Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (8 page)

The MH-47 pilots did a super job, but the danger mounted by the second, and when the helicopter was actually lower than the high terrain on three sides, it is a wonder that it was not shot out of the sky as it held in a long hover. It would have been an easy shot into the cockpit for even a novice marksmen sitting on his back porch with a slingshot.

When the rear rotor blade actually came within inches of striking a rock wall, Jeff aborted the landing and narrowly diverted a catastrophe. The ship pulled up and out of the area to reposition and acquire the alternate pickup zone on the valley floor.

We breathed sighs of relief, probably never happier in our lives that a landing was called off. I keyed my radio mike to let Stormin’ know to shift the boys to the alternate pickup site, but he was way ahead of me and already had them moving.

There was no further need for stealth. If the earlier screaming by the women and children had not awakened everybody within a mile or so, the racket of the helicopter certainly had gotten their attention. Everybody knew we were there.

We took off for the alternate pickup zone, slipping and sliding down each terraced piece of terrain, happy to be going downhill and not up. Jeff still needed to look over the alternate site to be sure it was clear of all obstacles. Three terraces below the original site, the MH-47 slowly came over the ridgeline from above and behind us, and I winced as it slowly descended
toward the alternate site. It seemed as big and slow as the Goodyear blimp above a Little League ball field. I couldn’t help but think that we were putting the aircraft and crew in great danger by asking them to come into pretty much a similar location twice. It was discussed during the planning, and although it was not smart tactics, in this case we didn’t have much choice. Our Trojan horse trucks would never have made it back on a return trip with five detainees through alert and insulted neighborhoods.

Then the MH-47 pilot noticed that one terrace seemed to be larger than the rest, and instead of going straight for the alternate site, which rested another two hundred meters below, in the middle of the valley floor, the pilot decided to try this new area.

The aircraft descended about one hundred meters, again with its tail to the ridgeline and made a textbook tail-wheel landing, beautiful flying that saved us at least twenty or so more minutes in the area.

As soon as the ramp touched down, four or five of the Alabama Green Berets piled out onto the grassy terrace and fanned out to secure the area. Following them were a couple dozen Afghan militiamen from the same group that had provided us with guides and drivers, and had taken care of the third tribal checkpoint on the way out. They would now secure this area after we left, and calm the excited masses. Afterward, they would talk to the locals and Ahmed’s wife and children to see what could be gleaned about his association with bin Laden and his participation in the battle of Tora Bora.

Should Mister Ahmed not be forthcoming, his wife’s testimony might help his amnesia, encouraging him not to be so coy. Maybe she would be worried about his safety and want him to cooperate, or perhaps proud of his notoriety and willing to tell us all about it.

As the boys crested a four-foot berm just beyond the landing zone, one of the detainees began to resist. Unfortunately for him, his escort was one of the Alpha Team boys known as Body Crab, who had been a longtime Army Ranger before coming over to Delta. The Body Crab stood about six two, had deltoids that looked like football shoulder pads, and although he had an awesome sense of humor, he was not in a playful mood. He executed a perfect face plant on the struggling detainee, which motivated the young man to stop struggling and come along nicely.

Within a minute or two, we were loaded and heading back to Jalalabad
airfield where our squadron commander, Lt. Col. Jake Ashley, and squadron Sergeant Major Jim, a.k.a. the Grinch, awaited.

The air mission commander, Clay Hutmacher, was sitting in the jump seat just behind the two pilots. Although not actually flying the ship this night, he was in charge and could have aborted the pickup for a dozen reasons and none of us would have questioned the decision. Standing in the rear of the helicopter, I scribbled a note on my small light board and passed it to him. “Thanks for being the best pilots in the world tonight.” We were happy customers.

The trip back was much shorter than the trip out, and we were soon enjoying some hot chow the cooks had prepared, a much-appreciated and long-standing Delta tradition. For some strange reason, the food always seemed to taste a whole lot better when the missions were successful.

Ahmed was given a bottle of water, a Quran, and a new set of pajamas, then was introduced to his new home and personal interrogator.

Shrek, Ski, and Nuke, our appropriately named explosives ordinance disposal expert, had stayed at the site to update the Alabama Green Berets on what had taken place before they arrived and to interview Ahmed’s wife. But only a few minutes after our helicopter cleared the area, something else required their attention.

Several armed groups of locals were spotted moving toward the Ahmeds’ home, some of them testing the waters by firing their AK-47s at our guys. Mistake. Instead of wasting their own small-arms ammo, our boys remembered the AC-130 that was still on station overhead and called it in to do some work. In this case, bigger was better and the threat evaporated before it could gather momentum.

After a few hours sleep, we gathered for a full hot wash with representatives from every group of folks that had played some part in the mission.
Among them were the intelligence analysts and staff operations wizards who did the lion’s share of work just to get us out the door. The helicopter pilots and crews from the 160th and representatives from the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, who owned the Alabama Green Berets, and CIA analysts and operatives in civilian clothes rounded out the guest list.

These hot washes are critical to Delta’s success and are always run by the senior noncommissioned officer involved in the mission. Officers usually sit in the back, but participate just the same.

