Afghanistan Ground Operations Begin: Objectives RHINO and GECKO

Ground Operations Begin: Objectives RHINO and GECKO

In mid-October, 2 weeks after the beginning of the air campaign, US ground forces wouldmake their first appearance in southern Afghanistan. The US Army Ranger and SOF units that hit the ground first hoped to set the right conditions for the ODA efforts in the region. On thenight of 20 October 2001, about 200 Rangers from the 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment,conducted a parachute assault on a small desert airfield about 50 miles southwest of Kandahar dubbed Objective RHINO. The purpose of the operation was to secure the airfield and use itas a forward arming and refueling point (FARP) for helicopters ferrying troops of an elite SOFtask force, which would be conducting a follow-on mission from the airfield.4

The objective area was divided into smaller objectives: TIN, IRON, and COBALT. The last of these was a walled compound that appeared to be a billeting area for Taliban troops. The 3d Battalion’s A Company was to clear Objectives TIN and IRON, then set up blocking positions to oppose any Taliban counterattacks that might develop. Company C’s mission was to assault and clear Objective COBALT, the walled compound.5

Before the Rangers parachuted onto the objective, strikes by a variety of aircraft hit the targets to suppress and perhaps kill many of the enemy forces near the objectives. The US Air Force directed B-2 Stealth Bombers to hit the various target areas around RHINO, especiallyTIN, with 2,000-pound bombs, and were followed up by AC-130 gunship strafing runs.6 Theairstrikes proved remarkably successful, eliminating 11 Taliban fighters on Objective TIN andforcing 9 more to withdraw.7 The AC-130 attacked several structures within COBALT and effectively quelled resistance there that might have contested the parachute drop and the fol- low-on assault into the walled compound.8

The 3d Battalion’s attack went off relatively smoothly. Once on the ground, the Rangers of A Company immediately attacked and secured their objectives without incident. CompanyC then attacked the walled compound at COBALT. With the exception of one enemy fighterwho was quickly killed, there was no resistance. During the attack, members of the 9th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Battalion began broadcasting messages via loudspeaker urging any surviving enemy soldiers to give up to the Americans.9 The US elements at RHINOquickly cleared all buildings, destroyed weapons caches, and secured the field. In less than 20minutes, several MC-130 aircraft landed and prepared to refuel the SOF helicopters and extractthe Rangers. Within a few more minutes a flight of choppers landed at the FARP and beganrefueling.10 Phase I was complete. The next phase, the operation to seize Objective GECKO, was about to begin.

Objective GECKO was a residential compound southwest of Kandahar that, according toCoalition intelligence, potentially housed a target of significant value—Mullah MohammedOmar, the leader of the Taliban. According to a US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)

history of the operation, the SOF mission going into GECKO was to “disrupt Taliban leader- ship and [al-Qaeda] communications, gather intelligence and detain select personnel.”11 A short time after refueling at the FARP, the helicopters were en route to the compound carrying about 90 highly trained SOF soldiers who were intent on killing or capturing Mullah Mohammed Omar. Shortly before the choppers landed near the compound, AC-130 Spectre gunships and MH-60 Blackhawk helicopters pounded the residence with a variety of weapons. Once on the ground, the elite force took less than an hour to seize and clear Omar’s compound. Failing tofind the Taliban leader at the site, the troops gathered valuable intelligence, after which theyevacuated the objective and returned to RHINO.12 Once the SOF choppers departed RHINO, the Rangers boarded the MC-130s and departed. The entire operation lasted just over 5 hours after the parachute assault.13

The operations to capture Objectives RHINO and GECKO were designed to have as much of a psychological impact as a military one. The Taliban simply did not have a well-developedair force and so the loss of the airfield did not have any meaningful military effect on their war effort. However, the operation was meant to have a significant influence on the thinking of thepolitical and military leadership of the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies. The day after the assault, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Air Force General Richard B. Myers, asserted that the operations near Kandahar displayed the Coalition’s military dominance, stating, “U.S. forceswere able to deploy, maneuver and operate inside Afghanistan without significant interference from Taliban forces. They are now refitting and repositioning for potential future operationsagainst terrorist targets in other areas known to harbor terrorists.”14 General Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM commander and overall commander of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF), reinforced this point, stating that these operations were conducted to show the Taliban, and perhaps the Afghan people at large, “that we will go anywhere we choose to go.”15

Despite Omar’s absence at Objective GECKO, the operations did achieve some success. The raids on Objectives RHINO and GECKO demonstrated that the Taliban was powerless to prevent the Coalition military command from focusing land forces on any target within the borders of Afghanistan at the time of its choosing. The Taliban’s attention on any impendingbattles was doubtless fixed to the north where the bulk of its fighting force faced the NA. Thesouth was supposed to be secure, but these raids proved to the Taliban and the country’s popula- tion that it was not.

