U.S. policymakers planning the response to the September 11 attacks a few days later, which they named Operation Enduring Freedom, realized the gravity of this action: the charismatic military commander they most needed to overthrow the Taliban was dead. The situation required an unconventional approach, and the CIA and the Pentagon scrambled to make plans.2
History Begins Today
One of the first challenges, however, was securing Pakistan’s cooperation. Pakistan’s strategic location next to Afghanistan and its government’s involvement there since the Soviet invasion made it a key player. But the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, had arrived in Pakistan “expecting to spend most of [her] time dealing with a humanitarian crisis unfolding in the region.” A severe drought and famine in Afghanistan had caused refugees to flee to Pakistan, which was perhaps the most important domestic issue that summer.3 But the September 11 attacks changed everything.
A few weeks before the attacks, Chamberlin had a private dinner with President Pervez Musharraf at the house of Mahmud Ali Durrani, who would later become the Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “My vision of the country hinges on increasing foreign investment in Pakistan and economic growth,” Musharraf told Chamberlin. “But,” he continued, “the level of domestic terrorism is currently too high,” making it difficult to bring in outside capital. Musharraf also told her: “Pakistan needs strategic depth in Afghanistan to ensure that there is a friendly regime on Pakistan’s western border.”4 The timing was ironic. In less than a month, the United States would ask Musharraf to overthrow the very Taliban government that the ISI had painstakingly supported for nearly a decade, which meant putting his “strategic depth” in jeopardy.
On September 11, just hours after the attacks, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with the head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Mahmoud Ahmed, who was visiting Washington. Armitage delivered a stern message: Pakistan’s leaders had to choose between the United States or the terrorists; there was no middle ground. “No American will want to have anything to do with Pakistan in our moment of peril if you’re not with us,” Armitage told him. “It’s black or white.” When Ahmed began to waver, pleading that Armitage had to understand history, Armitage cut him off. “No,” he replied, “the history begins today.”5 Armitage is an imposing figure. Barrel-chested, with broad shoulders and a thick neck, he had recently told President Bush he was still bench-pressing “330/6,” which meant six repetitions of 330 pounds each. It was down from a few years earlier, he remarked, when he had been bench-pressing 440 pounds.6
On September 12, Ambassador Chamberlin received State Department instructions to see President Musharraf in Islamabad and ask him a simple question: “Are you with us or against us?” The meeting, which took place the next day in one of Musharraf’s Islamabad offices, was tense. America was reeling from the terrorist attacks, and President Bush wanted a quick answer from Musharraf. After an hour, there had been little progress. Musharraf was waffling in his commitment to the United States, so Chamberlin resorted to a bit of drama. Sitting close to him, she half turned away and looked down at the floor in a display of exasperation. “What’s wrong, Wendy?” he asked. “Frankly, General Musharraf,” she responded, “you are not giving me the answer I need to give my president.” Almost without hesitation, Musharraf then replied, “We’ll support you unstintingly.”7
They agreed to discuss further details on September 15. Chamberlin presented a series of discussion points, such as stopping al Qa’ida operatives at the Pakistan border; providing blanket U.S. overflight and landing rights in Pakistan; ensuring U.S. access to Pakistani military bases; providing intelligence and immigration information; and cutting off all fuel shipments to the Taliban. A final request was bound to be controversial, as Secretary of State Colin Powell professed to Armitage: “Should the evidence strongly implicate Osama bin Laden and the al Qa’ida network in Afghanistan and should Afghanistan and the Taliban continue to harbor him and his network, Pakistan will break diplomatic relations with the Taliban government, end support for the Taliban and assist us in the aforementioned ways to destroy Osama bin Laden and his al Qa’ida network.”8
Musharraf had his own negotiating points. “He wanted us to pressure the Indians to resolve the Kashmir dispute in favor of Pakistan,” noted Chamberlin. “Even without instructions from Washington, I said no immediately, explaining to Musharraf that this was about the terrorists who attacked America on our soil and not about Kashmir.”9 He also asked that U.S. aircraft not use bases in India for their operations in Afghanistan, to which Chamberlin agreed. Musharraf clearly was interested in using his bargaining position to gain leverage over India. In the end, Musharraf agreed to most of America’s requests, though he refused to allow blanket U.S. overflight and landing rights, or access to many of Pakistan’s naval ports and air bases. And the United States agreed to many of Musharraf’s requests. U.S. aircraft could not fly over Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States could not launch attacks in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil, and the United States would provide economic assistance to Pakistan.
