Modern American Snipers (6 page)

Finally, according to Senator John Kerry's 2009 report, “Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today,” the critical—and repeated—request that the campaign be rounded out with the addition of a 75th Ranger Regiment battalion was denied by order of JSOC commander Dailey and CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks.

Despite these crippling limitations, A Squadron managed to kill scores of al-Qaeda fighters and send the terrorist network into disarray. It did so following the same underlying game plan that Blaber's AFO put into practice: leveraging the abilities of Delta's recce snipers.

Augmented by CIA paramilitary officers and contractors, a small team of British Special Boat Service (SBS) commandos, and Army SF soldiers, the Delta Force snipers assumed the lead role in executing devastating terminal guidance operations (TGO), i.e., directing air strikes via laser and GPS guidance.

Multiple snipers made crucial contributions to the campaign. This was largely made possible by their advanced mountaineering training, as they conquered the terrain to identify observation posts and then utilize them to locate entrenched enemy positions and rain down death in the form of hundreds of thousands of pounds of ordnance over three consecutive days.

They took a more hands-on approach as well. Recce operators led multiple surveillance missions up the mountain to close in on their adversary's ranks, while also delivering precision fire of their own; one Delta sniper made a (unconfirmed and previously unreported) kill with a .50-caliber sniper rifle at an astonishing range of twenty-five hundred yards—among the longest in the history of warfare.

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Among the recce operators who demonstrated proficiency and bravery beyond any realistic expectation was sniper team leader Sean “Scrawnee” Walker.

Walker's legend inside the world of special operations had been secured more than a decade earlier.

In December of 1989, he may have already seemed like an old hat by most standards with seven years of service with the 75th Ranger Regiment under his belt, but he was still a relatively inexperienced operator, less than a year removed from OTC—Delta Force's initial half-year-plus Operator Training Course that takes accomplished soldiers and transforms them into world-class commandos.

That night the young assaulter was assigned a position on a roof alongside the Unit's snipers. Their task was to provide overwatch security while an element breached the Carcel Modelo prison in Panama City to rescue imprisoned American citizen Kurt Muse.

Inserted by a 160th SOAR MH-6 Little Bird and armed with an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (the fire-breathing machine gun's first real test in combat), Walker proceeded to unleash nine hundred rounds and two grenades to decimate a heavy reinforcement force as Muse was pulled from his cell. In less than six minutes, Walker racked up fifty-five confirmed kills, earning himself the apt nickname “the Punisher” in the process.

Four years later, Walker would join the snipers again—this time as a member of the recce troop himself, having traded in the M249 for an M14 (and later, an SR-25). There he would remain for the next eleven years, adding significantly to that invaluable unbroken continuity of experience.

During that time he would deploy to Somalia, Bosnia, and elsewhere—adding Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Fervent Archer, and Operation Relentless Pursuit to his résumé while earning multiple Bronze Stars with “V” devices for valor in little-known operations—before finally arriving in Afghanistan as one of the recce troop's most seasoned operators.

Alternately dubbed “Scrawnee” despite boasting the shredded physique of a professional bodybuilder, Walker distinguished himself yet again during the Battle of Tora Bora.

As part of Jackal Team, Walker and two other snipers negotiated a seemingly impassable vertical rock cliff to claim a superior vantage point of the mountainous battlefield—among the closest Task Force Sword would attain throughout the clash. Once in position, he called in precision air strikes old-school-style, using just a compass and his experience to obliterate DShK heavy machine gun and al-Qaeda (AQ) personnel positions over the following two days. When an AQ patrol narrowed down on their prime location, Scrawnee and the other snipers scrambled over the side of the cliff to its rock walls to avoid discovery.

Ultimately, his actions at Tora Bora would earn him another Bronze Star.

The intensity of the overwhelming firepower was seemingly too much for bin Laden, whose frantic communication with his followers was intercepted by the DoD's SIGINT wizards at the Intelligence Support Activity. Wounded and desperate, an apologetic bin Laden was heard granting his followers permission to surrender while he expected his death was fast approaching.

