Laden, and had been attacked by bomb after bomb. On the opposite side of the ridgeline stood about a hundred muhj-Zaman’s men.
13 The Surrender
This is the greatest day in the history of Afghanistan.
– AFGHAN WARLORD HAJI ZAMAN
GHAMSHAREEK, DECEMBER 12, 2001
Before the sun came up on the morning of December 12, the American and British commandos of MSS Grinch were already on the hill. They stopped momentarily in a sparsely treed area that was strewn with boulders. Just to the west and down the ridge about a hundred meters, approximately one hundred of Zaman’s fighters were spread out, and their commander was sitting on a large rock with a lit joint in one hand and a folding-stock AK-47 propped beside him. Adam Khan and Jim cautiously moved down to coordinate the next move with the man.
By the way the muhj were acting, Jim realized that something big was going on. As Adam Khan talked to the commander and pieced the story together, Jim’s curiosity changed to anger.
The commander said that al Qaeda had thrown in the towel! A full surrender of all al Qaeda forces was about to take place!
As Jim’s fury grew, the local commander raised Zaman on his radio, and the warlord himself issued an order that the foreign commandos were not to proceed any farther into the mountains.
“Whatever it takes,” Zaman said in Pashto. “Under no circumstances are the Americans allowed to attack al Qaeda. We must see the negotiations through.”
The notorious warlord had left Hilltop 2685, but was directing the show from not too far away. His voice carried a cocky air of selfassurance.
Jim knew the surrender gambit was nonsense, and said so. He responded that he had his own orders and intended to see them through. Short of a gunfight, not much could stop the powerful Grinch force from advancing south into the mountains to kill as many al Qaeda fighters as possible. He told the boys to top off their Camelbaks and ruck up. Within twenty minutes after hearing Zaman insist that Americans would not be allowed to take another step toward the enemy, Jim and MSS Grinch began humping up the ridgeline.
They had covered only about fifty meters when Zaman’s men appeared on the high ground and leveled their weapons-eighty AK-47s-at the commandos. Some of the fighters were only innocent-looking teenage boys who seemed uncertain, but many others were hardened warriors. The local commander yelled a warning for the Americans to halt, reiterated Zaman’s orders, and vowed to follow those instructions. The commander obviously feared Zaman’s wrath more than he did the twenty-five American and British commandos that morning. Only Adam Khan’s calm presence prevented disaster.
He told Zaman’s man that the commandos had General Ali’s full support to make the attack, and scolded him: “The general will not be happy.” The commander didn’t really care about Ali’s pleasure. He worked for Zaman.
Jim bottled his anger and weighed his options. The odds in a firefight were probably about even: one highly trained commando against every four untrained Afghans, but getting into a shootout with your supposed allies was not the most diplomatic of moves. So MSS Grinch had little choice but to hold in place and let the cease-fire situation play out a little more. An hour passed uneventfully except for the commandos stewing about being held back.
A few minutes after 6:00 A.M., Zaman arrived with another dozen of his fighters. He was an arrogant sort who played himself up in front of the Americans whenever he had the chance and now he took full credit for arranging the surrender. He announced that he had arranged to contact the al Qaeda forces by radio in two hours, at 0800, to close the deal and provide surrender details and terms.
Jim listened intently until Zaman was done with the self-promotion.
“Okay, I hear what you are saying. Now start from the beginning,” he counseled the strutting warlord. “Tell me what happened.”
After the battle the previous afternoon, December 11, some of Zaman’s soldiers reached the highest point of Hilltop 2685. There they found the bodies of a dozen dead al Qaeda fighters who had been left behind in their trenches. Zaman’s men wasted no time in stripping them of valuable items. Any Afghan warrior worth his salt goes for the weapons and ammo first, followed by warm blankets, shoes, and foodstuffs. Afterward, a junior Zaman commander barked orders, and several muhj kicked as much dirt into the hole as they could, then rolled rocks the size of bowling balls into the pit before kneeling in prayer beside the partially filled hole.
The burial detail stood, picked up their thin prayer blankets, wrapped them around their shoulders, and stood motionless over the makeshift mass grave for a few moments before the cold got to them and they trembled. They wondered who might have the better deal, the buried martyrs who were on their way to paradise, ready to cash in on Allah’s promises, or the shivering gravediggers who had to continue the fight.
With the contested hilltop finally and officially captured by the muhj, an al Qaeda lieutenant then allegedly radioed Zaman to request a cease-fire and terms for surrender, and after a little customary tribal discussion, the warlord agreed. He gave them ten minutes to surrender. Of course, nothing happens that fast.
Jim nodded, listening with a growing sense of skepticism as Zaman described how the negotiations had been going throughout the night of December 11 and the early morning of December 12.
The al Qaeda negotiator finally requested that they be turned over to the United Nations. Zaman balked, admitting he held no sway with that organization, and directed the enemy to start coming off the mountain at ten o’clock to surrender. Almost unnoticed, the talking had just let the clock slip another two hours.
The negotiator protested, telling Zaman they were worried that the Americans would kill them, and the al Qaeda fighters wanted permission to retain their weapons as they surrendered.
“Absolutely not!” Jim snorted. “No weapons. No deals.”
It was possible that al Qaeda really did want to surrender, because they had been undergoing increasingly intense day-and-night bombing, and likely were low on basic supplies and morale. The signals intercepts painted a clear picture of crisis and despair. Two nights earlier, Hopper and the Admiral had crawled about among them and wreaked havoc on their frontline stronghold before OP25-A destroyed the valuable mortar position. And after last night’s no-holds-barred round of bombing, al Qaeda fighters might actually have felt defeat was inevitable. It was possible, but was it likely?
But Jim was not buying the story. It sounded too clean. Too easy. Too much like a schoolyard stall tactic. Our seasoned Delta warrior raised the bullshit flag and pressed the warlord for more details.
Zaman insisted that all enemy forces would be surrendering, and although he didn’t specifically mention Usama bin Laden, it was clearly implied that the big guy also would be giving up.
Jim couldn’t figure out just yet who was doing the stalling. Was al Qaeda using Zaman to buy time? Or could Zaman perhaps be in cahoots with al Qaeda and delaying the fight to allow the enemy to consolidate its forces, reposition, or even escape?
Almost as a sideshow, the muhj of General Ali who had accompanied Jim and the Grinch boys were happy to come to a stop. A surrender sounded good to them. Heck, they would have been pleased to have the day’s ground battle conclude before it ever got started. Then they could stroll back down with a bunch of al Qaeda prisoners who would have their arms raised high in the air and parade them around the press and local women and children like a bunch of American Indians arriving back at the teepees after a big buffalo hunt.
A centuries-old code of Afghan warrior ethics was in play. In tribal warfare, when one side is outmatched and concedes the field, the Kalashnikovs are traded for teacups and the evil adversaries become honored guests and sit cross-legged around plates of broiled sheep and fried dates, resting and fattening up until the next time. It is tradition and custom.
