Kill Bin Laden: a Delta Force Commander's account of the hunt for the world's most wanted man (27 page)

Ali agreed to go, but he was adamant that the number of vehicles be limited to reduce the attention we would surely receive from both al Qaeda and the press.

As the bickering came to an end, I put in a fresh wad of Redman leaf chew and hopped in the general’s SUV to head to the front. Zaman ignored Ali’s desire to limit the number of vehicles, so our lime green SUV was just one of eight vehicles making the trip, and every pickup truck was jam-packed with gun-toting muhj.

Officially, all of them were Ali’s fighters, but some were more loyal to Zaman. The other warlord seemed more aggressive, but Adam Khan told us after the meeting that Ali had accused Zaman of allowing forty Arabs to pass through his lines and escape into Pakistan last night. Zaman vehemently denied it. Keeping score of who was doing what to whom was difficult.

Enemy spotters high in the mountains must have laughed at the massive dust trail created by our line of slow-moving vehicles. Forget a stealthy approach. They saw us coming. The general was noticeably flustered, and bitched and moaned about Haji Zaman during the entire trip, calling Zaman a “politician” who was only interested in personal fame and fortune.

We took a slightly different route this time in hopes of bypassing the press, but no luck. The media seemed to have every road into Tora
Bora covered. Nonetheless, we pressed on through and continued to the front.

Well past the press, the convoy stopped along the right edge of the narrow dirt road, and General Ali, George of the CIA, Adam Khan, and I moved up the high ground to get a look over the hill toward the front lines. I looked skyward in hopes of seeing reassuring signs of aircraft contrails. None!

Haji Zaman arrived with several of his men and started to point out the enemy positions. His English was not much better than a first-grader’s, but it was good enough for me to understand as he briefed us on the lay of the battlefield.

While we stood there, a single enemy mortar round dropped in about a hundred meters to our front right and exploded. Zaman said it was a 120mm, but to me it seemed more like an 82mm. It had landed too far away to hit us and I thought that we were just out of range, that the gunners had given it everything they had, but didn’t make it.

The incident spurred Zaman to complain of how he had been unable to find and destroy the enemy mortars that had plagued them for a week. That assessment jived with Ali’s.

Not long afterward, six or seven more mortar rounds landed and detonated simultaneously to our front, this time only about fifty meters away. The smoke signature revealed a linear sheaf of impacts spread across roughly five hundred meters. This was textbook work—a single tube firing a spotter first round, then multiple tubes using that one to adjust range and fire for effect. This signaled three things to me.

First, al Qaeda certainly had us under observation from somewhere up in the mountains. Second, there definitely was more than one mortar tube at work. Third, and most important, was that these were not being operated by just some bums hastily dropping rounds down the tubes: The crews obviously were well versed in the finer points of indirect fire and trained in bipod and bubble manipulation.

Zaman and Ali were standing by their vehicles, kind of yelling at each other, a useless sort of bickering that would prove to be routine every time they got together. The only words I recognized in their rapidfire conversation were “al Qaeda, al Qaeda.”

With wild arm gestures, Zaman was daring General Ali to venture
closer to the front lines and see for himself why they had not been able to get past the dug-in defenses and al Qaeda trenches. Ali clearly was uncomfortable and didn’t want to continue.

“Ask the American commando what he thinks,” Zaman barked.

I told them both that the current observation posts did not offer enough views to support an advance deeper into the mountains. I still needed a firsthand look at the battlefield to refine our plan of action.

As soon as Zaman understood that I still wanted to go forward, he told his men to get into their pickups. The cautious Ali once again said he did not think it wise to go farther, now adding the reason that darkness was near.

Zaman, as a further insult to Ali, invited me to ride with him, an offer that I declined. Our convoy crawled south another three hundred meters before Ali decided caution was the better part of valor and stopped his vehicle again. When Zaman saw that in his rearview mirror, he also stopped and came back on foot. Another heated discussion erupted between the two muhj warlords, with Adam Khan refereeing and translating. Ali tried in vain to raise one of his subordinate commanders up ahead over the radio.

“What do you want to do, Dalton?” Adam Khan asked.

Nothing had changed for me. “Tell them I absolutely must get a look at the enemy positions. It’s critical to see what lies ahead. If it will get things going, then I’ll get in with Zaman and link up with you guys later.”

Zaman liked that idea and smiled broadly, which made Ali even more nervous. “The general is deeply worried about getting George and you hurt,” Adam Khan offered. “He believes he will be blamed.”

“Do you
really
need to go any farther?” asked George, who was frustrated with the whole show and its accompanying histrionics. He already knew the answer.

That left Ali as the sole vote against moving up. He didn’t like it, but gave in, and the little convoy headed deeper into the base of the mountains.

Another three hundred meters. Another stop. It was time to ditch those mortar magnets, the vehicles, and continue forward on foot, which neither warlord was keen to do. They finally agreed on something—that it was getting dangerous.

The muhj dismounted and the vehicles were taken around the hill to a position out of the enemy’s view, while we headed for the southern hilltop that overlooked the al Qaeda positions. Zaman and George were to
our right and a little below us as Ali, Adam Khan and I climbed on the east side of the approach.

Finally, however, we had reached a worthwhile spot. From a military tactician’s point of view, the terrain to our front was ugly for an attacking force. We had been told that al Qaeda held the advantage of the high ground and assumed they were well positioned to thwart any advance on foot. After seeing it firsthand, all doubts were gone. Numerous positions provided al Qaeda interlocking fields of fire and excellent observation of anyone approaching. For the attackers, plenty of defilade offered respite from direct fire but not from the high angle of mortar rounds. We were about to get proof of that.

