by Ed Darack
Analysts glean this information from a variety of sources. For the Tangi Valley raid, planners gathered some of their intelligence, or “intel,” from people. Known as human intelligence, or HUMINT, this form of information has been used in all wars yet has historically proven to be the least accurate. In recent decades, the U.S. military had developed, refined, and integrated a number of forms of intelligence mechanisms that rely not on human-human interaction but on machines. U.S. forces used three primary forms of this “technical intelligence” during OEF: imagery intelligence (IMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT).
IMINT, the most common form of technical intelligence seen in public media reports, includes satellite and aerial images. Far less discussed publicly, SIGINT is data collected, or “intercepted,” from intentionally transmitted electronic signals, including those from cellular phones, two-way radios, remote telemetry devices, and video feed. The least known but arguably the most reliable form of technical intelligence, MASINT comes from unintentional emissions that identify signatures and patterns—electronic, visual, audio, motion, chemical, elemental, and isotopic signatures, among others. MASINT can be used to determine the type of machine gun an enemy is firing based on the visual signature of its muzzle flash and the intervals between flashes, or to identify the presence of a nuclear weapons development program by detecting certain isotopes, or to recognize an IED-making facility by its chemical signatures.
Military intelligence practitioners speak of the DIKW—or data, information, knowledge, and wisdom pyramid—a conceptual hierarchy of understanding graphically represented by a triangle, with data occupying the base of the pyramid and wisdom its apex. It can be explained via the metaphor of a sentence, too: individual letters, spaces, and punctuation marks represent data; words represent information; and the overt meaning conveyed by a series of those words represents knowledge. One may then glean wisdom from this knowledge, given the appropriate level of analytical acumen.
In the case of the Tangi Valley raid, intelligence-gathering platforms collected raw data with sensors for imagery, intercepted cell phone and two-way radio transmissions, and detected trace chemicals that indicated the presence of explosives and other contraband. Analysis mechanisms then took these data, collected in the hours, days, and weeks prior to the raid, and processed them into high-resolution photographs, voice recordings, locations, and so forth. From this information, analysts synthesized knowledge, including enemy force numbers, building and field dimensions, and the types of weapons the enemy carried, among a large trove of other important points.
Planners at FOB Shank, including those of Extortion Company and Task Force Knighthawk, used this knowledge to build operational wisdom and develop their mission. They knew the likely enemy numbers and crafted an assault force appropriate for overwhelming them. The size of the strike team predicated the number of Chinooks used, which in turn predicated LZ size. They then determined the best location for an LZ based not only on area but on proximity to possible enemy locations as revealed by cell phone and other intercepts. Planners then plotted the exact ingresses of Extortion 16 and 17 based on intel that revealed the safest and fastest routes, ones that would also provide the greatest possible level of surprise. They then plotted their paths out of the Tangi and chose alternate routes and LZs should the situation on the ground change. Aviation planners painstakingly devised the Extortion infil flights down to the meter in distance and down to the second in time, a level of detail vital to the safety of the aircraft and their passengers and possible only through the delivery of such high-resolution, high-quality intelligence.
Aircraft provided virtually all the intel used for the Tangi raid. The looks of these intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft, often called spy planes, belie their importance. “They’re boring-looking, for the most part,” said an anonymous Marine infantry officer familiar with such platforms. The aircraft that directly supported the development of the operation included the Army’s RC-12 Guardrail, the Air Force’s MC-12 Liberty and unmanned RQ-1 Predator, and an aircraft so secret the military has never disclosed its name, just its alphanumeric designation: U-28A.