As it turned out, he would escape that fate for almost a decade. After the battle, bin Laden's condition and whereabouts were unknown for years. His death at Tora Bora was deemed a distinct possibility until he put an end to the mystery with the resumption of AQ's propaganda campaign, praising America's enemies and taunting his pursuers.

Tora Bora turned out to be the last, best chance the United States had at vengeance for the entirety of the '00s.

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Following the frustrations of Tora Bora, Delta's A Squadron's deployment came to a premature halt. General Dailey replaced Delta's Task Force Green with DEVGRU's Task Force Blue. This made Red Squadron the primary direct action component of Task Force 11 (formerly Task Force Sword) and bypassed the Unit's C Squadron in the process.

This decision only served to inflame the already bitter friction that existed between the competing special mission units. Delta's soldiers judged the sailors to be the martial equivalents of “fish out of water” in the mountainous Afghanistan, inadequately outfitted or prepared to operate in the harsh and unforgiving terrain. Meanwhile, DEVGRU considered its men more than ready for the fight, both operationally and motivationally, having been held by the collar dating back well before 9/11.

However, as the unified team of Delta Officer Pete Blaber and DEVGRU sniper Homer Nearpass illustrated, the units' rivalry didn't extend to its recce elements—at least not with the same burning ferocity, anyway.

“The snipers cross-train and work together much more than the assaulters do,” former Red Squadron sniper Craig Sawyer confirmed. “As a result, you don't find that same level of animosity.”

JSOC's snipers also opened their Afghanistan manhunt having recently worked in unison toward similar goals in Bosnia, increasing the familiarity between the units.

In early 2002, following the crushing, one-sided encounter at Tora Bora, a sizable collection of anti-American forces was suspected to have amassed in the Shah-i-Kot Valley.

As Task Force 11's primary assault force remained leashed in Bagram awaiting word on the location of one of the big three—bin Laden; his AQ number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri; or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar—Blaber's approach continued to contrast (and in some ways clash) with that of his boss, Dailey.

AFO recalled snipers from B Squadron's recce troop to headline a series of arduous reconnaissance operations designed to “prepare the battlefield” in anticipation of a significantly larger military operation that was being formulated: Operation Anaconda.

Multiple trial runs meant to test both the brutally difficult terrain and the defenses of the enemy were made by two AFO field teams: India and Juliet.

India was initially just a two-man affair, but one stocked deep with talent and experience nonetheless. It comprised a pair of master hunters from the south—Master Sergeants Kevin “Speedy” Short of Kentucky and Robert Horrigan from Texas. The two were an ideal pairing—silent and unyielding infiltrators with boundless endurance. Those traits were mission critical as they trudged and scaled their way deep into enemy-laden territory marked by vertical cliffs and snowdrifts at an elevation of greater than ten thousand feet. Later, as they continued penetrating defenses, India added a SIGINT specialist from the ISA to round out their effort.

Meanwhile, Juliet was led by another southerner—the accomplished and devoutly religious Master Sergeant Kristofar Kosem of West Virginia. Kris's team included two additional Delta recce snipers along with an Air Force Combat Control Technician (CCT) from JSOC's 24STS and yet another soldier from the ISA.

Desperately in need of additional men boasting those same rare polished talents in order to completely blanket the expansive valley, Nearpass suggested that Blaber turn to Bagram and invite his fellow snipers from Red Squadron's Black Team to join the effort.

Blaber's request to SEAL Team Six commander Joe Kernan was partially met—one of the squadron's two Reconnaissance and Surveillance elements was redirected to assist AFO in the Shah-i-Kot. Blaber's new five-man DEVGRU recce team addition was given the code name Mako 31. Meanwhile, the remainder of Red Squadron hunkered down an hour away, awaiting the call to action should an HVT be sighted during Operation Anaconda (or elsewhere).

The trial runs complete, India went in on foot to claim their final observation points, Short armed with an M4 and Horrigan with an SR-25. The team endured a steep overnight march from the west and ascended to an elevation of 10,500 feet over a four-mile trek. Their assignment was to assume an overwatch position over the valley's southwest.

