Licensed to Kill (6 page)

The “Parrot's Beak,” or the area of Pakistan that juts into Afghanistan below Tora Bora and above Khost, continues to be the weak spot for American operations. Khost, with its mountain fortresses of Zhawar Khili, has been the traditional center for resistance; Miram Shah, directly across the border in Pakistan, has always been the staging and retreat point for attacks. In the 1980s, Miram Shah was the gateway for 20 percent of the muj's arms needs. Today it offers the fastest route into Kabul and the easiest place from which to launch an attack against Americans and to slip safely back over the border. A number of border posts have been attacked and overrun south of Khost—not once, but multiple times. The Pakistani towns of Wana and Angoor Ada are the main southern staging points for these attacks against the American base at Shkin, farther to the south in Paktika Province.

As a Westerner, to travel to the Pakistani border from inside Afghanistan is easy. To travel to the Afghan border from inside Pakistan seems nearly impossible. Tall, skinny Pakistani soldiers wearing brown sweaters and cheap shoes enforce the famous
NO FOREIGNERS ALLOWED
signs in the tribal areas. In the eyes of the world community, Pakistani borders geographically contain the tribal areas. However, cartographers deliberately mislead. The tribal areas do not wholly accede to the idea of Pakistan but consider themselves the center of an independent nation called Pashtunistan, an entity falsely divided down the middle by the colonial-era Durand Line.

The Durand Line runs along mountainous ridge tops, a wandering artificial border originally designed to separate India from Afghanistan. A British colonial officer named Sir Mortimer Durand created the 1,519-mile-long border between India and Afghanistan as part of a November 12, 1893, agreement with Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. At the time, area Pashtuns violently opposed its imposition, and this rarely marked or defended border has been ignored as much as possible ever since.

The central government in Pakistan always had trouble developing support in the tribal area, and Pakistani leaders have long recognized that they face a potentially explosive scenario there. Pashtuns make up only 12 percent of the population but control 40 percent of the territory of Pakistan. If these tribally linked Pakistani Pashtuns were to align themselves with Afghan Pashtuns (approaching half of Afghanistan's population) to form a separate entity, Pakistan would become a tiny, mostly Punjabi-populated country—a ripe target for Indian aggression. So Pakistan takes the affairs of Afghanistan, and their influence in them, very seriously. The jihad against the Russians provided an ideal opportunity to promote universal religious ideals while repressing more traditional Pashtun tribalism. Today, the Pakistanis proceed cautiously by using troops recruited from the local tribes and only interfering in local affairs with the direct permission of tribal leaders.

Despite insistent pleas by the governors of both Gardez and Khost to avoid the border area, I set out from Khost for a day trip with the relative of an elder warlord of the border region acting as guide. I want to see for myself how the hunt for bin Laden is going and to seek out the elusive American contractors I have heard to be participating in the area's operations. The “dangerous” trip to the border turns out to be a bit of a disappointment when I am greeted not with suspicion, but with hospitality. As we approach the last Afghan checkpoint, the border guards do not check for passports, they do not inspect our car, but they do insist we stop for tea. Why do they not suspect us? Their answer surprises me: “If someone wanted to sneak in, they would use any of the numerous other unmanned entry points.” I quickly discover that the concept of the border is as illusory as the American concept of controlling it.

At the actual border, no markers or signs differentiate Afghanistan from Pakistan; there literally is no recognizable border. Where my GPS tells me there should be a border, I see only a flat expanse ringed by low scrub-covered hills. There are tea shops, tiny wooden boxes that pass as convenience stores, and clusters of Afghans sitting around on their haunches in typical fashion. Taxi drivers wait for customers, friends wait for friends, and relatives pass the time chatting and laughing.

Toward the eastern side of the valley, I see a group of tall Pakistanis in sweaters and salwar kameez, and behind them a random collection of white minivans and cars. I am told that people are not allowed to drive into Pakistan but must walk across to take a Pakistani-licensed taxi. Vans pull up from both the north and south trailing white clouds of dust; families unload and walk toward us unmolested or even watched by the Pakistani soldiers. Curious as to the complete lack of interest in people crossing both to and from Afghanistan, I walk down to the gaggle of tall Pakistani soldiers to inquire.

