Operation Dark Heart (10 page)

EBO became the last and best option to ensure that the very limited combat forces in country would be used effectively. With a determined enemy who was learning how to retake lost ground, every efficiency we could find was needed.

Mountain Viper, the upcoming operation planned against the Taliban, would be a major test of the concept and its effectiveness. The limited number of 10th Mountain’s troops would be the subjects of this test—with their objective to stymie the Taliban offensive.

Shortly after that meeting with Dave, our informants told us of a chilling development. Bearded men, riding on Honda motorcycles, carrying Kalashnikov rifles and satellite telephones, were driving along the trails of the deep, treeless valleys in Zabul province about 100 miles southwest of Bagram. They were on their way.

6

MOUNTAIN VIPER

THE Taliban were reinfesting southeastern Afghanistan, from the border province of Khowst, down through Paktika, Zabul, Ghazni, and Oruzgan provinces, and into Kandahar province—the heartland of the Taliban before they were ousted in 2001.

Armed with our intelligence and knowledge of HUMINT assets available to answer any intel gaps, I sat down with the 10th Mountain planners shortly after my meeting with Dave, in which we agreed to coordinate resources to conduct mission analysis and detailed planning. I wanted to interweave intelligence collected by our Afghan informants into the Mountain Viper Concept of Operations—the battle plan worked out by General Vines and his officers.

Majors Grubbs and Reichert, the 10th Mountain planners, were a little wary. “We’ve never had the Defense HUMINT guy sit down and talk to us about how we can prosecute a battle,” Reichert said, eying me and my goatee skeptically.

Ordinarily, DIA people didn’t play well with combat types. Somehow, DIA leadership—mostly the civilian executives—had come to feel that it was beneath them to conduct “field operations,” but I didn’t operate that way.

“C’mon, I’m army, just like you,” I told them. “We’ve all gone through Huachuca. I just wear civilian clothes now.”

They looked at me—then looked at each other—and with kind of a nod in each other’s direction, they laid out a map and gave me a draft copy of the Operations Order, laying out the villages of interest.

The Taliban had done a good job of reconnaissance and preparation for their fall offensive. They appeared to have a firm understanding of where they would have to go and what they would have to do to regain control of Kandahar and the province. The fact is we were facing an elusive, lethal enemy that was readying itself to fight in a forbidding area of towering rocky mountains and steep valleys.

Their tactic was comprehensive attack. They had started by getting control of the police stations, as we had seen on the video, as a way to disrupt the central order of the country. If that strategy was successful, it wouldn’t take long before they were aiming for Kandahar. We believed that Mullah Omar was making trips inside Pakistan to recruit fresh Taliban troops.

I looked over the plan. “Gentlemen, I’m going to take this to Randy, the head of our detachment * ***** ** ** **** ******** ***** *** ******** ***** ***** ** **** ******* ** *** ****** *** *** ** *** ******* **** ** *** ************ ************ *** ******

Despite themselves, Grubbs and Reichert were won over. ****** ***** *** **** ***** ** ****** ** ***** ************ ****** ** **** ****** ** ****** ************ * **** **** * **** ** *** ******* ** ********** ******** ** **** *** **** *** ************* **** ******* ** ************* ** *** ** * *** ********** * ********** ****** *** ** ******** **** *** ** ********* * ****** ****

I had first encountered Ray while working in my office and watching a Steven Seagal movie (all his movies are the same but I like them anyway) on my computer about eight o’clock one night. A ton of movies had been loaded onto the secret-level network, and I took advantage of them because I disliked the stuffy, gritty hooch; I preferred to stay in the SCIF, and work.

An e-mail popped up.

“Activity reported on the border.” It was the first I’d heard from Ray. Kandahar sat in between mountains and desert and was about a two-hour drive from the Pakistani border. Ray was referring to suspicious activity by the Taliban in an area I can’t reveal. “Any interest in follow-up?” his e-mail asked.

I talked to Dave, who was eating tuna and crackers in his office with his headphones on.