Musharraf’s support was pivotal for America’s initial success in Afghanistan. “Pakistan was very cooperative,” Chamberlin stated. “Their support was critical.”10
Jawbreaker
With Pakistan’s collaboration ensured, the United States could now turn more assuredly to planning combat operations in Afghanistan. On September 13, CIA Director George Tenet had briefed President George W. Bush on the agency’s plan for conducting operations in Afghanistan. He and his counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, outlined for Bush a strategy that merged CIA paramilitary teams, U.S. Special Operations Forces, and airpower into an elaborate and lethal package to bring down the Taliban regime.
“Mr. President,” Black noted at the briefing, staring intently at Bush, “we can do this. No doubt in my mind. We do this the way that we’ve outlined it, we’ll set this thing up so it’s an unfair fight for the U.S. military.”
“But you’ve got to understand,” he continued, choosing his words carefully, “people are going to die.”11
Two days later, at Camp David, Tenet explained that the plan “stressed one thing: we would be the insurgents. Working closely with military Special Forces, CIA teams would be the ones using speed and agility to dislodge an emplaced foe.”12
General Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command, also began working on war plans. On September 20, 2001, Franks arrived at the Pentagon from Tampa, Florida, to brief Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on his plan for invading Afghanistan. Wolfowitz outlined his views in a classified September 23 paper for Rumsfeld entitled “Using Special Forces on ‘Our Side’ of the Line.” He argued that U.S. Army Special Forces should be used on the ground with Northern Alliance forces to help direct U.S. air attacks, gather intelligence, and help deliver humanitarian aid where needed. Wolfowitz, well aware of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s, was concerned that the United States would fall into the same trap.13 The thinking was that the blending of U.S. and Afghan forces would limit American exposure in Afghanistan.
A CIA team led by Gary Schroen, appropriately code-named Jawbreaker, landed in the Panjshir Valley in northeastern Afghanistan on September 26, 2001, only two weeks after the attacks on the United States. The team was part of the agency’s Special Activities Division, the paramilitary arm of the CIA. At the time, it had no more than a few hundred officers with both classic intelligence and special operations backgrounds. Schroen and his team were soon joined on the ground by several U.S. Special Operations Forces A-teams, including operational detachment alpha (ODA) 555, known as “Triple Nickel.” These forces worked with local Afghan commanders and provided arms, equipment, and military advice, as well as coordinated U.S. airstrikes.
They also provided money to buy—or at least rent—the loyalty of local commanders and their militia forces.