I assume the one with the striped stick must be in charge, and I am right. I ask him if Taliban and foreigners are coming across the border and attacking Americans in Afghanistan. “That not true,” he says convincingly. “The Afghans are lying.” Around me, about seventy Afghans squat while waiting for taxis or just watching the constant flow of people back and forth. Up on a hill on the Pakistani side of the valley is a fortification with a radio tower. The Pakistanis see me videotaping and demand that no pictures be taken, so I step back a few feet across a low gully into what I assume is Afghanistan and keep filming.

I film van after van letting out passengers and groups of men going into Pakistan unchallenged and even unquestioned. It does not even appear that anyone is asked for identity papers by the Pakistani border guards. It makes me wonder how certain the Pakistani with the striped stick could be about his assertion that fighters are not crossing this border to attack Americans on the Afghan side. Later when I have tea with the Afghans sitting around below, they tell me that Arabs and Pakistanis from one or two hills over walk weapons in at night loaded on the backs of donkeys. The Pakistani guards appear to be symbolic and are here simply to bolster their meager wages. They're ultimately beholden to tribal bosses back in the border towns—not to Musharraf's central government—and the need to move or not move people across the border is decided well beyond their level of authority.

The next day back in Khost, I walk up to a young Afghan with a Thuraya and say I want to meet the Americans. When I had asked him about visiting the border a few days before, he had told me not to go there because of the danger. Now he tells me to go there if I want to see my American friends. The difference was a cash incentive. So much for the secrecy of American-supported firebases, since I've now discovered the secret to locating them—just ask any young English-speaking local with an $800 satellite phone. A short cab ride later, poorly disguised as an Afghan, I arrive at the shabby hilltop firebase overlooking the pass leading from Miram Shah toward Khost.

Coming up the hill toward the base are two armored tan Humvees, a beige camouflage pickup with an orange marker panel on top, and a brown-and-green-camouflage Land Rover, all followed by a convoy of Toyota pickup trucks overflowing with Afghan troops who wave to show off their heavy weapons and their new shooting gloves and sunglasses. So here I am watching this seven-truck convoy driving past on its way toward the nearby hilltop landing area, and I'm wondering exactly how I make contact. I jump down the sandbagged stairs to talk to the bearded commander, Shah Alam. In bad Pashto, I point to the gray helos circling around the hilltops and say “friends.” Alam squeezes me into a former Talib Toyota truck, and the Afghans and I make the convoluted journey from the hilltop fort to the landing pad on the next hill. In between these hills, I see Afghan “campaigns” filling sandbags and building yet another fortification farther into Pakistan. As expected, the main Hesco barriers were being built facing the Pakistani side. It appears painfully obvious that the enemy, like Ahmed Shah Massoud told me many times, is Pakistan.

As we make it to the landing area, the two Hueys depart, leaving behind a group of silver-haired officers, each wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a pistol. Their fresh haircuts, spotless armor and helmets, and neatly pressed uniforms are a little too crisp and clean in contrast to the dirty, unshaven look of their Special Forces bodyguards. They load into the convoy, which turns around and heads back over to the hilltop firebase.

Those left guarding the landing pad look like a task force—one of several elite groups composed of U.S. Army Special Forces, Delta Force, Navy SEALs, CIA paramilitaries, and military contractors who hunt for high-value targets (HVTs). This group appears to be comprised of a sergeant from the U.S. Army's 20th Special Forces Group, a unit of army reservists shipped in from Alabama, a young air force close air support controller, and an unshaven American in civilian clothes—khakis, photographer's vest, hiking boots. He wears Oakley shades and keeps a finger-forward grip on a battered AK-47—an unusual weapon for an American, even in this neck of the woods, and the mark of a contractor. In later conversations, the Contractor will confirm my suspicion—that I have encountered the elusive Task Force 11—but for the moment, he turns and walks away as I approach the group.