“I just got this note from our guy, Ray, in Kandahar,” I told Dave, holding out the printout. “He’s asking me if we’re interested in what’s going on on the border.” I named the location. “Are you guys?”

Dave immediately took off his headphones and read the e-mail. “We’re very interested,” he said. They had received several reports relating to the possible sighting of ********* ** Mullah Omar. “Tell him we’d be interested in any observations of individuals or convoys of vehicles that match the profile of Omar and his entourage.”

I got back to my office and back on the computer as fast as I could.

“Absolutely,” I typed. “Our guys report this is a key location related to previously known Taliban activity possibly related to Mullah Omar. What do you have? V/R, Tony.”

Almost immediately, my phone rang.

“Tony, why the hell you working this late?” I guessed it was Ray. He had a gruff voice, a broad New York accent, and a no-nonsense style.

“I’m always working,” I said. “I never go back to the tent. Too many people. Too damned hot.”

“Usually you guys shut down after five,” he said.

“Not now,” I said. “I’m usually here until eleven or twelve every night.”

“That’s great for me,” Ray said. “I’m meetin’ with my guys tonight. I need some things checked out. Can you take care of it?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

An hour later, Ray sent me in a list of questions. “Can you see if there’s anything on these guys here?”

“Are these guys the ones your assets are tracking?”

“Yeah,” he said. There was a hesitation that I recognized as a half truth. “Sorta. I’m tryin’ to sort through which of these guys are real targets and which ain’t. Some of ’em come and go across the border a lot, and we can’t figure out what’s goin’ on. Can you check ’em out?”

“You got it,” I said. “Get back to you tomorrow morning.”

The next morning, I briefed the LTC on Ray’s report and gave them his questions. By the end of the morning, the two Marine Corps intelligence analysts had compiled the LTC’s holdings of information on and about Ray’s list of assets. They had provided new information and answers on 80 percent of the names. I e-mailed this info to Ray. For the most part, these names came up in relation to Mullah Omar. Some of them were known Taliban enablers, which I suggested to Ray should be our first focus for intelligence collection.

About midnight, I got a short e-mail. “Info I have from source is that enabler is going to meet tonight with his Taliban contact.” Ray named the location coordinate. “Any interest?” Enablers were the dudes we kept a close eye on due to direct links to known bad guys. They were the arms dealers and the money men who kept the Taliban supplied with weapons and cash. Some were also emerging as significant players in the resurgent illegal drug trade. This enabler was a key part of the Taliban team we had detected preparing for combat operations, and Dave’s folks had been focused on him for a while.

“Stand by, I’ll get back to you,” I wrote back.

I went over to Dave. “Here’s what we got. What do you think?”

“This is perfect,” said Dave. “This matches some of the intel we’ve got right now on this guy. Let’s go talk to the operations chief to see if they want to do something.”

Dave and I went to talk to Lt. Col. Raphael Torres, CJTF 180’s chief of joint fires, who controlled the combat power: guns, missiles, and air power.

“Raphael, we have some info here. Other sources and mine have pinpointed an enabler.” Dave laid out the situation.

Torres broke into a broad grin. He called in the lawyer, who questioned us and looked through the folder of intel for legal sufficiency to take him out.

“What is your consideration of collateral damage?” he asked.

“None,” I replied. “According to our information, there appears to be only true believers present with the target.”

“Go ahead,” he replied.

Torres went over to the big board to talk to Colonel Robert Ault, the G3 (director for operations) of CJTF 180, in the open area while Dave and I consulted.

“Can you get additional info from Ray when he talks to his guys so we can focus *** ****** on all the activities in the area?” Dave asked.

“Also,” he added, “get me the information on all of Ray’s guys so we don’t inadvertently do something to them.”

“Great idea,” I said. In my office, I shot off an e-mail to Ray. “We’re coordinating, but need the information on all your guys.”

Torres came back. “Alt wants to bomb the meeting.”