Schroen once frankly acknowledged, “Money is the lubricant that makes things happen in Afghanistan.”14
Overthrow of the Taliban Regime
The U.S. bombing campaign began the night of October 7, 2001. The initial objective was to destroy the Taliban’s limited air-defense and communications infrastructure. American and British Special Operations teams had been conducting scouting missions in Afghanistan. Some of the first major combat actions of the war occurred in the mountains near Mazar-e-Sharif, as the teams working with Northern Alliance Generals Abdul Rashid Dostum and Atta Muhammad fought their way north up the Dar-ye Suf and Balkh River Valleys toward the northern city.15
The terrain and conditions were unlike anything the Americans had ever seen. They found themselves traversing steep mountain paths next to thousand-foot precipices. Since even four-wheel-drive vehicles couldn’t effectively maneuver on the winding mountain trails, military and intelligence forces used Afghan horses to haul their equipment. Many of the Americans had never been on a horse before. Because of the sheer drop-offs, they were told to keep one foot out of the stirrups so that if the horse stumbled, they would fall onto the trail as the horse slid off the cliff. In especially steep areas, U.S. forces were prepared to shoot any stumbling horse before it could drag its rider to his death.16 Mike DeLong, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, captured the novelty of the situation appropriately, if a bit sarcastically:
After a day or two of riding, our troops were terribly saddle sore, to the point of serious disability. To ease the friction, we sent in a hundred jars of Vaseline. But in Afghanistan the dirt is a fine dust and it’s everywhere; it lingers in the air and covers you from head to foot. This fine dust collected on the Vaseline; instead of helping, it converted the Vaseline into sandpaper. Now their legs were being cut up. What they really needed were chaps, like cowboys wear. But there wasn’t time to measure them for chaps. So we decided on pantyhose. We sent over two hundred pairs. If it worked for Joe Namath in Super Bowl ’69, why not for our troops? Lo and behold, it worked like a charm. The pantyhose saved the day.17
The first forays against the Taliban were in northern Afghanistan because Tajik and Uzbek opposition to the Pashtun regime was strongest there. Dostum’s forces took the village of Bishqab on October 21. Engagements followed at Cobaki on October 22, Chapchal on October 23, and Oimetan on October 25. On November 5, Dostum’s cavalry overran Taliban forces occupying old Soviet-built defensive posts in the hamlet of Bai Beche. Atta Muhammad’s forces then captured Ac’capruk on the Balkh River, finally opening the door for a rapid advance to Mazar-e-Sharif, which fell to Atta Muhammad’s and Dostum’s forces on November 10, 2001.18
The fall of Mazar-e-Sharif unhinged the Taliban position in northern Afghanistan. Taliban defenders near Bamiyan in central Afghanistan briefly resisted before surrendering on November 11, and Kabul fell without a fight on November 13. The Taliban collapse was remarkable. Only two months after the September 11 attacks, the most strategically important city in Afghanistan—Kabul—had been conquered.
American and Afghan forces then encircled a force of some 5,000 Taliban and al Qa’ida survivors in the city of Kunduz; following a twelve-day siege, they surrendered on November 26.19 With the fall of Kabul and Kunduz, attention shifted to the Taliban’s stronghold of Kandahar in the south. Special Operations Forces in support of Hamid Karzai advanced on Kandahar City from the north. Born in Kandahar in 1957, Karzai was the fourth of eight children. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, served as chief of the Popalzai tribe until he was assassinated in 1999 by “agents of the Taliban.” Karzai’s childhood was rather unremarkable. He went to high school in Kabul and attended graduate school in India before joining the mujahideen during the Soviet War. He spent the Taliban years in Pakistan, but several weeks before the September 11 attacks he had received an ultimatum from the ISI to leave the country by September 30. As chief of the Popalzai tribe, centered on Kandahar Province, Karzai brought with him the support of one of Afghanistan’s most powerful southern tribes. And he was catapulted to prominence for his actions in the U.S.-led Coalition.21
FIGURE 6.1 Key Engagements against Taliban and al Qa’ida20
In addition to Karzai’s troops, Special Operations Forces in support of Gul Agha Shirzai—nicknamed “Bulldozer” for his coercive tactics—advanced from the south. The first clashes occurred in late November at Tarin Kowt and Sayed Slim Kalay, just north of the city. There were also several skirmishes along Highway 4 south of Kandahar from December 2 to 6. On the night of December 6, Mullah Omar and the senior Taliban leadership fled the city and went into hiding, effectively ending Taliban rule in Afghanistan.22 Allied forces subsequently tracked a group of al Qa’ida survivors, thought to include Osama bin Laden, to a series of caves in the White Mountains near Tora Bora. The caves were taken in a sixteen-day battle ending on December 17, but many al Qa’ida defenders escaped and fled across the border into Pakistan.23
As the Taliban’s power base collapsed, international and local attention turned to nation-building and reconstruction. The United Nations had helped organize a meeting of Afghan political leaders in Bonn, Germany, in late November 2001. On December 5, with Coalition troops about to overtake Kandahar, Afghan leaders signed an agreement that established a timetable for the creation of a representative and freely elected government. The following day, the UN Security Council endorsed the outcome in Resolution 1383.24 Under the Bonn Agreement, the parties agreed to establish an interim authority comprising three main bodies: a thirty-member acting administration headed by Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, which took power on December 22; a supreme court; and the Special Independent Commission for the Convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga (a traditional meeting of Afghan tribal, political, and religious leaders).