Similar in many ways to the U.S. Army’s formal after-action review, hot washes are used to identify what went right, what went wrong, what needs to be sustained, and what needs fixing. However, it is quite unlike a standard after-action review, where a sacrosanct rule is that nobody should be individually identified for having done something wrong. In a Delta hot wash, if you messed up, you certainly hear about it, and although it’s nothing personal, thick skins are required, regardless of rank or service.

Once the overall review was complete, a few minutes were spent exchanging handshakes, slaps on the back, and a few laughs before all of the external folks depart the area. As soon as the room was cleared of anyone who was not part of Delta, a second, internal hot wash was conducted, best characterized as a no-holds-barred commando confessional.

Every operator is expected to pony up to anything he did wrong during the mission. Whether it was poor judgment, a mental lapse, or a physical slip-up, you could bet it would be discussed. No infraction was too small, and any operator worth his salt would man up to not meeting the Delta standard. If he didn’t, you could bet someone would bring it up before the meeting adjourned. It always impressed me how a Delta team leader with six or seven years in the unit could tactfully tell a new troop commander—an officer—how screwed up he had been during an assault. Of course, some were more tactful than others, but it all had to be said. If you kept an open mind, you could really improve your performance. If you did not, then you weren’t long for the Unit.

The mission to capture Ahmed was the first successful capture mission for Delta since the start of combat operations in Afghanistan. Delta was responsible for killing scores of enemy Taliban and al Qaeda in places
like Shah-i-Khot and Tora Bora, and on dozens of raids across the country, but this marked the first time the targeted personality in the mission statement was actually found on target and captured.

This statistic was indicative of the small number of al Qaeda terrorists or Taliban leaders on whom the intelligence community had actionable intelligence. This fact alone accounts for why we spent an awful lot of time looking for the special piece of information that would provide insight into the location of bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, or Mullah Muhammad Omar.

When the raid was all over, I could not help but think that here we were in Tora Bora a year after our first violent attacks in these mountains, but instead of having bin Laden within reach, as we did back then, we were now grabbing any little person who might have spoken to him at some time. Gul Ahmed was just another piece in the puzzle. We would not be informed of what, if anything, he gave up, and we went back to work. But the intel on Usama bin Laden remained dry.

Nonetheless, one of the most memorable comments of my career in Delta came from the Unit command sergeant major, Iggy, who remarked as we entered the hot wash after snatching Gul Ahmed, “That’s one for the books, sir!”

Well said, sergeant major!

* Derek Leebaert, in his book
To Dare and to Conquer
, discusses when and where Delta planned to use the Trojan horse option during the eventually aborted rescue attempt of American hostages in Iran. The June 2006 edition of
Tip of the Spear
, a monthly magazine published by USSOCOM, discusses former MACV-SOG Dick Meadows’s participation in Operation Eagle Claw. Already retired from the military, Meadows was pressed back into action, and along with a few others infiltrated Tehran, Iran, to prepare for the arrival of the rescue force and confirm the location of the hostages. See
http://www.socom.mil/TOTS/2006/TOTS_web-200606.pdf
.

* The flying heroics of the 160th are well known throughout the world and several books cover their selection process and derring-do accomplishments. Retired CW4 Mike Durant, of
Blackhawk Down
fame, had authored two books on the organization. The first,
In the Company of Heroes
, covers his personal experience in Somalia. The second, titled
Night Stalkers
, recounts several previously unknown secret missions of the 160th. Also, David Tucker and Christopher Lamb describe the talents of the 160th in their book,
United States Special Operations Forces
.

Don’t be late, light, or out of uniform.

   
—DELTA SELECTION AND ASSESSMENT CADRE
MEMBER, SPRING 1998

I am an army brat. My father served two tours in Vietnam, including time with the 173rd Airborne Combat Brigade, and spent months hospitalized in a body cast while his wounds healed. In the early 1970s, he was assigned to a new post in Frankfurt, Germany, and I attended a military community elementary school, played baseball, shot marbles, traded comic books and bubblegum baseball cards, and fought a thousand G.I. Joe battles. For cheap thrills, I enjoyed playing combat dodge ball behind the three-story whitewashed apartment building with my twin brother and the other kids.

It was there that I gained my first recollection of terror. The violent, left-wing Baader-Meinhof gang terrorized Germany in those days. In 1972, radical members of the group operating beneath the banner of the Red Army Faction bombed an American military headquarters building in Frankfurt, killing an American officer and wounding a dozen other people. I remember my mother coming around the corner of the apartment building to interrupt our sandbox battle and save the G.I. Joe with his lifelike hair from being crushed by a flying Big Bertha marble.

“Get inside,” she said. “The radio just announced some of the Baader-Meinhof gang have escaped from prison and may be in our neighborhood.”
Terrorists were nearby, she said, and I, at eight years old, wondered “What’s a terrorist?” I begged her to let me stay outside, hoping that I might see one of those mysterious gang members skulking about, perhaps wearing a long, dark trench coat. No chance.

Dad was reassigned back to the States a short time later and we settled in a townhouse in Alexandria, Virginia, while he held assignments at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and the Pentagon. My adolescent love of G.I. Joe dolls waned, but my hunger for adventure accelerated as I grew older and I craved the excitement of competition, particularly the victory side of things,