The ODAs Enter: The Fall of Kabul

On the same day that the Rangers landed at RHINO, US Central Command (CENTCOM) and Joint Special Operations Task Force–North (JSOTF-N) inserted another SF team much closer to the historic political capital of Afghanistan—the city of Kabul. As noted in theprevious chapter, ODA 555 was the first team inserted into the Panjshir Valley in northeastAfghanistan on 19 October 2001. This team, nicknamed the “Triple Nickel,” arrived with the mission of working with the NA forces of Generals Bismullah Khan and Mohammed Fahim Khan to seize the Shomali Plains located between the city of Bagram and the capital of Kabul. The team met with the NA commanders at the old Soviet Air Base near Bagram and discoveredthat the dilapidated control tower at the field made a superb observation post. From that site,the team could observe the Taliban front lines and call in airstrikes against their positions.16Sergeant First Class “Frank,” a member of ODA 555, recalled the first day that he was takenup into the tower:

[An NA commander] takes us up into the tower. We didn’t go down there to call any of our aircraft in, we were just going to survey the front lines, and he starts pointing out all the enemy positions. [We were] like, “You mean that’s al-Qaeda right there, and that’s Taliban?” He knew. “Yes, General so-and-so lives in that house. This is where his lines are.”17

Frank and the others quickly gathered their laser designating equipment and called for CAS:

[The NA commander] just started pointing out the targets where all the gun positions were, where all the commanders were, the radios. We just started taking them out with the laser, one by one. [The commander and his men] were giggling. They were all laughing and joking about it and slapping each other on the back. They were happy as hell. The food got a lot better that day.18

For the next 3 weeks, the ODA directed multiple airstrikes against the Taliban, softening their positions.19

Such tactics, as well as discussions between NA leaders and local Taliban commanders,were repeated several times up and down the lines before the final assault. Still, the negotiationsand planning for the attack took time and the impression that the offensive was stalled worriedsome senior American political and military officials. Lieutenant General Dan K. McNeill, the commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps in 2001, recalled that in early November the generalanxiety within the DOD and Bush administration generated pressure on CENTCOM to get the NA moving again. Eventually, General Franks directed McNeill to prepare plans for an airborne operation that would drop American paratroopers near Kabul or elsewhere to draw Taliban troops away from the front lines north of the capital, thus allowing the NA to approach the city.20

Despite the concerns inside the Coalition command, the much-anticipated NA attack began on 13 November, with the forces under Fahim and Bismullah moving forward, ahead of sched- ule, to attack the Taliban defenses. The enemy resistance rapidly fell apart, clearing the way through the Shomali Plains all the way to the capital. This sudden success caught Coalition leaders by surprise, and they became concerned that the sudden conquest of the capital by the NA would threaten Pashtun leaders and scuttle any chances to create a new, stable, multiethnic government in Afghanistan. Indeed, around the time of the NA offensive, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf communicated his interest in the proper treatment of Pashtun interests in any post-Taliban state, and Coalition leaders hoped to allay the concerns of this critical ally.21Regardless of political desires in Washington, DC, and Islamabad, Pakistan, the NA found no reason to wait for negotiations once Taliban forces disintegrated and widespread disorder erupted in the capital. On 14 November 2001 the troops of General Fahim Khan rolled into Kabul and liberated the city from 5 years of despotic rule by the Taliban.22

The ODAs Go to Work in the South

To win over the Pashtuns in the south and begin operations against the Taliban, the Coalition planned to insert two ODAs near the city of Kandahar. Major Donald Bolduc was a member of Special Operations Command and Control Element (SOCCE) 52, which had tactical control of the two ODAs. Bolduc explained the mission:

Basically from November 2001 until complete, we were to provide C2 [com- mand and control] and conduct unconventional warfare in order to advise and assist Hamid Karzai and Gul Sherzai in organizing anti-Taliban forces, which was what they were called at that time, and to conduct combat operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.23

Bolduc further described the key tasks that the ODAs had to accomplish with their Afghan partners:

We were to secure Kandahar City, develop a plan to stabilize Kandahar City, and operate from a secure base, and then concentrically improve that security from Kandahar City, which was considered the cultural and religious center ofgravity, out to other provinces in the south, and then, on order, exfiltrate theoperational area.24

Coalition leaders also understood that they could not simply leave the area once Kandahar was out of the Taliban grip, but had to set conditions for the next phase of the campaign. Major Bolduc asserted that the end state for the ODAs was the creation of “a stable, safe, and secure Kandahar City ready to transition to more formalized humanitarian assistance and nation-building operations.”25 This objective was ambitious, especially considering the small Coalition presence, which in November 2001 consisted of the 27 Soldiers of the two ODAs and SOCCE 52.26

Hamid Karzai would have to play a key role if the effort in the south was to have any serious chance. In early October 2001 Karzai decided that the time was right for his return to Afghanistan. On either 8 or 9 October, he and three colleagues riding on two motorcycles crossed the Pakistan border to enter Afghanistan. Before Karzai departed, several of his friends warned him that Taliban forces heavily patrolled the border areas and that an attempt to get through in such a manner was very risky. Undeterred, Karzai and his friends made it through and proceeded to Shorandam, a small village close to Kandahar. There he began recruitingfighters to help him overthrow the Taliban.27

Karzai was not entering an Afghanistan that was entirely hostile to his cause. During the previous 5 years, Karzai and his allies had been busy making contacts among other Pashtuns in and outside of Afghanistan who wanted to overthrow the Taliban. Many of these contacts were former mujahideen who had known Karzai in the 1980s. He thus had an extensive network of friends, acquaintances, and anti-Taliban sympathizers with whom he could begin work on his return. Still, there was a great deal to do to transform these contacts into an armed resistance.28

In early November 2001, after spending several weeks talking to the people in the areas around Kandahar, Karzai believed that the population was prepared for political change. He also came to the realization that he would need Coalition support to force the Taliban out of power. Karzai recalled that he used a satellite phone and “called Rome and I called Islamabad and I told the [US] Embassy there and the consulate that I needed help. They said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m in this area.’ . . . Then they came and helped, dropped parachutes.” To his followers’ amaze- ment, the American planes dropped bundles containing not only weapons and ammunition, but also food and other supplies. The aid could not have been more timely. On the following day, Karzai and his followers, now numbering about 150 men, were attacked by about 500 Taliban troops. That attack was successfully repulsed with the aid of the US-supplied weapons.29

While the food, weapons, and other supplies were a huge boost to Karzai’s band, some in his following realized that it was not enough. After a number of days of wandering in the

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mountains trying to avoid contact with the Taliban, some of his men came to him and, as Karzairemembered, told him, “Hamid, life is difficult. The Taliban will come and get us one day. . . .Look, we must ask for American help.” Karzai relented, picked up the phone, and made another call to the Americans to ask for SF support. He remembered that he was told by someone at the embassy, “Fine, we can do that.” The effort to get help from America was “Easy. Quite easy,” he recalled.30

Karzai was instructed to mark a helicopter landing zone (HLZ) with small fires and wait for an ODA that would arrive at the site at a specific time. Karzai remembered, “We lit the fires

Amerine then gathered his team, pulled out some maps, and developed a strategy to take Tarin Kowt. That plan amounted to a siege. Karzai’s forces along with their SF advisors would close off the mountain passes leading into the town. Karzai had reasoned that once that was accom- plished, the town would simply surrender. Additionally, he informed Amerine that there werealready friendly fighters in Tarin Kowt who would foment an uprising if necessary. Given the small numbers of troops that were available—the 12-man ODA and the 150 Afghan fighters inKarzai’s band—Amerine told Karzai that they would have to create a larger force.34

Bringing in more weapons and ammunition, Karzai and the ODA began building a volunteer militia. Hundreds of people arrived to try and get weapons, but most were only interested in protecting their own homes and villages. With the recruiting effort just starting, news arrived on 16 November that stunned both Karzai and his newly arrived American comrades: the people in Tarin Kowt had already seized the town and wanted help.35 If Karzai was correct, the Taliban would have to quickly and forcefully restore their control of the town.36