The capture of Kabul and other cities by U.S. and Afghan forces pushed surviving fighters east toward the Pakistan border. In January and February 2002, the U.S. military and the CIA began to collect intelligence about a concentration of a thousand or so holdouts from al Qa’ida, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the Taliban, and other groups in the Shah-i-kot Valley and surrounding mountains east of Gardez. A combined offensive by Afghan, U.S., and other Western forces, code-named Operation Anaconda, aimed to take out this threat. The operation began on March 2, 2002, and continued through March 16. The group, truly reflecting the U.S.-led Coalition, comprised U.S. forces from the 101st Airborne Division and 10th Mountain Division. Special Operations Forces from the United States, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, and Norway were also involved in the operation.25
The fighting was intense. Insurgent fighters were equipped with sniper rifles, machine guns, recoilless rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and man-portable air defenses (MANPADS). The rugged, mountainous terrain offered excellent concealment for enemy fighters, who scattered in small teams and hid in caves and along steep ridgelines. It was virtually impossible for Coalition forces to surround and seal off the area, or even to target insurgents from the B-52 and AC-130 Spectre gunships circling overhead. An al Qa’ida manual recovered during the operation, titled The Black Book of Mountainous Operations and Training, outlined the utility of rugged terrain for defeating larger forces.
U.S. and allied forces eventually cleared the valley of al Qa’ida and other fighters, but not without a price. The insurgents shot down two Chinook helicopters using rocket-propelled grenades, eight U.S. soldiers were killed, and approximately eighty were wounded. Coalition forces killed a number of fighters, though few bodies were ever found. Hundreds more fled to Pakistan.
Escape to Pakistan
Pakistan’s help in overthrowing the Taliban regime had catapulted Pervez Musharraf to stardom. “Musharraf became an international hero,” remarked Ambassador Chamberlin. “Money was flowing into Pakistan. And Pakistan was no longer a pariah state. The situation was euphoric. Musharraf was on the cover of every magazine and newspaper.”26 But despite these promising developments, peace and stability were fleeting. There was a
worrisome exodus of fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan, as well as disturbing new wrinkles in the complex web of alliances among the Taliban, al Qa’ida fighters, and the Pakistani military.
“The movement of Taliban and al Qa’ida fighters into Pakistan came in waves,” recalled Robert Grenier, the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad following the September 2001 attacks.27 A polished operator, always impeccably dressed, Grenier was also a passionate Boston Red Sox fan who had received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Dartmouth College. He served a distinguished twenty-seven-year career in the CIA, including a stint as chief of “The Farm,” the CIA’s basic-training facility, where he was responsible for guiding and preparing all officers entering the CIA’s clandestine service. From his perch in Islamabad, he monitored the exodus of insurgents from Afghanistan into Pakistan.
In December 2001, after the fall of Kabul and Kandahar, a large contingent of Taliban leaders escaped into Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province, among them Mullah Omar. According to the chief of targeting operations for U.S. Central Command at the time, “we conducted several strikes against Mullah Omar in late 2001, none of which were successful.”28 In November, for example, U.S. forces targeted a qanat (underground tunnel) in Kandahar where they had intelligence that he was hiding. In Afghanistan, water is often drawn from springs and rivers and distributed through these qanats, which are excavated and maintained via a series of vertical shafts. U.S. Navy planes initially missed the target with several 2,000-pound general-purpose guided bomb unit-10s (GBU-10). But a subsequent U.S. Air Force strike hit the qanat with a guided bomb unit-28 (GBU-28), a 5,000-pound laser-guided conventional weapon often called a “bunker buster,” with a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead. The GBU-28 collapsed the tunnel, but it did not kill Mullah Omar.
In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan Page 13