Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (23 page)

Fir trees and sharp, jagged quartz boulders insulated the ridgelines down to the valley floors and connected draws that were filled with large masses of limestone and feldspar. Centuries of rainwater and melted snow had created large cracks and crags in the mountains’ skin and provided numerous tuck-away areas for the fighters. Any student of military tactics would instantly recognize the stronghold’s seemingly insurmountable and impregnable nature. It was becoming easier to understand Mulholland’s meat-grinder analogy.

Should someone want to reach neighboring Pakistan, he would need to climb uphill to clear the 14,000-foot mountain peaks straddling the border. Should he choose to take one of the long, winding valleys, he still would have to negotiate the 9,000-foot passes. I looked at the puffy and snow-filled clouds hiding the highest peaks and had a foreboding feeling about things to come. Visitors beware.

Tora Bora and bin Laden have a long relationship. This place served
as bin Laden’s base of operations during the Soviet jihad, where he was on the defending end of numerous attacks. Legend has it the most massive attack involved an estimated two thousand Russians backed by another two thousand Afghan Communists, supported by fifty attack helicopters and MIG fighter jets. They attacked up the mountains for the better part of a week, and bin Laden, then considered only an average guerrilla leader, and his fellow mujahideen were never defeated in the mountains. They never ran.

The local Afghans knew Usama bin Laden well. Indeed, he enjoyed star status within the tribes and clans in the area, for since moving back in after leaving the Sudan in the late 1990s, bin Laden had distributed money to practically every family in Nangarhar Province. For years many an Afghan family named their sons Usama.

After the Soviet withdrawal and the establishment of al Qaeda as a living, breathing, and thinking terrorist organization, a meeting of epic proportions took place among the tall spires. The year was 1996, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed visited the leader of al Qaeda inside one of the hundreds of caves that had been engineered into the ridgelines and mountains of Tora Bora. It was there that Khalid first laid out the ambitious plan to train terrorist pilots to hijack and crash planes into buildings inside the United States.

Now, in December 2001, the backlash of that meeting was becoming apparent. Only a blind man could miss the white parallel contrails of the engine exhausts of American bombers streaking across the blue sky like long fat chalk marks on a lesson board. They were so far up that the engine roar could not be heard, but only a deaf man could miss the thunder of bombs hitting bin Laden’s positions.

The loud drum of war was again banging in Tora Bora.

At midafternoon, we reached General Ali’s makeshift headquarters, located among rolling hills in the beige desert and inside the fork of two deep wadis that ran north and south. We could hear and see the bombs pounding around the peaks only a few miles away.

It once had been a school, and although it had seen better days, the building was modern in comparison to the ancient, mud-walled compounds that pimpled the surrounding area. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees had funded the construction years earlier, and the horseshoe-shaped tan, gray, and light blue slate single-story structure was built on a solid foundation, with nine rooms exiting to the middle of the horseshoe, with a small poured concrete porch that spanned the entire center. It had once been a beacon of learning, but any hope of education for local children was shattered when the Taliban came to power.

Windowpanes that had been carved by hand were splintered, and held little glass. The former classrooms were empty save for the trash and dirt the wind had blown into the corners. Some chalkboards still showed fragments of old lessons in Pashto and Arabic. Outside, the yard was quiet and deserted, like any Western schoolyard in the summertime, but there were no kids.

Oddly, there also were no signs of armed guards for General Ali.

Manny and Adam Khan returned with a large, tall man in an olive green multipocketed vest over a plum-colored, button-down shirt with long sleeves. It was George, the CIA counterpart for whom we had been looking, and we knew from the very first that everything would be okay. He stood roughly two inches over six feet, likely was in his late forties, and his long hair and beard were a combination of brown and gray hair. George carried a natural friendly demeanor, had a great sense of humor, and spoke with a slight Wild West cowboy accent.

Originally in Afghanistan as Gary Berntsen’s deputy, it had tickled George to be named the team leader of Jawbreaker Juliet. He wasted little time in telling us that he was pressing General Ali to support our move into the mountains, but the general was proving to be stubborn.

“You ready to meet Ali and make your pitch?” he asked as we shook hands.

Ironhead, Bryan, and I looked at each other with relief. We had been worried that we would have to smooth out some friction or turn a cheek or
two to ensure a positive relationship between Delta and the CIA. There had been dark days when the relationship was fragile at best. Half the time it seems that interoperability success depends more on personalities than on shared agendas. George had put us at ease from the start with his genuine welcome.

George had brought to Jalalabad with him four or five other agency professionals and one Special Forces lieutenant colonel who possibly had the most rewarding and intriguing job in the army for someone of that rank. They were a bunch of first-round draft picks, and all would prove equally talented and cool. But CIA guys pestered me all day about my rank of lieutenant colonel, wanting to know what year group I was in and if I knew any of their buddies. I had to guess at what year group a newly promoted fake lieutenant colonel like me should be.
Year group 85? Naw, hell, let’s try year group 86. Am I so screwed up already that it’s obvious I’m an imposter? I haven’t done shit yet, so how could they even suspect already that I’m not a lieutenant colonel?
Not a good time to start second-guessing myself. But the spooks wouldn’t let up.
Jesus Christ! How many of these CIA guys are gonna come in here and ask me about my rank?