The Taking of Tarin Kowt

The news of the uprising presented Amerine and Karzai with a dilemma. If they moved into Tarin Kowt and the Taliban launched a counterattack, Karzai’s forces were too small to defend the town. It was doubtful that enough reliable and capable volunteers could be recruited to make much difference before the Taliban would likely begin such an assault. Still, Amerineknew he had the trump card of American air power on his side. It was a difficult choice, butAmerine and ODA 574 decided to support Karzai’s insistence that they go immediately to Tarin Kowt and take advantage of the military—and political—opportunity.37

Piling into a motley collection of beat-up trucks and other vehicles sent by village elders, the ODA and their Afghan partners bounced along the mountain roads to the village. En route, Karzai worried that the population of Tarin Kowt might be angry that American Soldiers had accompanied his force to the town. His fears were quickly allayed though when the people warmly welcomed the Soldiers.38

Once in the village, Karzai left military matters to ODA 574. He stayed busy getting intouch with other Pashtun leaders in the area, constantly recruiting fighters, supporters, and,conversely, undermining the Taliban’s rule. Many of the area’s most important people came to speak with him. From them he learned where al-Qaeda elements were located. He also dis- covered that many of the Islamic clerics in the region were supportive of his actions. Early that evening, other informants brought him the news that he had been expecting: a large force of Taliban were en route to Tarin Kowt.39

Karzai quickly requested that Amerine meet him and his local supporters to explain the situation. The Afghan leaders proceeded to matter-of-factly mention that hundreds of Taliban troops were approaching the town and that the enemy force, mounted on a large number of trucks, would probably arrive “in the next day or two.” Amerine remembered, “It took me a second to digest it. At that point, I said, ‘Well, it was nice meeting all of you. I think we need to organize a force now and do what we can to defend this town.’”40

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Success in the South and East

The captain attempted to excuse himself so that he could start getting things ready tooppose the threat. His Afghan hosts, however, would not hear of it. Since it was the first day ofRamadan, they insisted that he stay, drink tea, eat, and talk. Sensing that he could not embarrass his hosts, Amerine stayed just long enough to satisfy their request, then quickly made his exit,but not before asking Karzai to send every fighter he could find to the ODA’s headquarters assoon as possible.41

Returning to his men, Amerine pulled them together and told them about the impending arrival of the Taliban forces, stating, “Well they’re coming from Kandahar. We know it’s a large convoy.” The captain then ordered a number of actions. His communications sergeant began contacting the team’s SOCCE to inform their headquarters about the imminent assault. The team’s Air Force enlisted terminal attack controller (ETAC) passed warning orders through those channels to let the Air Force and Navy know that their CAS services would soon be required at Tarin Kowt. Amerine’s team worked into the night to arm all the new Afghanfighters that showed up and develop a plan to hold the town.42

Amerine had a limited force at his disposal: the 12 men of ODA 574 and only severaldozen of Karzai’s Afghan fighters.43 Sometime around midnight, Amerine moved with this group to the outskirts of the village. There he spotted a plateau from which the team could direct airstrikes onto the vehicular approaches to Tarin Kowt. In addition, from the plateau the team could observe the main road as it came through a pass at the south end of the valley. That road led to Kandahar and was one of two axes of advance that the approaching Taliban forces could use to attack Tarin Kowt. Amerine surmised that the Taliban would arrive on this road. He guessed correctly.44

Early on the morning of 17 November, Amerine received an intelligence report from F-18Navy jet fighters that “a convoy of 8 to 10 vehicles” was heading north on the Kandahar–TarinKowt road.45 Amerine explained what happened next:

So my combat controller looked at me and said, “OK, well, this is what wesee.” At that point, we hadn’t fired a shot in the war, really; that was sort of the commencement of actual fighting for us. The whole team was in a small room.There really was kind of a moment of silence. A lot of the men had been to war. It wasn’t that the experience was that new to a lot of the people on the team.But at the same time, it was the first shot of the war for us. . . . I’d hoped to saysomething a little bit more eloquently, but I just said, “Well, smoke ‘em.”46

After the tense buildup, the first bomb missed the target. The second one did not.47 Using a laser designator, the team’s ETAC directed a storm of bombs onto the Taliban convoy caus-ing significant destruction and confusion. As the pilots continued their work and the Talibanstruggled to avoid the bombardment, the situation began to look like Karzai and ODA 574 had won a tremendous victory.

