Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (56 page)

Peter Bergen, an author and well-known terrorism expert, uncovered vital clues in doing research for his superb book,
The Osama Bin Laden I Know
. From custodial transcripts of Guantánamo Bay detainees and a few Arabic newspaper comments of al Qaeda fighters who claimed to have fought at Tora Bora, Bergen pieced together information that shored up the claim that bin Laden, two of his sons, Uthman and Mohammed, and his chief deputy, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, were all in the mountains during the fight. Some even claimed that bin Laden was wounded. Bergen chillingly portrayed a man who was staring death in the face and clearly anticipating his own martyrdom.

Bergen also uncovered that in October 2002 bin Laden’s personal will was published in the Saudi magazine
Al Majallah
. The al Qaeda
leader had signed his on the twenty-eighth day of Ramadan 1422 Hegira, which was December 14, 2001, on our calendar. Another match.

On December 27, 2002, two days after Christmas, my troop was once again back in Afghanistan and had gathered atop a tan mud-brick and mortar building in the center of Bagram Air Field. It was the same building we had occupied when we first arrived on that cold and mysterious night the previous year.

In those days the building was a skeleton of neglect, with large bullet holes, and loose wires hanging from the roof. Since then, it had progressed from being an emergency bunkhouse, to being a movie room, to transient quarters, to the Rangers’ headquarters, to becoming the Speer Medical Clinic. It was named in honor of Delta Force medic Chris Speer, who was mortally wounded in a firefight near Khost.

Bagram was now the epicenter of combat operations in Afghanistan, with dozens of large green and tan tents erected over plywood stands, indirect fire bunkers strategically placed, and a large metal hangar or two in which commanders and large battle staffs managed the war effort.

On this day, the weather was clear and cool and offered a beautiful view of those stark peaks to the north. More than a full year after the Tora Bora battle, most of the boys and air force combat controllers now wore full beards and were dressed in blue jeans, boots, and some form of light cold-weather top. They stood at attention as I pinned medals on their chests for their actions twelve months earlier—two Silver Stars and a handful of Bronze Stars for Valor.

Our little ceremony was sans fanfare. No large formations with senior officers who were nowhere near the action giving congratulations and returning hand salutes. No live news coverage, or the presence of family and friends, or tables laden with finger food and punch. Just a private session for some sterling warriors who thought the medals were more than they deserved anyway. Typical Delta.

The men who fought at Tora Bora have always believed that just having been granted the responsibility of going after bin Laden, our nation’s
highest priority at the time, had been reward enough. The medals might be enjoyed by the grandkids years from now, but we would gladly trade them in for confirmation that Delta had played a role in killing Usama.

For years, no positive confirmation came out to prove that bin Laden had survived. At least not on the public record, although I trusted that the intelligence community knew more than it could say.

I used to wake up daily hoping that a breaking story would scroll across the television screen, stating that forensic evidence had come to light to prove that bin Laden had died in that godforsaken place. I hoped that he had remained in his fortress to fight and defy the world and the invading infidels. After all, that’s what he advertised.

During those long months, I personally believed that a wounded bin Laden had fought a good fight until a precision-guided bomb, directed by an operator on a nearby ridgeline, punched his ticket to paradise. I planned to hold on to that theory until the intelligence community could prove I was wrong.

However, it was Usama bin Laden himself who finally did that. The terrorist leader appeared on television in a taped video late in October 2004, only days before the presidential election.

I knew immediately that the tape was the real thing. His posture, the voice, his thin body, and the aged beard that seemed frosted of snow were unmistakeable. Unfortunately, the man was still alive.

But . . . How?

Another critical piece of the puzzle surfaced in January 2007. The source was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who had been one of the CIA’s favorite sons during the Afghan war with the Soviets before changing his stripes to become one of the most wanted men in the war on terror. Allegiances
shift rapidly over there, and Hekmatyar was now the leader of the Hezb-e-Islami militant group.

Hekmatyar bragged during an interview with Pakistan TV that his men had helped bin Laden, two of his sons, and al-Zawahiri escape from Tora Bora. He claimed that after American and Afghan troops surrounded the cave complex, his own fighters “helped them get out of the caves and led them to a safe place.” Was he telling the truth or spreading the myth? Can you trust any warlord, much less one who is a dangerous terrorist?

After six years of pondering the significance of the Battle of Tora Bora, I see some things much clearer.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to watch was the painful education of the American military in the work of confronting fanatical Muslim extremists. We were naïve back in December 2001 to think that Westerners could invade a Muslim country and rely on indigenous fighters to kill their Islamic brothers with tenacity and impunity.

That idea worked like a charm when we faced the common foe, the oppressive Taliban, which had ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist while enforcing the most rigid interpretations of the Quran.

However, at Tora Bora, the mujahideen weren’t fighting the Taliban, they were fighting al Qaeda and Usama bin Laden, which made the dynamics significantly different. We might as well have been asking for them to fight the Almighty Prophet Mohammed himself. What motivation did the Afghan Muslims possess for hunting down, raising their rifles, sighting in, and actually shooting an al Qaeda fighter, much less the revered leader?

I am convinced that not a single one of our muhj fighters wanted to be recognized in their mosque as the man who killed Sheikh bin Laden.

So beyond getting the Taliban off their necks, the Afghan military and tribal leaders had goals that were much different from our own. They were out to accumulate personal fortunes and political power, to clear the opium fields for business again and protect the drug distribution routes. . . not to avenge the Americans killed on 9/11.

The CIA and the British paid these warlords handsomely for their questionable loyalty, and in turn, they were expected to pay and equip the amateur fighters who filled the ranks of both the Northern and Eastern Alliances. Material blessings literally fell from the heavens for them, more than they could ever have dreamed. New weapons, ammunition, uniforms, tennis shoes, cold-weather clothing, and blankets were dropped in huge bundles from cargo planes. America was not doing this on the cheap.

The intent of the local warlords surpassed any desires of the global coalition wanting to kill bin Laden. They wanted as much military hardware as possible to stash away for future tribal conflicts. We armed them for future fights among themselves, and that day will come.

The astonishing amount of bombs that were dropped during the fight is an easy way to prove how determined our military services had become in killing terrorists. A rule was established early on that no aircraft was to fly all the way to Tora Bora and then return to its base with bombs still hung. Engagement Zones were created to be the final option on the target list, primarily places that we could not see from the OPs but likely locations of enemy fighters.

The zones were carefully established, although based on nonscientific methods. First we had to check with General Ali on the location of his fighters to make sure they were clear. Then we culled the assessments of Ali and our snipers about the current al Qaeda locations. From that came the extrapolation of where the fleeing enemy might be heading within the next twenty-four hours. The recommended coordinates were relayed to the TOC in Bagram for approval. Generally, the pilots got the coordinates before they launched, and if for some reason they were assigned a definite target before having to egress, the aircraft was free to drop its payload inside the established EZ. A controller was still handling the planes, but primarily to maintain traffic control so they were not running into each other and to ensure that there were no friendlies below them.

Hostile threats and target discrimination were not required in an EZ. Warriors or widows, orphans or machine-gunners, commanders or cooks,
any ant-sized sign of movement during the day or human-sized heat source at night was fair game. A daily average of over one hundred bombs impacted inside the EZs. This harsh reality may not sit well with critics, but it speaks volumes about the willingness of American general officers to ignore political correctness and make the tough calls.