As we talked about the enemy dispositions, several of Zaman’s fighters took cover behind some large rocks and others hurried down the hill a bit and went prone. I had heard nothing to warrant such an action, but they had picked up the telltale muffled
thump, thump, thump
of mortar rounds leaving their launch tubes. Our short advance had brought us within range.

Within a few seconds, the mortar rounds came raining down and impacted between our vehicles and where we were standing. The barrage lasted at least two minutes and flung rock, shrapnel, and soil in all directions at blistering speeds. The sound was deafening, and all too personal.

When I looked back, the smack-talking Zaman and all his men had taken cover, but General Ali had not moved. My first inclination was to get my rear end down, but Ali was showing no fear, and stood steady only a few feet from me, which meant I was going to stand firm, too.

A slight smirk was on the general’s face as he stared directly into my eyes. He was at ease, almost as if he had been in this situation many times before. OK, I got it, he was brave, but it seemed crazy not to take cover. We had too much riding on this guy to risk having him shredded by some random mortar round just to show up his rival warlord and the visiting Americans.

Ali heatedly resumed discussing the mortars with Zaman, who was cowering on his knees behind a large rock formation. Several more rounds dropped in and exploded so close by that we were both momentarily knocked off balance, but still remained upright. I couldn’t tell if Ali was still testing me, or if he was simply placing his life in Allah’s hands—a customary gesture expected of a mujahideen commander in battle.

Ali screamed at Zaman, waving his free hand in the air while clutching
his radio tightly in the other hand. It was obvious that Ali wanted to leave immediately and probably was telling Zaman that it had been foolish to come this far. Made sense to me.

In beween the impacting of more mortar rounds, the irate general called out, “Look at the vehicles. Who is going to retrieve them?”

Apparently he decided the answer to that question was Adam Khan, who suddenly asked me to hold his AK-47.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded. This was getting silly. Adam Khan, in my mind, was just as important to the mission as General Ali.

“The general asks that I get the vehicle,” he calmly said.

“Whoaaa! Adam Khan, you are way too important to this gig,” I said. “I recommend that you part with a thousand dollars and have one of the muhj go get it.”

Adam Khan shook his head and gave a little smile, knowing better than to take my recommendation. The money was no big deal to me, a Westerner, but offering money to some common soldier to act in a dangerous situation would be regarded as an egregious slight on his courage. Another matter of cultural pride.

General Ali changed his mind and ordered one of his bodyguards to retrieve the vehicle. Deciding to build a little bit on the image that had just been explained, I told the general that I, not Adam Khan, would go along with the young fighter.

We ran around the hilltop toward the vehicles, and two more rounds impacted nearby. I crossed the road and took up an overwatch position with my weapon as the fighter broke for the general’s vehicle. Another round exploded near the trucks, and this blast threw him down like he was sliding into second base to beat the catcher’s throw. Shrapnel had given him a slight wound in the thigh, but he popped back up and hopped forward until he reached the general’s SUV. The explosion had blown out the rear window.

I went back to Adam Khan and Ali and tried to explain the obvious—that it was time to stop arguing and start moving. We were definitely under enemy observation, and they had a bead on our location.

It was crazy. I was talking fast, Adam Khan was translating, mortar rounds were bursting all around, Zaman appeared to be frozen in fear, crouched behind his rock, and General Ali just stood there doing whatever
it was that he was doing. The sparring warlords seemed quite content just to yap at each other while the enemy was trying to kill us all. Neither was giving any commands, which left everything at a standstill, not a good move on any active battlefield.

If they would not issue orders, then I would. I told them to move their fighters to the back side of the hill, to our rear, and have them spread out. This would get them out of sight of the al Qaeda OPs. I also said not to worry about the vehicles until it got dark, but as Adam Khan translated this, it was immediately obvious that my suggestion was going to be ignored. Mortars or no mortars, these people wanted their vehicles. They were not walking home.

Having come this far, I decided to get a still better look while the mortars were searching for other targets. As the muhj took off running for safety, General Ali, Adam Khan, and I went the other way, crouched over and moving farther up the hill. We crested it just enough to observe the enemy trenches, and were actually eyeballing the enemy’s forwardmost lines.

We hoped for some signature of a mortar tube firing or to spot any movement of al Qaeda fighters. No luck! Al Qaeda was smart. They didn’t expose themselves. No need to, really, as they knew we were not there to conduct an attack.

Some more mortar rounds looped overhead and impacted behind us and wounded two of Zaman’s fighters, prompting the warlord to shake off his paralysis before pleading with us to leave the battlefield. The idiotic game to see who was the braver of the two was definitely over.

Earlier, Zaman had questioned Ali’s bravery. Now, the shoe was on the other foot. Ali appeared almost comfortable under fire. As Adam Khan translated, I tried to share with the general the concept of creeping mortar fire, but now that Zaman had blinked first, Ali was also ready to leave. We all took off down the hill.

But we were still in range. As soon as we reached the others, another mortar round landed only fifteen meters away with a tremendous roar. This provided good motivation for us to continue another hundred meters or so, when we saw the lime green SUV and the other vehicles, waiting with the engines humming. We jumped into whatever vehicle had room in a classic Keystone Kops free-for-all and the convoy sped north along the narrow dirt road.

In days to come, this area became known as Mortar Hill, because it was a vital piece of terrain that any attacking force had to transit before attacking the dug-in al Qaeda positions. The trip to the front had been more than worth the risk. Now I knew what we were facing.