacks on Obeid, using ambushes, IEDs, and even shooting at his house. Knowing he was a marked man, Obeid allegedly killed a key tribal leader with connections to Abdul Wali—a man involved in targeting him in the taxi. In response, Abdul Wali put pressure on local Afghan government officials, who arrested Obeid for the killing and jailed him in Jalalabad.

  ABDUL WALI HAD WANTED to exact revenge on Obeid, but a far bigger problem was Jim. Like other hard-core insurgents, Abdul Wali understood that Jim’s work with the tribes was a very serious threat. He had been targeting Jim with suicide bombers, IEDs, and an assassin named Khetak.

  Then one day in August, Jim got word that yet another Taliban wanted to meet him. When he learned who it was, he was intrigued and excited. It was Khetak.

  A thousand calculations rushed through Jim’s mind. Was it an ambush? What was Khetak’s agenda? Who else was behind this?

  Jim knew from classified sources that Khetak was wanted for gunning down several men in cold blood, including a police chief. Khetak was still believed to be a paid killer working directly for Abdul Wali and was on the U.S. terrorist watch list.

  Yet instinctively Jim felt he had to agree to a meeting. He could never report such an encounter to his command because it was unauthorized, but it was too lucrative an opportunity to influence the insurgent leadership to pass up. What clinched it for him, though, was his implicit trust in the tribal intermediary Khetak went through to set up the meeting: Noor Afzhal’s son Asif.

  Asif and Khetak were from different tribes—Asif was a Mohmand and Khetak a Safi. But they were peers and shared an interest in dog fighting. Asif had heard Jim ask again and again in meetings to talk with the Taliban, and understood his goal of reintegrating the insurgents.

  Jim mitigated some risk by having the meeting take place at Noor Afzhal’s house in Mangwel, and took a slew of other tactical precautions. It was the ultimate test of his trust in the tribe’s protection. Khetak made similar calculations. Still, each man was prepared for the other to try to shoot him on the spot.

  On the morning of the meeting, Jim brought Noor Afzhal and his son Azmat to the Tribe 33 qalat for their safety. Then he and Ish walked down the dirt path toward Noor Afzhal’s home. They had already discussed contingencies. It was silent except for their footsteps and the rhythmic whistle of the village wheat mill. Jim took the pulse of Mangwel as they walked. Did the children come out? Were the normal people around? They stepped through the tall wooden gate of Noor Afzhal’s qalat. The guard dog was chained and curled up in the corner as usual. Raza Gul came out and greeted him, and then Asif did the same. Jim read his brother’s face. He had seen Asif upset, on edge, and he could see that he wasn’t now. It was all right. Jim took a deep breath, strode quickly into the meeting room, and embraced Khetak.

  “Salaam aleikum, peace be upon you,” Jim said.

  “Waleikum salaam,” Khetak replied in a low voice. Each man accorded the other the respect due a fellow warrior—though on opposite sides of the war.

  Heavyset and balding, Khetak was thirty-eight years old and wore a black tunic and red kandari cap. Jim knew some of Khetak’s background from intelligence reports. A Taliban leader based in Chowkay, Khetak shot and killed the district police chief in 2008 and then fled to Pakistan to work for Abdul Wali. He returned to Chowkay in early 2011 and spoke about turning in his weapons. Then government forces raided his house near Chowkay market, and he fought back with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

  Khetak had also heard much of this American Special Forces officer, Commander Jim, who dressed and lived like an Afghan and was working with the tribes.

  “Keena,” Jim said. He deliberately broke the space between them, sitting cross-legged on the floor within easy arm’s reach of Khetak. “Brother, it is good you are here. We will talk,” Jim said.

  “Yes, there is much to talk about,” Khetak said, his voice strong and confident.

  After an exchange of pleasantries, Khetak got down to business. Unsurprisingly for Jim, he launched into a salvo about feuds, revenge, and honor—things that coursed through the blood of Afghan men.

