I sat down with General Ali and Adam Khan for our nightly chat and had a chance for some small talk while we waited for George to arrive with his latest CIA reports. I mentioned that since the general’s earlier declaration of victory, the U.S. government had begun debating a “definition of success” for Tora Bora.
“The Voice of America is saying this battle is over, and that you won, General,” I said, sipping a cup of hot tea. Obviously exhausted, but happy that the fighting was over except for some minor actions, Ali responded in a fatherly tone: “We might not have been up to the task, we might have needed more fighters, it might not have gone according to plan, or maybe this was all in God’s hands.”
Pausing to allow Adam Khan to translate, the general continued, “We have much work still to do. We haven’t found Sheikh Usama.”
“General, with all you just said, how could you claim victory?” I asked.
“To put a smile on your face. We have destroyed al Qaeda’s base of the last ten years. They are confused, tired, and hurting. The sheikh has no other place as good as this,” he answered with total sincerity, nodding toward the snow-sheathed peaks.
I changed the subject. “When we arrived, we were told that up to three thousand enemy fighters were in the mountains. Where did they go, and how many were killed?”
“My commanders will tell me how many died. It is difficult, though, as our culture is to care for the martyrs right away. Zaman buried many the other day. We found eighty in a valley yesterday from bombs,” he explained, then paused for a few seconds. “If al Qaeda was still strong, they would not have left their dead brothers behind.”
“Do you still have fifty enemy prisoners?”
“Yes. No. One had a grenade and he was shot.” He pulled the knifeedge of his hand across his throat.
George entered the room with one of Ali’s officers, Commander Zahir. Not a day over thirty-five, he was muscular and well groomed, had a receding dark hairline, and spoke English well. His father, Haji Qadir, had been a good friend of General Ali’s before Taliban cruel justice caught up with him. The general obviously respected his longtime friend’s son.
The junior warlord was a fast learner, as well as being a dependable commander for Ali. When he had discovered that the CIA provided cash, arms, and equipment based upon the number of fighters a commander had, the shrewd Zahir had claimed he had 27,000 men of his own. It was an outrageous figure.
Zahir reported capturing several dozen enemy prisoners who had refused to drop their weapons until they were certain they would be captured only by fellow Muslims because they feared the American commandos, particularly at night.
Under George’s questioning, the young commander said that his men had killed about fifty al Qaeda fighters, but many others had died in the sustained bombing. He said it was hard to tell exactly how many, since so many of the bodies were headless, missing limbs, and lying in pieces here and there.
Zahir unfolded a dirty piece of paper and read twenty-two names of presumably captured al Qaeda fighters. A second CIA guy in the room, alerted to two of the names, scribbled them in his little notebook. Two others, according to Zahir, also seemed to be important because the others showed them reverence. One of them, Zahir believed, could possibly be one of bin Laden’s sons.
We all woke up at that statement and George offered the assistance of the CIA in identifying the prisoners, including providing pictures of the most important al Qaeda personnel and their siblings. If the guy in question was related to bin Laden, he would be on the CIA list.
Zahir smiled and casually raised his left hand to indicate that he had it all under control, but he dodged back to the overall body count. “I will have a religious cleric ask them how many al Qaeda were in the mountains, how many were killed, and how many have fled.”
“What makes you think they will respond to him?” George wanted to know.
“I have a special interrogator who will cry with them for their cause. We will wine and dine them, with high security, to get them to call for their brothers in the mountains to put their weapons down.”
How could we possibly understand that thinking? These prisoners had been trying to kill us, and now were going to be pampered. “Cry with them for their cause?” Right.
Ali, Zahir, and another elder Afghan then simply closed the book on that subject and the possible identification of a young bin Laden, and dove into an intense three-way discussion about the al Qaeda loot being pulled from the caves. It was critical to divvy up the goods fairly. Somewhere in the middle of the ten-minute discussion, Ali looked up at us and apologized for the interruption, but he was adamant that this issue be solved immediately. It was custom.
By December 18, there was little left for us to do in the mountains. General Ali assured us that his men were busy searching for al Qaeda fighters who might be hiding in the valley villages. Whether or not that was true was debatable, for it seemed every muhj fighter was busy looting the caves for anything of value that might fetch a buck or two.
Journalists learned from the muhj passing by Press Pool Ridge that some Americans were still in the mountains and some set out to try and find a commando or two. Good story, better pictures.
The India and Kilo teams, along with several teams of Brits, were still in their forward positions, watching the cave-clearing escapades and awaiting orders to pack it up. They saw scores of Afghans traversing the ridgelines and valleys that had been the war zone, heading for their homes.
Realistically, we could have pulled every operator out of the mountains the night before, but we were directed to remain in place to demonstrate American resolve. With two inches of snow on the ground and the temperature going nowhere but down, the grim snipers must have been a bizarre sight to victorious muhj. Didn’t these Western commandos know the battle was done?
At midmorning, we directed Jackal team’s forward OP to climb down the mountain through the latest layers of fresh snow and ice and link up with MSS Grinch. The weather made it impossible to retrace the dangerous route they had taken coming in, so Murph and Jester decided to head east and then back to the safety of the north. That would take them over territory that previously was occupied by al Qaeda and had not yet been traversed by Americans. The team shouldered their rucks and headed into the unknown.
After a thousand meters, they left the high ridge and went down into the valley heading north, stumbling across the bouldered valley floor. Two long-haired and unshaven Westerners approached from the opposite direction, one carrying a large camera. Journalists!
The boys pulled their muhj hats a little lower over their foreheads, raised their scarves over their noses and hid the guns under their blankets. As the two groups passed, one of the journalists said, “Hello, how are you all?” The boys didn’t say a word and just kept walking.
Murph, the last man, couldn’t resist. “How y’all doin’?” he replied, with a bit of sarcasm.
The two journalists came to a complete standstill, looks of shock on their faces. The boys continued moving away, turned another corner, hightailed it up a sloping spur, and hid behind a rock formation. The journalists were running up the valley not far behind, trying to catch the Americans and Brits and snap a few prized pictures, but unknowingly passed right underneath the Jackal Team. One moment the commandos had been right beside them, and the next moment they had vanished. The journalists continued on down the trail, and the team decided to take a break and brew up some tea on a portable butane stove. After enduring days of stress, the unexpected encounter with the journalists had brought a moment of humor.
Jim had also sent two assaulters to guide the snipers back to the base camp. The same two journalists now spotted these Delta boys and started chasing them, but the assaulters took off. In doing so, one of their sleeping bags snaked out of its carrier and was flapping behind him like a flag by the time they came into view of the snipers. It was too much. The American snipers and Brit commandos broke out in tension-melting laughter.
After sharing the pot of tea, they all descended farther into the valley and headed in the direction of the MSS Grinch base camp. For about thirty minutes, things seemed to be normal, then someone popped up from behind a large group of jagged rocks about a hundred meters away and the sun-bright lights of a camera flashed on.
The boys were startled and at first thought it was the flash of a weapon from a friendly muhj who had mistaken the approaching Americans for the enemy. They didn’t want to kill the guy, so they fired a few rounds over his head to give him the message.
Instead of a muhj, it was a photographer, who immediately dove to the ground and started yelling, “Don’t
