Not a Good Day to Die

by Sean Naylor

  ON February 22 Blaber finally lost patience with the risk-averse attitude he perceived on the part of the CIA, TF Dagger, and other higher headquarters regarding the dangers of the Zermat road. He ordered an armed recce to proceed the next day. The CIA and Dagger personnel in the safe house tried to dissuade him. Their sense, reinforced by the “safety first” message broadcast by almost all higher headquarters, was that the roads were too dangerous to drive down. Blaber was incredulous. “Hey look, guys, I use deductive reasoning to make my decisions,” he told them. “We’ve already driven the Sate Kandow Pass. I drove here from Kabul. I’ve driven almost every road in and around Kandahar. How can you tell me that the one road that sits right outside this fort, with [our] 300 Afghans, we can’t drive down? I’m driving down it tomorrow.”

  Despite Blaber’s confidence, Glenn Thomas, Texas 14’s team leader, and his team sergeant continued their efforts to dissuade the AFO guys from driving down the road right up to when the vehicles pulled away, according to two accounts. (Thomas disputed this. “That absolutely did not happen,” he said.)

  The six-vehicle convoy consisted of Juliet’s three Delta NCOs, the Northern AFO command element (Captain John B., Sergeant Major Al Y., and Master Sergeant Isaac H.), Nelson from Northern AFO Team 2, Jason from Gray Fox, Jay from the Air Force, and a group of Afghans led by Rasul, Zia’s second in command. Texas 14 remained behind, ready to respond in case the convoy got into trouble. The trucks pulled out of the compound at 10:30 a.m. This time they turned left into the town of Gardez, then headed south. The snow lay thick along the roadsides, and the hair was standing up on the back of the operators’ necks as they drove through what was, for them, uncharted terrain.

  But once again Blaber’s instincts proved correct. The convoy did not come under fire once as it drove south. The troops even threw candy at the wide-eyed children who ran to the side of the road to stare and wave at these strange-looking men. The recce was by no means uneventful, however. As the Americans passed a typical mud fort near Janekkhel, they came upon four men guarding a checkpoint. At the sight of the convoy the quartet took off running. In an act of loyalty that impressed the AFO troops, several of Rasul’s men sprinted after them, while another, armed with a PK machine gun, took up position on a nearby knoll. Rasul’s troops caught up with and captured the four checkpoint guards after a lung-busting 500-meter dash. The detainees were left at the side of the road with seven AMF fighters and a truck while the rest of the convoy drove on toward Zermat. Once there, the trucks turned around and headed back. After picking up Rasul’s men and the detainees, they saw a pickup truck barreling toward them along the road from Zermat. The AFO men and their Afghan allies took up defensive positions, but the truck stopped and it quickly became apparent that its four occupants had come to negotiate, not to fight. A man stepped out of the vehicle and approached the AFO troops. He explained he was the commander of the four detainees and demanded their release. The AFO troops denied his request, but, thinking quickly, told him he was free to follow them back to Gardez and there discuss the matter further. He agreed and fell in trail behind the convoy. Once back at the safe house, the AFO troops got out of their vehicles, surrounded the truck, and detained the four men in addition to the four captives they had already taken. A search of the vehicle turned up a PK machine gun, several AKs, other small arms, and ammunition.

  The Americans soon realized they had trapped a fairly big fish. The prisoners’ leader was Mohammed Naim, the Zermat “police chief” and reportedly the main supplier of food and other necessities to Al Qaida forces in the Shahikot. He was quickly dispatched to Bagram for further questioning. The interrogations of the captured men revealed that Zermat was a vital source of logistical and moral support for the forces gathering in the Shahikot. This support emanated from the town’s Islamic school, or madrassa. “The madrassa was obviously the mechanism through which the local population was coerced, required, indentured, whatever, to provide resources and support to this pile o’ bad guys that occupied the Lower Shahikot Valley,” Rosengard said, with what he acknowledged was 20/20 hindsight. “[Local] people were asked by the people that worked for the madrassa, ‘Hey, it’s your turn now, dude, you’ve gotta provide a goat and some cheese and some milk, and if you have some clothing…but you’re gonna provide resources.’”