Then something inexplicable happened that Amerine described as feeling like “we were seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.”48 Karzai’s men panicked. The lack of training amongthese militiamen demonstrated itself with graphic clarity when the Afghan fighters decidedfor some reason that the battle was not going well and their best option at that point was to withdraw to Tarin Kowt. To make matters worse, Karzai was not present at the battle area, and the men of ODA 574 could not communicate with the panic-stricken Afghan tribesmen.49 The Afghans hopped into the vehicles and were only prevented from driving off immediately by the members of ODA 574 who literally stepped in front of the vehicles to get them to stop. If the trucks left, the Americans had no way to get back to Tarin Kowt. Amerine later dryly observed that in a future situation like this, the ODA team needed to make sure they kept the truck andcar keys before deploying for a fight.50 Reluctantly, the troops of ODA 574 jumped aboard the trucks and went with their charges back to the village.

With the Taliban still continuing its advance, ODA 574 and Karzai had to turn the situation around. Back at Tarin Kowt the team met with Karzai and after a quick consultation, ODA 574 sped south of town again to find another spot to establish a final defensive position. After urging Karzai to speed as many Afghan fighters as he could to them, ODA 574 found a new site fromwhich to observe Taliban vehicles, and the air attack on the enemy convoy began anew.51

With the renewal of the attacks on the Taliban, ODA 574 ran into a new and wholly unex- pected problem: many civilians from Tarin Kowt had begun arriving on the outskirts of the town to watch the battle. The ODA team had not expected to have to deal with this type of situation. Captain Amerine called it a “circus atmosphere” where Afghan children attempted to rummage through their equipment and older civilians meandered around the defensive posi- tion. One member of ODA 574 pleaded with an English-speaking Afghan to at least send the children back to Tarin Kowt because of the danger of the situation.52 Thankfully none of the townspeople was injured as the pace of the attacks on the Taliban convoy increased.

Initially, the leading trucks were targeted to slow the convoy down. When those vehicles were destroyed, the Coalition aircraft simply began working their way back through the convoy which was now very spread out. Sometime after 0800, another unexpected surprise struck the ODA. Two of the Taliban trucks had found an alternate route into Tarin Kowt and dismounted10 to 20 fighters at the edge of town. The American troops began to hear small arms fire to their flank, which indicated the enemy was close by. The mounting gunfire caused Amerine tothink perhaps the battle was lost. Unbeknownst to him, a number of villagers had moved to the threatened area and fought off the Taliban intruders. That action actually signaled the end of the battle. For the next 2 hours, the remnants of the convoy took hit after hit from CAS sorties as the Taliban tried to make their way back to Kandahar.53

One final obstacle emerged the evening after the battle and caused Karzai great concern.One of the local mullahs called on Karzai to speak with him. He was deeply concerned that the mullah, who would speak for the others, was going to tell him that the Taliban attacked because there were Americans in Tarin Kowt and that Karzai and the others must leave. If this belief was communicated, Karzai believed that the people in the region would also turn against his liberation efforts. His fears were thankfully dashed when the mullah instead told him, “If the Americans hadn’t been here, we would have all been killed.”54 That statement was an indica- tion that the military victory had also become a political success.

ODA 574 and Hamid Karzai’s small force, assisted greatly by Coalition air support, had clearly triumphed over the Taliban at Tarin Kowt. Colonel John Mulholland, commander of JSOTF-N, later viewed the engagement at Tarin Kowt as “pivotal for the [entire operation in the] south.”55 Furthermore, Mulholland argued that the Taliban recognized the potential threat posed by Karzai to their legitimacy in the region and made a strong effort to force Karzai’s group out of Tarin Kowt. According to Mulholland, when that attack failed, the Taliban grew greatly concerned about their hold on the southern area of Afghanistan.56

This belief seemed borne out by the success Hamid Karzai enjoyed in rallying otherPashtuns to his cause. Captain Amerine not only witnessed firsthand the destruction of theTaliban forces, he also saw the reaction of other Pashtun Afghans to Karzai. He realized the tremendous psychological and political importance the victory had, and its resultant impact on the enemy.57 Karzai’s tireless work in securing political support from the various groups in the Tarin Kowt area—and elsewhere as it would turn out—made ODA 574’s future tasks lessdifficult. Amerine explained:

With the religious mullahs on our side, we were really in psychologically with the Pashtun tribes. Rapport had been established, trust had been gained,and now we could get on with fighting. Now we can become task-focused on“Let’s get to Kandahar, and let’s end this war.” So in that regard, it was just psychologically a crushing victory for us. Hamid would later tell me that, inhis eyes, that fight broke the back of the Taliban.58

Karzai later remarked that the battle was “a turning point. . . . I recognized there [was] a much wider legitimacy thing than I perceived we had. We actually underestimated the whole thing all along, the impact that this movement of ours had, the legitimacy that there was. This was our miscalculation—which is good.”59

Karzai deserves more credit than he is given as a military leader. This is not to suggest that Karzai understood the intricacies of military tactics or operational art. However, Karzai’sinfluence in winning the support of the population around Tarin Kowt, and later, much of the Pashtun population in and around Kandahar, clearly magnified the power of his small force.Karzai’s clear and correct assessment of Tarin Kowt as the enemy center of gravity was borne out by succeeding events. Understanding his limitations, Karzai did not interfere with ODA 574’s ability to conduct the battle against the Taliban convoy at Tarin Kowt. Conversely, his clear appreciation for the political situation—something the ODA team lacked—helped makeTarin Kowt a key victory in the fight to evict the Taliban from Afghanistan.

The battle of Tarin Kowt was clearly an instance where the plan to use an ODA team inconjunction with US air power to collaborate with an indigenous element worked almost flaw-lessly. The elements fit together seamlessly: SF working with indigenous troops, CAS, and apolitically savvy tribal leader moving together toward a common goal. This was a textbook example of how a small, well-trained force could employ unconventional warfare for a superla- tive result.

Although the victory at Tarin Kowt had the Taliban reeling, they were by no means defeated. ODA 574 and Karzai’s force were strategically positioned to move on Kandahar from the north, but the group still had too little combat power to take the city by itself. More indigenous support was needed and the effort to mobilize just such support was already underway.

ODA 583 and Gul Agha Sherzai

Following the victory at Tarin Kowt, planners at JSOTF-N wanted to maintain the positive momentum against the Taliban. To do this, they focused on identifying another Pashtun leader in the area south of Kandahar that might enable the next phase in the campaign in the south. Gul Agha Sherzai appeared to be the most promising candidate. Shortly after the Battle of Tarin Kowt, ODA 583 was sent to the Shahbaz Air Base near the Pakistani town of Jacobabad to prepare for its mission inside Afghanistan. The ODA leader, Captain Smith, had been informedthat Sherzai was a fairly insignificant Pashtun figure, but because the United States needed morePashtuns to take up arms against the Taliban in the south, no one at JSOTF-N or CENTCOMwanted to ignore any political figures that could become rallying points.60 It later became clear to Smith that the information on Sherzai he received was largely incorrect and incomplete.Smith described his intelligence briefing in the following way:

The initial report on Sherzai was horrible. I received a PowerPoint slide with an old picture of him that stated something to the effect that he was the son of a famous [mujahideen] who fought the Soviets and was the former Governor of Kandahar. At the top of the slide, the name Karzai had been scratched out in pen and Sherzai written in. It was quite a classy piece of intel that I wished I had kept to demonstrate how little we knew.61

Fortunately, prior to ODA 583’s infiltration, Smith was able to acquire more accurate intel-ligence on Sherzai from an American intelligence official who would accompany the team onthe mission.62

The benefits of enlisting Sherzai seemed obvious. Another anti-Taliban Pashtun groupoperating south of Kandahar could force the Taliban to spread their already rapidly dwindling resources more widely.63 But the United States understood that Sherzai did not have the samenational level influence in Afghanistan as Karzai. Nevertheless, the United States needed lead-ers at various levels of influence and from different ethnic groups to fight the Taliban. To US leaders, Karzai was a well-educated man who spoke English fluently and exhibited a great dealof political sophistication. He thus presented himself as a potential leader at the national level. Sherzai, on the other hand, did not speak English and had at best, a regional power base. Still, Sherzai offered a way of mobilizing more popular Pashtun support. As Smith later explained,Sherzai looked like a typical Afghan warlord, but “he was our warlord and seemed to fit ourpurposes as to getting after the Taliban and [al-Qaeda].”64