  Khetak was Safi, but he detested Safi tribal leader Jan Dahd and his son, provincial intelligence deputy chief Jan Shah. He claimed that the trouble had started seven years earlier, when Jan Dahd had his eye on a girl to become a bride for one of his sons, but Khetak’s brother married her instead. Soon afterward, his brother was gunned down as he worked shoveling in an irrigation ditch. Jan Dahd was responsible, Khetak said. “Jan Dahd has killed many people in Chowkay, and no one can say anything because they are scared of him. If you put him in charge of the local police, he will have even more power,” Khetak said. “My brothers and I will have to leave.”

  Jim took out a string of prayer beads, and began running them through his fingers with feigned calm. The possibilities afforded him at that moment were stark, bewildering.

  An assassin who might be trying to kill me wants my help.

  He has direct access to a top insurgent commander.

  His worst enemy is my friend and ally.

  Jim was honor-bound to side with Jan Dahd. If he crossed the Safi tribal leader, both he and Khetak would be dead men. And Jan Dahd had proven loyal to him, so Jim had no reason to betray him. If anything, Khetak’s protests about Jan Dahd confirmed to Jim that he had chosen the right man to lead the local police in Chowkay, someone who was feared even by a Taliban killer such as Khetak. Who else could control the lawless area?

  And yet there just might be a way to assist Khetak as well. It would have to await their next meeting.

  “Before we go on, there is something I want you to know,” Jim said. “I will never run out of bombs or bullets, I will never tire of fighting. Neither will you, my brother. We can go on this way forever, or we can meet face-to-face and try to deal with the issues. I will do my best to help you. Just be patient. We will meet again.”

  Khetak studied Jim’s visage.

  “I have one more thing to say to you,” Khetak said, recognizing a fighter like himself. “There is a Pashto proverb. The people who live by the river, the lowland people, they all dance to the same music. In Pashto, that means they will say yes to anything. But the people who live in the mountains will not.

  “We Safis are mountain people. You should come with me to the mountains and become a Taliban commander.”

  Jim let out a laugh. The irony was almost too much for him.

  “If we did that, every American commander would come after us. Do you think it was bad for Osama bin Laden?” he joked.

  Then, just as quickly, his smile disappeared. His face g
rew distant as Khetak’s invitation sank in.

  “Do not ask me that again, my brother,” Jim said, patting Khetak’s knee with his hand. “For if you do, the next time I might just say yes.”

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER, JIM and Khetak met for a second time at Noor Afzhal’s house.

  Both men were cagy enough to be wary without showing it, and joked like old friends—with a peculiar humor that came from knowing they could kill the other as naturally as they breathed in and out.

  “I have a nice gift for you,” Jim said, smiling. From a leather holster, he pulled out a 9 mm pistol. “I don’t ever carry a weapon that is not loaded,” he added. To show Khetak he was telling the truth, he dropped the magazine. Then he pulled back the charging handle with a sharp metal clack and ejected the bullet from the chamber.

  Jim then casually picked the bullet off the carpet and reloaded the pistol, slapping the butt to insert the full magazine and chambering a round.

  “So it is loaded. It is good,” he said, handing it to Khetak.

  Khetak took the pistol in his hand, admiring it.

  “And here is my picture,” Jim went on, handing Khetak a large printed photograph of himself in Afghan clothes. “So you have a weapon and my picture. Shit, whoever wants me, now they can come and get me,” Jim said.

  It was the supreme gesture of trust, as well as a challenge—and Khetak knew it.

  “When are we going to the mountains?” Jim asked. “I want to meet Abdul Wali. Set it up, I will go. But you have to guarantee my safety. You only,” he said.

  “A lot of Americans try to meet me, but I have not met anyone. Asif asked me to come, and I trust him. Now I trust you, and you can trust me,” Khetak said.

  “Do you know how many reports I have sent up about you?” Jim asked. “Sifr. Zero.”