“Sounds great to us,” I said.

“There’s a B-1 loitering over the Gulf. We can put down JDAMs. [“Dumb bombs” outfitted with “smart bomb” technology.] We can probably put some iron on target in about a half hour.”

“Good,” said Dave.

I called Ray to let him know to get his guys’ asses out of there for the bombing and then to get them back in there after the attack to verify who got whacked.

Sure enough, a short time later I got the confirming e-mail. * **** **** ** **** ** ***** *** ******* ** *** ******* ** *** ** ****** ****** **** *** ****** ****** ******** *** ********** ****** **** ********** ***** *** ******** ******* ** *** ******

Man. This guy Ray was
gold.
Dave and I had already had our conversation about sharing intel and now it could begin to bear fruit.

Ray’s intel on the Taliban began to pour in. He had nets of informants—Afghan nationals—all through the southern part of the country. Ray himself moved between a U.S. military installation in Kandahar and a Special Forces’ forward operating base (FOB) in the mountains north of the city.

He could do things that nobody else could do—and he was fearless.

Ray reported to Randy, commander of our ***** detachment, but because of Ray’s location, seniority, experience, and independence, he was able to do his job without involvement from Randy. So Randy released Ray to work for me in the HUMINT Operations Center directly. It gave Ray the freedom to focus on the operational needs of ongoing combat operations and to perform intelligence collection for upcoming operations. It helped out in ways we never could have expected.

The 10th Mountain began deploying their troops in locations and CJTF 180 launched Mountain Viper on August 30 when coalition forces air assaulted into the mountains near Deh Chopan in the Zabul province to clear the area of Taliban forces.

We had plenty of logistical and manpower challenges. We couldn’t go into Pakistan after the Taliban, so we had to wait for them to come into Afghanistan. Because of troop levels, though, the United States wasn’t in a position to move rapidly and consolidate. We had to stay ahead of the Taliban, by thinking about where the enemy would be next.

It was going to be a giant chess game.

The 10th Mountain had a good concept. The strategy was defilade: get in front of the Taliban’s avenues of approach and conceal themselves, taking advantage of the terrain so they wouldn’t take enfilading fire or be outflanked.

What they needed from us, though, were crucial pieces of information: some of the locations where the Taliban would be doing resupply, major movements of troops, how the Taliban were being commanded, and where their command and control would be. We knew the Taliban had camps—training or staging locations—operating near Kandahar, and in the Oruzgan province, site of the home village of Mullah Omar.

Working late into the night, Ray and I supplied intel to the planners, confirmed by Dave’s information and John Hay’s pictures to fill in the planners’ intelligence gaps. Ray had informants watching the roads, trying to understand what was going on. His folks figured out that the enemy would use motorcycles for all phases of the operation: for command and control, for resupply, and for reinforcing numbers as people were killed. We learned to watch for the motorcycles; they were tippers for larger collection systems. When they showed up in a valley, we knew to start zeroing in on it.

We tried to cut the bureaucracy so that actionable information could be moved right from the point of conception to the people who could actually do something with it.

Then, out of the blue, we rolled up a female Pakistani intelligence agent. The 10th Mountain captured her in Khowst as part of a Taliban unit attacking a U.S. outpost there.

She was carrying Pakistani documents and tried to claim she was merely monitoring the situation in Afghanistan for her country. Monitoring, my ass. She was ISI—the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence; the Pakistani intelligence service. Nasty crew. They had a big hand in creating the Taliban, and we had no doubt that she was collecting intelligence for them. We already were aware that the ISI was giving the Taliban tips on how to better protect themselves from our surveillance systems.

She was transported back to the BCP. In interrogations, she refused to break, but we didn’t need her to. We had the goods on her. Intelligence verified she was ISI ******* **** ********* *** ******* ** ***** *** ******* ** *** **** *****. Just as important, we now had clear and direct evidence that Paks were involved in the offensive. From that moment on, I considered anyone in a Pakistani uniform an adversary.