On 18 November, the day after the battle of Tarin Kowt, Smith, along with two other members of ODA 583 slipped into Afghanistan onboard an MH 53 “Pave Low” helicopter andlanded in the Shin Naray Valley south of Kandahar just before midnight. There to greet him wasSherzai himself and 10 or so of his men. Led to a “small mud-walled hut,” Smith and Sherzai began talking about future cooperation. Not surprisingly, Sherzai asked Smith for supplies, weapons, and ammunition, among other things. Smith delayed answering until he could better assess the potential of Sherzai and his forces.65

The following morning, Smith and his colleagues set out to review Sherzai’s troops. The team judged Sherzai’s Afghans to be between 650 and 800 men, clearly a much larger force than Karzai’s group. However, to Smith, these soldiers looked more like an armed mob than a military organization:

Sherzai’s forces were lightly armed with a mix of small arms. Ammo was gen- erally scarce. There were some light mortars and heavy machineguns that were inoperable. Uniforms were nonexistent and were a mix of local Pashtun garb.Vehicles were four-door Toyota pick-up trucks, tractors, a few sedans and motor- cycles, and several large trucks. The force was organized (or unorganized) with numerous commanders of varying loyalty and men under their command.66

Sherzai, however, asserted that he could recruit 500 more fighters if needed. That was enoughto convince Smith to request the insertion of the rest of his team, and the remainder of ODA 583 joined Sherzai’s band on the evening of 21 November to start the offensive northward to capture Kandahar.67 The United States had now become partners with two anti-Taliban Pashtunleaders, and both fixed their sights on capturing Kandahar, arguably the most important politi- cal center of gravity in the south.

Smith’s plan to advance north centered on the main avenue of approach from the Afghan– Pakistan border, Highway 4. ODA 583 recommended an operation that advocated a westwardmovement through the Shin Naray Valley to the town of Tahk-te-pol with the eventual goalof blocking Highway 4 to cut the Taliban supply line into Pakistan. After capturing Tahk-te- pol, Smith then proposed a bold movement north to seize the Kandahar Airport, the key to the city. Sherzai generally approved of the plan, but he suggested that the combined force mask its approach to the Taliban garrison stationed in Tahk-te-pol by using a neighboring mountain range as a shield, then surprising the garrison by coming in behind it—from the north. Smith agreed to the change and on 22 November the combined Afghan and US force, 800 strong, piled into a collection of about 100 vehicles and began the trek to Tahk-te-pol.68

Arriving at a point about 5 miles from the town late on 23 November, the force stopped to ponder the next move. Sherzai and Smith agreed to initially try to negotiate for the surrender of Tahk-te-pol, thus capturing it without bloodshed. However, to make sure his force was pro-tected and ready to fight if necessary, Sherzai deployed about half of it on a low ridge east ofthe town. The rest of his troops remained at the initial position while Sherzai sent a delegation to parlay for the surrender.69

On receiving Sherzai’s negotiators, the Taliban leaders in the area agreed to talks, but in the meantime attempted to send troops to surround and destroy Sherzai’s force. This ployresulted in a 2-hour firefight between the two forces. ODA 583 ordered Sherzai’s men to fallback to a stronger position and directed airstrikes against the Taliban. A Spectre AC-130 gun- ship arrived overhead and destroyed six Taliban trucks. The consensus among the Afghans and Americans was that the Taliban would attempt to wipe out Sherzai’s force in the morning. Much to everyone’s surprise and relief, the Taliban had abandoned Tahk-te-pol overnight and on the following day, 24 November, Sherzai’s Afghans and ODA 583 entered the town. The capture of Tahk-te-pol meant that Taliban supplies from Pakistan traveling north on Highway 4 were effectively cut off, but it did not mean that Kandahar would immediately fall into the hands of anti-Taliban forces. Before Kandahar could be subdued, Sherzai’s forces and ODA 583 needed to capture the bridge spanning the Arghastan Wadi, the dried-up river bed that was a major obstacle between their position and the city. Once the bridge was secure, the combined force could move on to the Kandahar Airport.70