  In a briefing to the Mountain TOC after the battle, Blaber said reopening the road was perhaps the most “mission critical” task AFO accomplished to facilitate the recon missions. For India Team it would turn out to be a lifesaver.

  AS night fell on February 23, India continued north. They were now moving through treacherous terrain, sometimes having no choice but to walk along the crest of Pecawul Ghar, which in places was only two meters wide with a sheer drop on either side. With the wind gusting to forty miles per hour, it was no place for an attack of vertigo. The temperature was below freezing. Speedy coaxed his men beyond what they had thought were the limits of their endurance. Despite Hans’s complaints, Speedy had no intention of canceling the mission just because it was tough going. As long as he had batteries and food, he was determined to continue. Quitting just wasn’t in Speedy’s vocabulary. He had broken both feet in Ranger School and still gritted his teeth and carried on to graduate. (It was a costly display of determination—foot problems plagued him for the rest of his Army career.) Here the risks were manageable, especially with the air cover the team enjoyed. There was always at least one aircraft scouting the route ahead reporting any potential dangers. During the daytime Predators and EP-3Es filled this role. At night the drone of an AC-130 could often be heard overhead. (Worried the aircraft noise would draw attention to the area, Speedy sometimes sent the planes off station once they had checked his route.)

  India Team stopped before dawn on February 24 about 1500 meters southwest of the peak of Pecawul Ghar, and a similar distance directly west of Celam Kac, which appeared uninhabited. Down the slope to their right they could see the three structures south of Celam Kac where all three intelligence disciplines had indicated suspicious activity. Upon closer examination, it was clear that what had appeared in the imagery as possible buildings were actually ruins or fighting positions made of stones. There was no sign of recent human activity. Indeed, the operators had seen no one but themselves since bidding farewell to their buddies who had driven them down from Gardez. With the winter sun warming their chilled bones, it was hard to imagine there were hundreds of enemy fighters hidden nearby. Maybe we’re in a dry hole, they thought. Maybe there ain’t nobody out here. Maybe we’re on a wild-goose chase.

  Speedy’s only concern was battery power. To stretch out the life of his last few batteries he shut down the radio when he wasn’t using it. But he didn’t like doing this, because it took a couple of minutes to power back up. If an enemy force spotted the team and suddenly attacked, those 120 seconds could spell the difference between close air support jets arriving in the nick of time or never even getting the call for help. On February 24 Speedy called Blaber and told him the team needed to be resupplied or pulled out within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.

  That night they struck out for the peak of Pecawul Ghar. The balmy weather in which they had luxuriated a few hours previously disappeared. Just as the forecast had predicted, a ferocious blizzard blew up out of nowhere, reducing visibility to a few feet and driving snow into the operators’ faces as they struggled to keep their balance. Each man concentrated on keeping sight of the figure in front of him, who shimmered like a greenish-white ghost in the night-vision goggles each member wore. The only advantage conferred by such godawful weather was that it reduced the chances of running into an enemy patrol to almost zero. Struggling to keep their footing, the operators finally reached the 10,578-foot peak and immediately sought shelter from the elements. The wind was from the east, but Pecawul Ghar’s western side was a sheer cliff. There was no escape from the icy gale. The team’s only option was to move a short distance back down the eastern slope to some rocks
sticking straight up out of the mountainside. Squeezing into crevices, they used bungee cords to string their ponchos across the gaps between the rocks to protect them from the snow and wind driving sideways into the mountain. They hunkered down and waited for morning. The miserable conditions made real sleep out of the question. Their lightweight sleeping gear meant they were lucky to drift off for a few minutes before their own shivering woke them. By the time dawn cast its cold gray light across the jagged landscape, fourteen inches of new snow lay thick around the operators.

