Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (46 page)

After a three-hour drive to the base of the mountain followed by an exhausting two-hour climb, Ski and India Team reached OP25-B just prior to nightfall on December 13. The mules, on the other hand, showed little sign of fatigue. The team was anxious to get in on the bombing and looked forward to alternating with Jackal and Kilo teams of MSS Grinch a few thousand meters away to the east.

As the team dug out their equipment, they quickly noticed the Darth
Vader thermal imager was busted. After a little delicate Delta ingenuity, detail work that would make a Swiss wristwatch artist take notice, the priceless piece of kit was back in business.

Unfortunately, the sharp advances made by MSS Grinch and the others had put MSS Monkey out of business before they even got started. Monkey would have to push farther south to get in the game.

Before they could get going again, though, we tasked them from the schoolhouse to take control of the airspace for preplanned bombing missions. MSS Monkey’s combat controller, Spike, took up where MSS Grinch had left off, and for the next six hours, Monkey would not let al Qaeda rest for more than a few minutes at a time. Bryan decided to remain in place at OP25-B for the rest of the night and move south early in the morning.

At the schoolhouse early on the afternoon of December 13, Skoot and his interceptors picked up the startling call that “Father” was “moving to a new tunnel with two Yemeni brothers.” And then we heard bin Laden himself break radio silence, and there was desperation in his voice. “The time is now,” he said. “Arm your women and children against the infidel!”

Calling out the kids to fight wasn’t going to be enough for bin Laden to retake the lead, because things were going our way.

After hours of massive and accurate bombing directed by Pope, Lowblow, and a talented Brit with Kilo Team, the Admiral with Jackal Team, and Spike with India Team, Usama bin Laden was on the radio again. Skoot threw open the flimsy door with authority, and entered our room quickly and smiling widely. His eyes were wide and wild as if he just hit a ninth-inning walk-off home run. He held the small black transistor radio up with his right hand and thrust it toward us. “Listen,” he whispered softly. “It’s him.”

His Arabic prose sounded beautiful, soothing, and peaceful. But the words were very portentous, and I paraphrase him here. “Our prayers have not been answered. Times are dire,” he said with an uncanny combination
of surrender and despair. “We didn’t receive support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers. Things might have been different.”

His final words to his fighters that night revealed a tired and weary warrior, “I’m sorry for getting you involved in this battle, if you can no longer resist, you may surrender with my blessing.”

Before the nightly chat with General Ali on the thirteenth, two unexpected guests arrived at the schoolhouse: One was a representative from Pakistan, the other, Zaman’s brother. Both were there on behalf of the warlord and passed information that, in their opinion, bin Laden had already departed for Pakistan. Curious. Could Zaman have engineered the odd cease-fire earlier to allow bin Laden time to escape?

After the two visitors departed, George asked General Ali about the progress they had made that day. The tired but enthusiastic general said his men had uncovered a large cave stocked with weapons, ammunition, uniforms, documents, and a large carpet. The general seemed to consider the carpet the most valuable item. George accused the general of allowing his men to halt the attack to loot caves for personal gain. Ali shrugged, almost as if he felt helpless to fix the problem. Or perhaps he just didn’t consider it a problem.

Ali placed blame on the journalists and the CIA. He said his men were hungry and poor, and since the media and George’s people were paying such a high premium for anything coming out of the mountains, his subordinate commanders were becoming businessmen.

The tenuous relationship between the boys in MSS Monkey and their local guides worsened at sunrise of the following day. Ski and Catfish had gone forward early in the morning darkness of December 14 to scout out another forward area for MSS Monkey, and after finding a spot that
provided excellent angled views into the valleys, they radioed back to tell Bryan to bring up the rest of the team. When Bryan gave the order to saddle up, their muhj escorts again hit the panic button. OP25-B was far enough removed from the real fighting now that it was relatively safe. Moving forward meant entering the dreaded no-man’s land, territory owned by al Qaeda.

The escorts had been give strict orders by one of General Ali’s lieutenants not to let anything happen to the Americans. Unfortunately, they took this guidance too literally. Obviously, this was bullshit and unacceptable.

After failing to convince the muhj guides to relax and let the highly trained MSS Monkey folks move out to join Charlie and India teams, Bryan grabbed the radio and dialed up the schoolhouse.

On his end, the situation had to be handled with kid gloves but at the schoolhouse, Ironhead and I could be a little more aggressive with General Ali. Unfortunately, the good general could not be found in time to overturn the decision in the field.

Bryan ordered Ski and Catfish to return to OP25-B, and MSS Monkey’s combat controller, Spike, settled in where he was and resumed control of the airspace for preplanned targets for another six hours.

In the relatively finite black SOF world, assaulters and snipers are a dime a dozen. Yes, these men are trained in multiple deadly skill sets and the dark arts of counterterrorism. But if you asked what tool of the trade would be the very last thing they would leave behind, you might be surprised at the answer. You would likely hear that it is not a tool that makes one nervous when it isn’t there, but rather a
capability
that is not organic to a troop of Delta operators or Navy SEALs.

Just because you are the best of the best does not mean you are the best at everything. Any Delta operator can vouch for the capabilities of the air force combat controllers, and very rarely goes on a “hit” without the men who wear the scarlet berets.

Arguably they are the best-rounded and uniquely trained operators
on the planet. The initial training “pipeline” for an air force special tactics squadron combat controller costs twice as much time and sweat as does the journey to become a Navy SEAL or Delta operator. Before their training is complete someone brainwashes these guys into thinking they can climb like Spiderman, swim like Tarzan, and fly like Superman—and then they have to prove they can do so if they plan to graduate. And that is just to get to a place where they can do the job for which they are really trained, calling those deadly air strikes. The life of a combat controller is split between working with Delta and the SEALs, with a little moonlighting with the 75th Ranger Regiment now and again.

They carry the motto that would be hard to look another operator in the face and say—if it weren’t true. “First There.” In Tora Bora, we counted ourselves lucky to have the Admiral and Spike, and their
capability
.

Shortly after Jackal Team first started directing bombs on previously unseen al Qaeda caves and bunkers, bin Laden was picked up again on SIGINT. We plotted the location, which was only several hundred meters away from the snipers’ current strikes. Unfortunately, most SIGINT hits are not real time and are often not very accurate. But we again picked up bin Laden’s voice over a short-range radio the CIA had taken off a dead al Qaeda fighter.

Adam Khan and a gentleman known to us as Bilal stood in the school yard listening to the unmistakable voice of the al Qaeda leader. Bilal, himself an Arab American and former marine, was considered the CIA’s foremost authority on identifying bin Laden’s Arabic prose and voice. He had appeared out of the darkness one day at the schoolhouse, but in fact, unbeknownst to any of us, Bilal had been in the mountains for the past few days with General Ali’s fighters. His personal assignment, and an incredibly dangerous one, had been to serve as somewhat of a liaison officer for the CIA to provide firsthand reporting of the attitude, performance, and genuine effort of Ali’s men in pursuing the terrorist mastermind.

On that day, the two CIA assets and former marines listened to what would prove to be the last intercepted transmission of bin Laden to his
fighters. They picked up something odd about this particular transmission. Bin Laden was giving more of a sermon than issuing orders, and it was clear to them that the primary target was on the move and intending to leave the battlefield. They also thought the transmission might have been a recorded sermon that would give the impression that bin Laden was still in the middle of the fighting when he could have been on his way out.