We walked a short distance from the old schoolhouse to where a large red carpet had been laid out neatly on the dirt. A few colorful blankets were folded to comfort some, but there were not enough for everyone. The outdoor meeting was to be held within sight of the majestic mountains to the south, our future battle zone.

The general and his young aide, Ghulbihar, slipped off their worn leather sandals and effortlessly flopped down and crossed their legs. Following the lead of both George and Adam Khan in this sudden introduction to still another point of the Afghan culture, I fumbled with my cold-weather boots, trying to remove them without showing discomfort.
Am I gonna have to take off these boots every time we talk? This is gonna get old fast!

Ali was facing southeast, oblique to the White Mountains and the glare of the morning sun forced him to squint. George flanked me on the right, closest to Ali, and was trying to sit as comfortably as possible for a big Texan. I had the seat of honor, directly across from the general, and Adam Khan was to my left. Ghulbihar, the general’s translator, was on the warlord’s right.

General Ali did seem tired, but we didn’t mention his press party the
night before. He seemed shy and uncomfortable, almost as if the inevitability of the overall military situation had finally caught up with him. More Americans were coming into his land and he knew it. He leaned forward so that his oversized brown coat spread over most of his legs. A small notebook of dirty paper, a short stubby pencil, a handheld two-way radio, and two black cell phones were aligned neatly before him. One of the cell phones was standard CIA issue and the other was a foreign model.

Thirty feet away, just outside of hearing range, stood Ironhead and Bryan. Off to the side, Lieutenant Colonel Al of the CIA leaned comfortably against our red pickup, with an AK-47 slung crossways over his back, and several 7.62mm magazines bulging from his back pockets. I could feel their collective stares on the back of my head and knew they were pulling for me to not screw this up. They were itching to get up into al Qaeda territory but understood the first goal was to secure Ali’s trust and support.

General Ali’s wool muhj hat was propped back like a dog-tired Little League shortstop’s cap after an extra innings game, and his coat had a large black fur collar. He nervously rolled a long strand of pearl prayer beads between his fingers, occasionally switching them from one hand to the other. Ali’s mannerisms gave me every impression that he was a devout Muslim who was visibly uncomfortable with his new status as an American stooge.

George broke the ice and introduced Adam Khan and me. Ghulbihar translated Ali’s opening comments in very rough English, and Ali looked at me through the sun-induced squint. With a slight tilt of the head, he asked Ghulbihar something in a low tone.

The aide turned and asked, “Commandos?”

I nodded, and George interjected. “Yes. Tell the general these are the commandos I have been promising. Many more will come.” George looked over at me as if to ask,
“Right? Please tell me it’s not just you five.”
I nodded. “They will help us find bin Laden,” George added.

It was my turn, and I glanced at Adam Khan to be certain he was ready to translate. I wanted what I had to say to seem natural, although I had spent much of the night rehearsing in the dark. If I had to repeat myself, I feared that I would lose my place.

I did a quick personal inventory of my heartbeat and started to talk,
and Adam Khan easily translated my words. Ali would softly mutter
“Wo”
—“yes” in Pashto—and scribble on the white pad every so often. The general rocked back and forth and his face betrayed him: He was very distraught at having American fighting men here.

Just as I finished, Ali responded in his language, “Americans should not be on the ridgelines.”

He barely let Adam Khan finish translating before launching into a lengthy lecture. Maybe he had been up last night, too, after hosting the press, and was as worried about this meeting as I.

Having reached a fast speaking rhythm, he seemed to forget that Adam Khan needed time to translate, but it was pretty clear that Ali was putting me on the spot. He looked me dead in the eye for the first time and said we were not up to the task, implying that Delta Force was not tough enough to fight al Qaeda in the mountains.

Adam Khan caught the tempo. “Al Qaeda is dug in with many supplies and weapons. Many fighters willing to die for martyrdom. You Americans cannot survive in these mountains against al Qaeda, just like the Soviets could not survive against us. What makes you think you Americans can do what the Soviets couldn’t do in ten years of fighting?”

Ohhhh. . . Blindsided. I had not expected that response. Think fast, stay cool!

“Adam Khan, please tell the general that the men I bring are America’s finest commandos,” I said. “They are skilled in mountain warfare, and they are hardened and deadly.”

Ali allowed me to continue, just adding a few more
Wo
’s. When it was obvious that I had finished, he answered.

“I was an engineer when the Soviets were here. I helped build the caves and know all of them. They occupied this same land where we sit; they [the Soviets] never penetrated past the foothills and lost many Russkies. It is too dangerous for you Americans. It will be very bad if one of you is killed.”

So that was it. He was scared about what would happen if an American got killed
. “I will be blamed,” he confirmed, and looked at George.

I stayed on course. “Take me and the few men here that arrived with me to the front lines today. Let us show you that we can hold our own. Tomorrow, I will have forty more commandos ready to fight, not drink tea.”

Ali responded, “It is not good to attack right now.” With a shrug, he added, “This place is different than Mazar-i-Sharif.” That was the first Afghan city to fall to the Northern Alliance, with a lot of help from the United States, after 9/11. Ali was obviously among those who, despite the heavy fighting there, considered the victory to have been somewhat of a cakewalk.