  The location would have made an ideal observation post, but for the weather. A cloud layer blanketed everything below, completely obscuring the spots the team had come to observe. They were only three kilometers south of the Shahikot, and had proven that it was possible to infiltrate on foot from the south without being detected. But their batteries and their own physical energy were being sapped by the cold weather and frozen ground covered with deep snow. When they relayed all this back to Gardez, Blaber followed Speedy’s recommendation and decided to exfiltrate the team.

  (Additional factors contributed to Blaber’s decision. Along with his intel analyst Glenn P. and Texas 14 leader Glenn Thomas, the AFO commander had driven to Kabul and attended a midday meeting February 24 with Rich, the CIA chief of station, and Lieutenant Colonel Chris Haas of TF Dagger. The meeting’s purpose was to discuss the roles to be played by Dagger, the CIA, and AFO in Operation Anaconda. With D-Day set for February 28, Blaber needed to get his men back to Gardez from the side of the mountain quickly if he were to reinsert them for the recce mission inside the Shahikot prior to the Rakkasan air assault.)

  After being told that one of the Mi-17s controlled by the CIA would pick them up at the emergency LZ that Speedy and Bob had located northeast of Hill 2835, the four members of India wearily climbed down Pecawul Ghar and began the five-kilometer trek south. This time they took a different, much easier route. Having seen no sign of the enemy or anyone else, Speedy felt confident enough to pick up a trail in the valley south of Celam Kac and follow it until it intersected with the Arme Khwar. Once on the trail, the four got their first indication that maybe this wasn’t a wild-goose chase after all. The path was well worn, but how recently and by whom there was no way to know.

  Again the weather interfered with their plans. Earlier in the day the solid bank of clouds above them had begun to break apart, but as the team closed on the LZ, the weather worsened again. A call to Gardez confirmed that the Mi-17 flight had been canceled. But because AFO had opened the Zermat road, there was another option: to drive south and pick up India. While AFO headquarters scrambled to put together an alternate plan for extracting India, Speedy marched his men west along the Arme Khwar stream, the direction they would have to take to meet a ground exfiltration force. When they passed the foot of Hill 2835, they found the first ominous sign that they were not alone in the area: two or three pairs of footprints in snow that had fallen since India had walked over the same ground on their way north a couple of days previously. Fighting positions that were little more than low stone walls lined both sides of the Arme Khwar. Having followed Blaber’s orders to read up on the area’s military history, Speedy realized these positions dated back to the 1980s. As with the trails north past Celam Kac, weather conditions at that time of year made the Arme Khwar route unsuitable for motor vehicles, but it was more than adequate for horses and donkeys, to judge from the hoofmarks and dung along the trails. The creek cut through the mountains, and rock walls rose almost sheer on each side of the streambed. Gazing up, the operators saw caves in the rock face, some clearly man-made with narrow trails leading up to them.

  Physically exhausted and moving cautiously through the rough, potentially enemy-controlled terrain, the team had taken longer than Speedy had anticipated to make it back this far. Dawn had broken some hours ago, exposing the four to anyone staring down from one of the caves. Speedy began to second-guess his decision to trade speed for security by taking the low ground. For the first time on the mission, the India Team leader felt vulnerable. He opted to move the patrol up one of the trails and explore some of the caves overlooking the creek. Still unsure the exfil was going to happen that day, he decided to wait in a cave for word from Gardez. Most of the caves were small—barely large enough for one or two men. But the opening to one measured twenty feet by fifteen feet, and inside the floor was tiered. The operators found trash and firewood in the caves and along the trails, but it all looked several weeks old. Nevertheless, this evidence validated the ratline theory put forward by TF Dagger’s Brian Sweeney. A sizable force had come through here this winter.

  The team found a suitable cave and settled in. Looking around their temporary quarters, the operators contemplated how many other warriors had taken refuge in there over the preceding centuries. After a few hours in the most comfortable surroundings they had enjoyed for five days, the operators called Gardez, to be told a ground convoy would pick them up. But there was no precise pickup point established. Instead, Speedy told Gardez he would move west and try to find a good spot. As India resumed their march, four Toyota pickups pulled out of the safe house gate and headed south.