Juliet, meanwhile, chose to ride in from the north of the valley. Piloting virtually silent hybrid electric-powered ATVs (which were classified and practically magical vehicles at the time) through the dark with the aid of similarly cutting-edge NVGs and GPS technology, the team narrowly avoided being compromised on multiple occasions. It infiltrated the small enemy-occupied village of Menewar, skirted past a minefield, and dodged an enemy machine-gun position before finally establishing a position overlooking the valley's east. Once set up in overwatch, Juliet immediately identified an AQ infestation in the surrounding areas.

Mako 31's SEAL snipers (along with Air Force CCT Technical Sergeant Andrew Martin) reported in to the AFO safe house in Gardez just ahead of the commencement of Operation Anaconda and therefore lacked the benefit of the advance penetration ops. Their mission was to lay claim to a position overlooking the valley's southern edge via a grueling path earlier blazed by India.

Mako 31 completed a laborious multiday, seven-mile climb through thigh-deep snow while subjected to extreme cold and high winds in order to approach its assigned observation point unseen. However, as they neared their intended destination, they discovered the position had already been claimed by an AQ-heavy machine gun team armed with a Soviet-built DShK. Deemed a tactically critical position by AFO, the AQ fighters were ideally situated to tear apart the impending air assault that the coalition conventional forces planned to conduct the following day.

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Despite the AFO teams warning that a significantly larger-than-anticipated force existed in the valley and its surrounding mountainsides—perhaps a thousand strong and owning vital strategic territory in some cases—Operation Anaconda had become a strategic freight train.

The battle plan was complex to the point of convolution and lacked effective unity of command—and therefore coordination and control. It involved multiple task forces across multiple nations in a misguided attempt to weave together a wide range of conventional and SOF forces—both air and ground—into a single, cohesive (yet rigid) operation.

Unfortunately, the cumbersome op's momentum alone seemed to cause leaders to ignore updated intelligence and willfully choose to make poor decisions.

The existence of a single DShK in precisely the wrong spot from the coalition's perspective had the power to upend Anaconda with spectacularly disastrous results despite its two thousand well-equipped men and technological might.

Mako 31's unwelcome discovery certainly fit that bill. With Operation Anaconda's leaders unwilling to adjust their assault plan, the SEAL Team Six snipers were forced to devise an audible of their own. An hour before the official launch of the offensive, the recce team sprang a surprise raid on the al-Qaeda camp. They eliminated two terrorists in the opening instants of the attack and incapacitated another. A circling AC-130H then unleashed its overwhelming firepower to mop up the remainder of the pack.

As Operation Anaconda steamrolled into action, India, Juliet, and Mako 31 called down devastation on the entrenched AQ and Taliban militants they had located, tallying up scads of casualties. Meanwhile, a number of the larger coalition force were not so effective while enduring less enviable circumstances—from being immediately pinned down by enemy gunfire to a convoy that was on the wrong end of a punishing and tragic blue-on-blue strike from an AC-130.

A conventional nine-man tactical command element had infiltrated the valley aboard a pair of Black Hawks but now found themselves sustaining considerable enemy fire. The lethal Black Team snipers linked up with the soldiers and immediately cut down an advancing enemy force. Thinning the herd through the course of the day to enable the soldiers' exfiltration that night, the DEVGRU element dissipated in the manner they had earlier materialized, ascending back up to their OP to resume calling down air strikes on their enemy.

Ultimately, Anaconda was a massive and unsynchronized operation that had all the makings of yet another debacle. In the end, it was deemed a victory—albeit a costly one.

Without the wildly disproportionate contributions of the nation's elite snipers, even that costly victory would have been all but impossible. As had been the case at the Battle of Tora Bora, JSOC's recce operators were the carpenters that skillfully cobbled together tactical triumphs from strategic blunders.

Delta and DEVGRU's snipers had demonstrated a capacity to redirect battles beyond assessment. They served as the pivotal, centerpiece component at Operation Anaconda despite comprising less than a single percent of its overall strength in terms of sheer numbers.