  “Governments, they make war. People make peace. That is the truth,” Khetak said.

  Jim then explained how he intended to help Khetak. He was going to use his close relations with Jan Dahd and Jan Shah to try to mend the rift between them and Khetak. If that failed, Jim would let Khetak know in advance so he could leave the area before Afghan Local Police were established under Jan Dahd and his men.

  Khetak’s face grew cloudy. He would have nothing of it.

  “I will tell you right now. I am going to get rid of his son [ Jan Shah]. He killed my brother. He is a bad person. I am going to kill him, and in our next meeting, I will tell you about it.”

  The die was cast. Jim had to protect Jan Shah.

  OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL weeks, Jim moved ahead with the plan to raise three hundred Afghan Local Police in Chowkay under the leadership of Jan Dahd. An official “validation shura” was held, with American and Afghan senior officers flying in to endorse it.

  Word got back to Jim that Khetak was very angry and seeking instructions from the Taliban on how to deal with Jim.

  Jim went to Asif. “What’s going on with Khetak?” he asked.

  “Forget about him,” Asif said, clicking his tongue and brushing the air with his hand.

  That confirmed Jim’s suspicions. He asked Abe to get Khetak on the phone.

  “Don’t ever come fucking around here,” Jim told Khetak. “If I ever see you again, I will kill you.”

  “No,” Khetak replied. “I will kill you.”

  WHILE SOME TALIBAN BROKE ranks to join Jim, intelligence reports proliferated that die-hard Taliban commanders such as Abu Hamam and Abdul Wali were stepping up attacks against Jim and his team.

  On July 30, four men in a Hilux pickup truck left the village of Sarkay in Khas Kunar District and headed toward Mangwel. Two of the men were wearing flowing blue burkhas, the cloaks that covered Afghan women from head to toe except for a small opening for their eyes. One of them had a suicide vest under the burkha. Two others were armed with pistols and wore chest racks full of ammunition. Abdul Wali, angered at the protection Jim received from the Mohmands in Mangwel, had reportedly brought them in specifically to target Jim. They had been training for three months in the use of suicide vests, interrogation resistance, and other tactics. The men drove back and forth along the road that lead to Mangwel all morning, waiting for Jim. But when he did not arrive, they headed back through the Khas Kunar bazaar toward the White Mosque Bridge. A suspicious villager had alerted the police, who stopped the truck at the bridge. The two men wearing burkhas jumped out. One of them, trained to never be captured alive, blew himself up. The blast stripped away the burkha, revealing a corpse with a large black beard and bushy eyebrows dressed in bloody white clothing. The second ran and was shot in the chest and groin by the police; he died. The other two men were detained in the truck.

  In August, reports surfaced of two other efforts to kill Jim with suicide bombers, including one ordered by Taliban commander Abu Hamam.

  One day in mid-August, a suicide bomber was reported to have infiltrated Mangwel. Jim, Azmat, and several arbakai immediately grabbed rifles and headed into the village on foot while Americans and Afghans reinforced the guard towers of the Tribe 33 qalat. Justin watched from one tower through the scope of a sniper rifle as arbakai fanned out through Mangwel. Jim detained three men by the road and headed on to Noor Afzhal’s home to check on him. What happened next surprised even Jim. Mangwel’s mullah began broadcasting from the village mosque, saying there was a possible threat to the village and asking the people to report any strangers to the arbakai. Tribespeople poured out of their homes looking for attackers but found none, signaling either that it was a false alarm or that the bomber slipped away. Either way, Mangwel was safe.

  Roadside bombs were another prime means of attack. But Jim was so skilled at finding and dismantling the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that they rarely escaped his notice. Still, it was a constant cat-and-mouse game, and the insurgents weren’t giving up.