Based on the Beechcraft Super King Air, a low-wing twin-turboprop utility aircraft, the RC-12, draped with antennas throughout its fuselage, wing, and tail, primarily collects SIGINT data. The MC-12 Liberty, a “MULTI-INT” aircraft also based on the Super King Air, collects imagery, signals, and MASINT data. Among its other capabilities, the Liberty can “sniff” an area, collecting data to identify a bomb-making facility or a drug-processing house. The RQ-1 Predator, the unmanned ISR aircraft most commonly featured in media reports, collects IMINT data in both the visible spectrum and in infrared, allowing 24-hour scanning of a location. The manned U-28A has a similar imagery intelligence data gathering capability as the Predator and also serves as a robust communications bridge. With its suite of radios, its users can keep ground forces in contact with one another, with air assets above them, and with commanders hundreds or even thousands of miles apart without any breaks in transmission and reception. Because communications ranks as one of the most important functions in successful combat missions—and because breakdowns in this function have caused some of the greatest military disasters in history—the U-28A ranks among the most important aircraft today for special operations.
Another U.S. military unmanned aircraft provided data that aided in the development of the mission in the Tangi Valley: the Air Force’s stealth RQ-170 Sentinel, with flights not over the Tangi but hundreds of miles distant. Based at Kandahar Air Field, 250 miles southwest of Shank, the Sentinel supported the operation and others like it by providing information about the target’s Pakistan-based commander, including those with whom he associated, his relative importance, and others in his group, among many key points. While U.S. and coalition forces were not allowed to fly Guardrails, Liberties, or other nonstealth aircraft over the border, the Sentinel, invisible to Pakistani radar, collected troves of IMINT, SIGINT, and MASINT data during OEF by gliding silently and low over insurgent and terrorist command and control strongholds deep within Pakistan.
Another secretive Air Force craft served as an invaluable component to the mission in the Tangi Valley: the USA-204, a 6½-ton satellite in a geostationary orbit more than 20,000 miles above the planet’s surface with a view of all of U.S. Central Command. USA-204 provided continuous high-bandwidth communications for RC-12s, MC-12s, Predators, Sentinels, and U-28As during the ISR platforms’ missions. As these aircraft collected data that ultimately led to the operation in the Tangi, they encrypted and beamed the data to USA-204, which then retransmitted them to intelligence processing centers, which in some cases retransmitted final intel products with relevant knowledge and wisdom back to those at Shank via the high-flying satellite.
This robust intelligence infrastructure not only operated before the operation for planning purposes, but also remained in place during the raid, with MC-12s, RC-12s, U-28As, and Predators each participating throughout different periods of the mission. As the Ranger-led assault force closed on the target complex, as the gunships above continued their orbits, and as Dave, Bryan, Pat, Alex, and Spencer awaited word of their next move, these platforms of warfighting wisdom looked, sniffed, and listened, beaming their data back in near real time via USA-204 to planners at Shank, who would determine the next major move in the operation.
Despite the level of technical capability afforded by the ISR aircraft, the firepower of the gunships, and the power and finesse of the Chinook helicopter, the flight mission in the Tangi Valley ultimately relied upon the men of Extortion Company. Two who participated in the Ranger-led assault force infil in the Tangi, John Brooks of Extortion 16 and Bryan Nichols of Extortion 17, had lived through the downing at LZ Honey Eater on June 25, just six weeks before. While nobody aboard died on Gambir Sar, the event shook everyone in Extortion Company, reminding all just how perilously close to disaster their
jobs could take them.
After the Honey Eater downing, company commander Buddy Lee offered to assign John a nonflying position working on avionics, his original MOS. John, however, immediately declined, claiming that the Honey Eater downing, while it rattled him during and just after the crash, bolstered his resolve to support the important operations of Extortion Company. He would continue to fly at night as a door gunner. Buddy also offered to let Bryan assist the daytime test maintenance pilot, a far less dangerous type of flying than supporting of JSOC missions. According to Buddy, Bryan responded, “Yeah, I’m shaken up. I’m still nervous, but I don’t want to let anyone down. I’m an Army pilot who supports the ground fight, so I want to keep flying. That’s what we do.”