According to the U.S. government, what I am looking at doesn't exist. There are not only no operations inside Pakistan, Task Force 11 has been dissolved, as have Task Force 5 and Task Force 20. In July of 2003, U.S. Central Command said they had disbanded Task Force 11, described as “an elite group of Delta Force and Navy SEAL commandos who hunted high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda operators in and around Afghanistan” and created Task Force 20, which was moved to the Iraq theater to hunt down Saddam Hussein and former high-ranking Baathists. In November of 2003, General John P. Abizaid disbanded Task Force 5 and Task Force 20, operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, and created Task Force 121. As the U.S. military describes it, the new global task force was designed to react with greater speed on tips on HVTs (high value targets) and was not to be “contained within the borders where American conventional forces are operating.” It is now one of the Pentagon's most highly classified and urgent operations. An air force brigadier general commands Task Force 121. All operations and information remain classified, and the Pentagon refuses to discuss any activities related to the task force—specifically the rules of engagement and whether this force needs permission of a foreign government to operate within its territory.

According to official descriptions, these task forces are made up “primarily” of Delta Force operators and Navy SEALs, supported by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and are tasked with finding and destroying high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda elements “in and around” Afghanistan. The word “primarily” masks the other task force members who go by the acronym “OGA” or “other government agencies,” and “around” Afghanistan implies they could be operating across the border with official approval under “hot pursuit” or “Amcit under fire” rules. When asked in a press conference who now hunts for Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, a military officer answered, “Other folks are doing that.” The real truth lies somewhere deep in the belly of the American security machine.

After the helicopters take off and the convoy has ferried the older gentlemen over to the base for their meeting, I am left talking to “the other folks.” Even the army oddly says it is not actively looking for Osama bin Laden, though here standing in front of me is the army looking for Osama bin Laden. The secrecy of this task force and their direct supervision and direction by the CIA requires the army to disavow their activities. So officially the people I am looking at don't exist.

I walk over, trying hard to act nonchalant as I begin talking to the technically nonexistent American soldiers guarding the landing area. The dark, bearded leader of the Special Forces team listens to my compressed bio, looks me up and down, and says, “Yeah, we'll talk to you…. Just wait for these REMFs [Rear-Echelon Mother Fuckers] to go home and we'll come and get you.” His message seems to be to make myself scarce until the heat is gone, so I go back and sit on the side of the hill with two other team members to wait out the older officers' visit to the remote base.

“Welcome to the war America forgot,” says a Special Forces sergeant in a cynical greeting. He is a big burly man wearing one large earphone and tan camo. Unlike the rest of the team, he doesn't have a beard and seems eager to talk immediately. He was in Iraq for nine months and then was sent directly to Afghanistan for a six-month assignment. “Fuck this one weekend a month shit!” he snorts. He is reserves, part of the 20th Special Forces group from Alabama. He doesn't feel too out of place: “The countryside around here reminds me of southern Utah.”

What I quickly learn from him is that in the borderland, the enemy has returned in force. The Americans and Afghans have been attacked and ambushed on a regular basis. The United States had already abandoned one of its four outposts, a firebase in nearby Lawhra. The others have come under increasingly frequent attack and occasionally change hands between the Afghans, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Pakistanis, and the Americans. The attacks come from the Pakistani side and almost always happen at night, beginning with rockets, then rocket-propelled grenades, and then three-wave assaults: one waiting to advance, one lying down to fire, and one advancing to repeat the process. Often, the mystery attackers take the base from the Afghan regulars for a few hours, only to be chased out by arriving American air support.

The sergeant seems a little rattled by the recent attacks in the area. “We got hit pretty bad two weeks ago,” he tells me, adjusting his dirty Jack Daniel's cap. “Six guys in our unit got Purple Hearts. They were waiting for us—knew exactly where we were…. The Pakistanis watched the whole thing and did nothing.”

He points to a spot a little over a mile away. “They fire rockets right from that hill on the Pak side. We meet with the Pak officials every month right on the border…. They smile. We smile. They bullshit us and we bullshit them. Then they watch us get attacked without lifting a finger. This place is fucked.” I ask him if the men who attacked him were Taliban, Pakistanis, or Arabs. He looks up at me, squints in the sun, and spits again for effect, admitting, “I have no fucking idea who we are fighting.”