  One clear September day we headed for the Shalay valley on a mission to clear a reported IED. We rolled out of the Tribe 33 qalat at about two o’clock in two vehicles. Jim was in the lead in his Humvee, called Vehicle One. Dan followed in command of a mine-resistant armored vehicle, or RG-31, called Vehicle Two. Pvt. Kyle Redden was driving the RG-31. Miah and Staff Sgt. Andy Deahn, the Air Force JTAC, were manning the RG’s guns. Ish, Mike, and I were in the back of the RG. Jim almost never used the RGs because the big armored vehicles were intimidating to villagers and they offered limited visibility to the soldiers inside, but he had Dan take one that day because of the elevated IED threat. It was the right call.

  Jim’s Humvee swerved onto the dangerous and twisting stretch of road known as Zombieland. A short distance behind, Dan’s RG made the turn with Kyle at the wheel.

  Dan ordered Miah and Andy to test their guns, a routine combat drill at the start of missions.

  “Test fire!” yelled Miah. He fired off some rounds of the .50-caliber machine gun into the mountainside. Standing in the open roof hatch above me, Andy pumped out several rounds with the M240 machine gun.

  The RG made a sharp left turn and then descended onto a flat stretch of road lined with ironwood trees. Just then, a huge explosion rocked the RG, blasting the vehicle with shrapnel and surrounding it in a cloud of dust and debris. It was a direct hit on our vehicle.

  FROM THE LEAD HUMVEE, Jim heard the explosion and immediately knew Dan’s vehicle behind him had been hit.

  Dan . . . Ann . . . Ish!

  A wave of dread swept over him. It was the purest emotion he had ever felt in his life. Three of the people he loved most in the world were in that vehicle.

  They’re gone, Jim thought. Everything was moving in slow motion.

  “Turn around!” Jim told his driver. “Gun it. Go! Go! Go!”

  As the Humvee turned, he saw the big cloud of smoke.

  “Two, Two, Two, this is One. Over!” Jim radioed, trying to get a response from Dan in Vehicle Two. “Two, this is One!”

  No answer.

  IN THE RG, THE force of the blast left us dazed.

  “Shit!” Miah yelled.
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  “Is everybody okay?” Dan called out.

  “Yeah!” Ish, Miah, and I yelled together.

  “We’re good!” said Mike. An Iraq war veteran, Mike managed the Tribe 33 operations center tent and had not been on a mission for months. He was in the RG to get dropped off at COP Penich, and from there catch a helicopter to go home on leave, while the rest of us went on to the Shalay valley. Mike was glad Jim had not let him ride in the luggage trailer the RG was pulling.

  “Andy?” Dan called to the Air Force sergeant in the gunner’s hatch. “Andy?”

  “Yeah . . . I’m all right!” came Andy’s voice from above. Exposed in the turret, Andy had borne the brunt of the blast. It had blown off his hat and gear, leaving him stunned and disoriented. There was a ten-foot-long branch caught on the .50-caliber machine gun. But, miraculously, he survived unscathed.

  Dan didn’t miss a beat.

  “Looking for the triggerman! Looking for the triggerman!” he called. “Gunners, get scanning!”

  “Get out of this cornfield!” Miah yelled, warning about the cover provided by the ripe cornstalks in the field next to the road.

  “Push! Push!” Dan ordered.

  At the wheel, Kyle kept the RG steady and moving forward, as Jim had trained him to.

  IT WAS LESS THAN two minutes, but it seemed like an eternity for Jim until he heard Dan’s familiar voice.

  “Be advised, looking for the triggerman. No positive ID. Over,” Dan radioed. “Be advised, everybody is okay,” he said.

  Jim’s Humvee passed us and headed straight to the blast site. Jim and Abe jumped out and started walking through the cornfields, looking for the triggerman.

  At the same time, scores of arbakai began converging from all around. Azmat led one group from Mangwel, and Niq and his men came from Kawer. Some of the arbakai carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers on their shoulders. They scoured the fields and darted up on ridges overlooking the area. It was a powerful show of force. Whoever emplaced the IED had chosen an area just outside of Kawer where there were no arbakai, taking advantage of the gap.