At this point, Sherzai seemed reluctant to continue his move north. His American advi- sors encouraged him to go on with the advance, although they also recommended that Sherzai send out robust detachments north and south of Tahk-te-pol to warn of any advancing Taliban force.71 On 25 November, as Sherzai’s main element moved northward toward Kandahar, the Afghan commander of the southern reconnaissance detachment reported the capture of a truck-load of Arab al-Qaeda fighters.72 This commander then told Smith that enemy forces were moving up from Spin Boldak north toward Kandahar and that the ODA needed to take action against them.73

While concerns grew about Taliban reinforcements moving into the area, Sherzai’s main force approached the bridge at Arghastan Wadi on 25 November and seized it. The force then continued to move north and approached the entrance to the Kandahar Airport. There they metfierce resistance and guessed that they were facing well-trained al-Qaeda terrorists. The heavy fighting forced Smith and Sherzai’s forces back to the bridge. Sherzai decided to move his forceback to Tahk-te-pol that evening, while Smith opted to place his ODA on a ridge to the south, which commanded the bridge.74

For the next week, the ODA’s Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) working around the clock called in airstrikes against the al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in and around the Wadi and the Kandahar Airport. Enemy casualties were undoubtedly high, while the United States did notlose a single aircraft to hostile fire.75 Despite the casualties, the enemy held Sherzai in check and the advance stopped.

Karzai’s Offensive Renewed

While Sherzai’s advance ground to a halt, Hamid Karzai’s force to the north of Kandaharcontinued to find success. Karzai and the men of ODA 574 had little time to bask in their victoryover the Taliban at Tarin Kowt. Shortly after the battle, Karzai and ODA 574 were joined by amore senior and experienced American officer, Lieutenant Colonel David Fox, and four otherSF Soldiers. Fox, the commander of 2d Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (SFG), linked up with Karzai early in the morning of 28 November.76 While the US element with Karzai grew by four with Fox’s arrival, Afghans were coming more frequently and in larger numbers to pledge their loyalty to Karzai. So many young Pashtuns arrived that Karzai urged the ODA to move south toward Kandahar because the newcomers were young men who, according to Amerine, were starting to get “rowdy.”77 Karzai and his advisors decided to keep the force fairly small, and resumed the advance toward Kandahar without the bulk of the newcomers.78

The drive south from Tarin Kowt was memorable for Fox and the rest of ODA 574. As the motley group moved south over the bumpy roads, individual trucks and cars continually raced up on the berm to see Karzai in person.79 The whole process seemed surreal, but no one was hurt by these enthusiastic maneuvers, nor was the convoy attacked by the Taliban during the trek south toward Kandahar. For Major Donald Bolduc, the leader of SOCCE 52 who was now with ODA 574, the experience proved exasperating:

It was crazy because [the Afghans] didn’t understand convoy operations. They were turning around and driving back and forth passing each other. So, on ourfirst stop, I said, “Hey, sir. We have to get control of this. Here is my recom- mendation.” So we got the ODA . . . and Karzai together and we told Karzai to tell everybody that they could not pass a certain vehicle. So we organized it so we had organization and control of the recon element and the main body and then behind that was everything else.80

Eventually the group arrived at the village of Shawali Kowt where Karzai’s force finallyencountered a sizable Taliban element.81

The Arghendab Bridge near the village of Sayd Alim Kalay had to be captured to eradi-cate the last significant Taliban presence north of Kandahar. Rooting the Taliban out provedtougher than expected. At one point, Karzai informed Lieutenant Colonel Fox that the Taliban was on the way to attack the combined US-Afghan anti-Taliban force. Then Karzai and his men suddenly left, leaving the ODA to defend the north side of the Arghendab Bridge and a ridgeline just beyond the bridge.82 Fox did not want to abandon the position as he did not likethe idea of having “to fight over the same ground again” and thus refused to yield, calling inrepeated airstrikes against the Taliban forces on the south bank of the riverbed and the high ground beyond.83 By directing airstrikes, ODA 574 kept the enemy at bay.84 The following day, 4 December, Karzai and the bulk of the troops returned to ODA 574.85 After a sharp firefight,Taliban forces abandoned their positions across the river.86 The military campaign to liberate Kandahar continued, but Hamid Karzai was soon forced to focus on larger concerns that would play a major role in the overall US strategy to topple the Taliban.