  After seeing no humans during the entire patrol, India then spotted suspicious activity in the tiny village of Ghbargi, about 1.5 kilometers south of Gordadkhwohi, which was about seventeen kilometers southeast of Zermat. The village was inhabited. Outside a three-story building a knot of men wore dark clothing that seemed out of place among the other pedestrians’ pale shalwar kameez suits. The team noted the building’s grid reference, then moved to a deserted location just north of Gordadkhwohi that Speedy decided was the best place around for a dozen Americans to link up without being noticed. So it proved. John B.’s convoy made the rendezvous with no problems. After the briefest of greetings India climbed into the Toyotas. The trucks sped back to Gardez, where Speedy, Bob H., Hans, and Dan spent the afternoon thawing out and being debriefed by Glenn P., the AFO intel analyst.

  Every member of India Team had reason to feel proud of what they had just accomplished. They had crept through a snowbound, frozen hell to penetrate deep into enemy-held territory unseen, proving the southern routes were a viable avenue of approach for future reconnaissance missions timed to precede the launch of Anaconda. Further, though Speedy remained unconvinced of a large Al Qaida presence in the area, they had found evidence suggesting the enemy was using the trails and wadis to the south of the Shahikot as routes into Pakistan, and they had been able to check several sites pinpointed by intelligence. Most important, together with Juliet Team they had proven Blaber’s theory that the awful Afghan winter weather in the mountains actually gave superbly equipped athlete-warriors like those in Delta a clear advantage over their enemies. This was to prove a mixed blessing for India Team. While they had been scrambling through the snow and ice at 10,000 feet, events in Bagram and Kabul had been moving forward apace. The generals had set an H-Hour of dawn on February 28, less than two days away. India’s prize for the near-perfect execution of their mission was to be handed a tougher one. There was no time to rest on their laurels. Out came the maps and the imagery. It was time to start planning.

  18.

  AS men and materiel flowed into Bagram, inside Dagger’s AOB building where most collaborative planning took place, officers from all task forces were hashing out the final details of the Anaconda plan, often in tense debates tinged with acrimony and mutual suspicion.

  The basic thrust of the plan that developed changed little from the concept that Hagenbeck, Mikolashek and Franks had approved February 17: TF Hammer—Glenn Thomas’s and Matthew McHale’s A-teams, plus Zia’s 300–400 militiamen—would approach the Shahikot from the west, while TF Rakkasan sealed the trails and passes running east and south out of the valley; TF K-Bar’s motley crew of SEALs, Special Forces, and allied special ops units would form an outer ring of security, together with some other Afghan militia forces; TF 64’s Australian SAS troopers would keep watch to the south of the valley
; and TF 11’s door-kickers would remain at Bagram, ready to launch if one of the “big three” high-value targets was spotted.

  What this plan was designed to accomplish was encapsulated in CJTF Mountain’s mission statement for Anaconda:

  CJTF Mountain attacks to destroy (capture or kill) Al Qaida vicinity Objective Remington (Shir-Khan-Kheyl), and to identify or disrupt Al Qaida insurgency support mechanisms and exfiltration routes into Pakistan. On order conduct follow-on operations to clear selected objectives and interdict Al Qaida movements in Area of Operations Lincoln.

  The plan envisaged defeating the enemy in the Shahikot within three days, allowing Hagenbeck to make a decision the morning of the fourth day: whether to launch further attacks on fleeing Al Qaida forces and other enemy troops between the Shahikot and the Pakistan border (an area referred to as AO Lincoln), or, if no other targets presented themselves, to conduct civil affairs operations to help the civilian population around the Shahikot. Wille and Ziemba each told their bosses that they anticipated a two-week operation in and around the Shahikot, but they were rebuffed. “We were told, ‘No, this is gonna be a three-day operation,’” Wille said.