T his book has been largely possible due to the many participants in the tumultuous events in Afghanistan in 2001 and early 2002 who have provided their time and experience to help me piece together the complex and confused situation.
By the very nature of the conflict, many of the participants who still work for intelligence agencies and special forces organizations wish their assistance to go unmentioned.
A particular thanks must go Lord Boyce, the former UK Chief of Defence Staff, who talked freely about Afghanistan in 2001, Jonny Crook who read several chapters and provided important insights and Marc Lee of City Forum Limited who introduced me to several important players from 2001.
Books
Mir Bahmanyar, Afghanistan Cave Complexes 1979 2004 (Osprey)
Pete Blaber, The Mission, The Men, and Me (Berkley Caliber)
Tony Blair, A Journey (Random House)
Peter Bergen, Holy War Inc (Orion)
Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda (Three Rivers Press)
Joseph Bernstein, AH-64 Units of Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (Osprey)
Patrick Bishop, 3 Para and Ground Truth (Harper Collins)
Eric Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For (Harper Collins)
Charles H. Briscoe, Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, Kalev I. Sepp, US Army Special Operations in Afghanistan (Paladin Press)
George W. Bush, Decision Points (Virgin)
Alistair Campbell, The Blair Years (Hutchinson)
Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies (Free Press)
Jane Corbin, The Base (Simon & Shuster)
Steve Davies, F-15E Strike Eagle Units in Combat 1990 to 2005 (Osprey)
Michael DeLong, Inside CentCom (Regnery)
James Fergusson, A Million Bullets (Bantam Press)
Tommy Franks, American Soldier (Regan Books)
Dalton Fury, Kill bin Laden (St Martins Griffin)
Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra II (Atlantic Books)
Stephen Grey, Operation Snakebite (Penguin)
Tony Holmes, F-14 Tomcat Units of Enduring Freedom (Osprey)
Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires (Norton)
Richard Kemp and Chris Hughes, Attack State Red (Penguin)
Benjamin S. Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror (RAND)
Damien Lewis, Bloody Heroes (Arrow)
Ed Macy, Apache and Hellfire (Harper Collins)
Robin Moore, Task Force Dagger (MacMillian)
Richard Myers, Eyes on the Horizon (Threshold Editions)
Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die (Penguin)
Leigh Neville, Special Forces Operations in Afghanistan (Osprey)
Mark Nicol, Ultimate Risk (MacMillian)
Jonathan Powell, The New Machiavelli (Bodley Head)
Ahmed Rashid, Taliban (Pan)
David Reynolds, The Battle for Helmand (Pegasus Publications)
Tim Ripley, 16 Air Assault Brigade (Pen & Sword)
Tim Ripley, Middle East Airpower in 21st Century (Pen & Sword)
Rowan Scarborough, Rumsfelds War (Regnery)
Gary C. Schroen, First In (Ballantine Books)
John Simpson, News from No Mans Land (Macmillan)
Jennifter Sims and Burton Gerber, Transforming US Intelligence (Georgetown University)
Michael Smith, Killer Elite (Weidenfeld & Nicholson)
Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers (Simon & Shuster)
George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm (Harper Collins)
Robert S. Tripp, Kristin F. Lynch, John G. Drew, and Edward W. Chan, Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces: Lessons from Operation Enduring Freedom (RAND)
Bob Woodward, Bush at War (Simon & Shuster)
Bob Woodward, Obamas War (Simon & Shuster)
Thomas Withington, B-1 Lancer Units in Combat (Osprey)
Various, Afghanistan: Lifting the Veil (Reuters)
Vol 4 International Air Power Journal (Air Time Publishing)
Magazines
Winter 2001, Spring and Summer 2002 issue The Hook
Various issues: Air Forces Monthly, Air Force, Air International, Aviation & Space Technology Week, Combat Aircraft, Code One Magazine, Defense News, Flight International, The Globe & Laurel, Janes Defence Weekly, Janes International Defence Review, Janes Intelligence Review, Janes Sentinel, Pegasus, RUSI Journal.
Internet Websites
www.googleearth.com
www.globesecurity.org
www.scramble.nl
www.hrw.org
www.defenselink.mil
www.af.mil
www.mod.uk
www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/ppdrdg.html/ Bomber Operations Diego Garcia, 28TH AND 40TH AEFs OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM & OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM, 14 September 2001 through 15 August 2006
Official Documents and Reports
Operation Enduring Freedom Lessons Learned, Colonel Bruce Burda USAFSOC, 1 Febuary 2003
Command and Control of Special Operations Forces for 21st Century Contingency Operations, Major Denis P. Doty, USAF, Naval War College, Newport, R.I.
American Carrier Air Power a the Dawn of New Century, Benjamin S. Lambeth, RAND
Ground-Aided Precision Strike Heavy Bomber Activity in Operation Enduring Freedom, Lieutenant Colonel Eric E. Theisen, USAF, US Air War College Maxwell Paper No. 31
The Evolution of the Joint ATO Cycle, Major Robert P. Winkler, USAF, Joint Advanced Warfighter School
A Different Kind of War, The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001 September 2005, Donald P. Wright, PhD, James R. Bird, Steven E. Clay, Peter W. Connors, Lieutenant Colonel Scott C. Farquhar, Lynne Chandler Garcia, Dennis F. Van Wey (Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, KS)
9/11 Report, 9/11 Commission
Tora Bora Revisted: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why it Matters Today, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 30 November 2009
Unclassified Documents from Marine Task Force 58s Operations in Afghanistan, Task Force 58
Troops in Contact Air strikes and Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, September 2008
Operation Anaconda, An Airpower Perspective, HQ USAF 2005
The United States Army in Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom, October 2001 March 2003 (US Army Center for Military History)
Executive Summary of the Battle of Takur Ghar, US Department of Defense, May 24, 2002
USSOCOM 20th Anniversary History, US Special Operations Command, 2007
Post Operational Tour Report Op Fingal, 16 Air Assault Brigade.
Chapter 1
Operation Enduring Freedom Ten Years On
T he date 11 September 2011 will mark the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States and the start of the subsequent American-led military operation in Afghanistan against the bases of Usama bin Ladens Al Qaeda organization, which was immediately accused of being responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon that left just under 3,000 dead. (Usama bin Laden is the usual translation from Arabic, although the spelling Osama bin Laden is commonly used in the media. US and British troops and spooks in Afghanistan called him Usama bin Laden, shortening it to UBL, so that is the spelling that has been used here.)
The sun streams through the dust cloud over the ruins of the World Trade Centre.
(Andrea Booher/ FEMA)