As Buddy and others at FOB Shank received regular word on the improvements of Kirk Kuykendall and Zeke Crozier, Buddy sought to fill as much of the void left by Kirk’s absence as possible, although all knew that they could never fill his shoes entirely. Flight Engineer Sergeant First Class Brian Deetman, a former 160th crew member who served in the Colorado Army National Guard, provided invaluable support, as did Staff Sergeant Brandon Williams. “I leaned a lot on Brandon,” Buddy said, “one of the FEs Kirk had trained. Brandon really did a great job filling in for Kirk. All of the guys really stepped up.” This proved critically important: with summer’s arrival, insurgents in Extortion Company’s backyard increased the frequency and the severity of their attacks, particularly in the Tangi Valley, meaning Extortion would keep very busy supporting JSOC operations.
“The Tangi was always bad,” said Second Lieutenant John Edgemon, an Apache pilot and platoon commander in the AH-64D gunship unit colocated at FOB Shank with Extortion Company as part of Task Force Knighthawk. “There was a lot of activity in that area. It was very, very important to the Taliban, very strategic.” John, who had entered the Army through the Warrant Officer Flight Training Program at Fort Rucker after earning a degree from Georgia Institute of Technology, decided after eight years of flying as a warrant officer to become a commissioned officer. “I loved flying Apaches,” he said. “Probably the greatest job on the planet.” Flying the Apache in war, particularly in and around the Tangi Valley, meant taking fire, sometimes frequently. While never hit, John recounted numerous incidents of small-arms fire and RPG salvos directed at him and others of his unit during their deployment, including 20 RPGs fired at fellow pilot CW2 Randell DeWitt one night in the Tangi. The Apaches, call sign Pitch Black, provided armed escort and overwatch for the Chinooks of Extortion Company as well as support for ground personnel. As those of Extortion 17 awaited word at FOB Shank, two Pitch Black Apaches continued to orbit over the Ranger-led assault force.
John, Randell, and other Pitch Black pilots viscerally understood the importance of the geography of the Tangi Valley, having spent so much time flying in and around the area and taking fire so frequently. It forms a strategic passageway through a key mountain range between enemy bases of operations and important destinations, including Pakistan. If American forces could hold the area and effectively block enemy passage through the Tangi, insurgents and terrorists would need to travel roughly 100 miles out of their way north to the Kabul region or a similar distance south to the Ghazni area, both heavily fortified by U.S., Afghan, and coalition troops. “Through the Tangi, it’s just 15 miles from the town of Sheikhabad on the western side of the valley to Baraki Barak on the eastern end, both places where insurgents could hide out,” John explained.
A cleft incised by the Logar River into a small, unnamed range of mountains nestled among the southern Hindu Kush to its north, the plains at the base of the Safēd Kōh mountains to its east, the flatlands around Ghazni to its south, and the Koh-i-Baba mountains to its west, the northwest-to-southeast-trending Tangi Valley spans roughly 15 miles and connects with the Chak Valley at its northwestern extremity. Their tan, deeply chiseled peaks interconnected by serrated ridgelines, these arid mountains are bare of all but the hardiest species of vegetation.
Tangi Valley, circa 2011. Credit 24
The highest mountain in the area, an unnamed peak with twin summits 8,500 and 8,471 feet above sea level, looms 2 miles north of and nearly 2,000 feet higher than the floor of the Tangi. The valley slopes gently from 6,700 feet at its northwestern extremity to 6,400 at its southeast, where it opens to the plains that lie in the shadow of the Safēd Kōh during the morning hours of all seasons. Just 9 miles separated the Tangi’s opening at its southeastern extremity from FOB Shank, which U.S. forces built along the strategically significant (for insurgents) Kabul-Gardez Highway. Because of Shank’s location and the enemy’s understanding that it housed the ground and air units that unleashed operations against them in the Tangi, Shank received regular mortar and rocket fire. “But that never slowed any of us down,” John said. “Made us all want to keep at it at an even tougher pace, I’ll tell you.”
The width of the Tangi’s floor varies from just less than 1 mile at its southeast end to a 10th of a mile through some of its constricted locations near the valley’s northwestern edge. This physiography influenced the tactics of both the enemy and U.S. and coalition forces. “We called it the Green Zone,” John said, referring to the flat, riparian corridor where local Afghans cultivate fields of potatoes, wheat, and alfalfa and raise orchards of apples and pomegranates among stands of trees. Contrasting starkly in color and form with the arid surrounding mountains, the fields, orchards, canals, rock walls, houses, and abandoned structures of the Green Zone and its villages served as hides for enemy fighters; hence the hawkishness of Bryan and Dave in the cockpit and Spencer, Alex, and Pat of Extortion 17 during their infil flight.
While insurgents were able to hide day or night and set ambushes throughout the Green Zone, U.S. forces used a plethora of tools to help ensure the safe passage of Extortion Chinooks during their operations in the Tangi, including the sensors of the RC-12, MC-12, and Predator. But one of the most important was the AH-64 Apache’s target acquisition and designation site–pilot night-vision system (TADS/PNVS, pronounced “tads pin-vis”). The device consists of two sensors, a daytime television video camera and a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) video scanner that “sees” in thermal infrared. While AH-64 pilots cannot use the television video scanner at night, they can use the FLIR to detect differences in heat on the ground, especially insurgents and their warm or hot vehicles. While enemy fighters in the Tangi and elsewhere in Afghanistan developed tactics to defeat the system during the spring and summer months by remaining stationary at dusk, cloaked by warm rocks and other cover, as soon as one moved, pilots could see his body’s contrast with the cooler surroundings.
While maintaining their own unique culture, Apache pilots such as John were trained at the same place as Bryan and Dave: Fort Rucker. As such, he and other “gun pilots” held the protection of ground forces and the lightly armed Chinooks as their highest calling—they flew as the first line of defense. Focused on keeping Extortion Chinooks and their pilots, crew, and passengers safe, Pitch Black Apache pilots knew the enemy well. They were foreign invaders with command and control cells based in Pakistan, their IEDs, rocket and mortar attacks, suicide bombings, and ambushes killing innocent Afghans just as they killed U.S., Afghan, and coalition troops. They also knew of the terror tactics the enemy used against Afghan citizens: murder, torture, and rape. As such, John and other Apache pilots never hesitated to engage an enemy fighter, as long as that fighter demonstrated hostile intent within the framework of the rules of engagement (ROE).
The ROE dictated when and how John and other Pitch Black pilots could engage an enemy target. Simply stated, an enemy needed to indicate hostile intent, such as by holding an RPG launcher, which then would establish positive identification, or PID, allowing an Apache to shoot. Complex in development, the ROE changed over the course of OEF, becoming much more strict by 2011, when commanders sought to minimize, to the point of elimination, collateral damage, or the death or injury of innocents or destruction of their property, ev
en if these were close to enemy combatants. While the enemy in the Tangi knew of the ROE and used its limitations to their advantage—playing dead or tossing RPG launchers or other weapons when they detected approaching Apaches—pilots such as John learned to defeat these tactics, simply by orbiting far enough away while scanning with the TADS/PNVS, which uses powerful optics to magnify at great distances, then engaging once the enemy again showed hostile intent.
John and other Apache pilots remained keenly vigilant during each mission, continuously searching for positively identifiable hostile intent, especially near strategically significant roads. Located between two critical routes into and out of Kabul, the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, which runs past the valley’s western edge, and the Kabul-Gardez Highway, which lies just outside its eastern periphery, the Tangi is hemmed in between the two where their courses come closest to each other. “And the Tangi Road connects the two,” explained Edgemon. The Kabul-Kandahar Highway connects the country’s official capital with the unofficial Taliban capital, the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, and the Kabul-Gardez Highway leads to Pakistan, meaning that fighters, the opium that financed the insurgency, and weapons flowed past either side of the Tangi, and into and out of it, more than in any other part of Afghanistan.
Area of Afghanistan of highest priority for U.S. JSOC personnel and other U.S. and coalition personnel, August 2011. Credit 25