Free Range International

Mazar-i-Shariff is home to the Kala Jangi Fighter Fortress which was the scene of a famous battle in November 2001. Unfortunately I only have one picture of the fort’s exterior which does not do it justice. My good friend “The Cautious Citizen” and I were in the area on a site visit. He is one of the few guys I know who served in the very top tier of our Special Operations establishment which is why I don’t use his real name. He probably could care less but you never know about those tier one guys and I’d hate to have one mad at me. He and I got a tour of the portion inside Kala Jangi where the fighting occurred. The remainder of the base was off limits when we were there which was in June 2007.

Just last week the Shem Bot and our resident journalist friend tried twice to get inside but were denied entry. The Bot speaks good Dari which the Afghans appreciate and it is most unusual that he was unable to BS his way in. The Eid holidays were last week and the commander was home with his family which may have been the reason Shem couldn’t get past the gate. It would be a shame if American or British visitors are no longer allowed to see where their special operators fought with such courage and ability. Fortunately I have spent a few afternoons wandering around inside and have plenty of interesting photos to share.

On November 25^th, 2001 two CIA agents went to the Kala Jangi fortress to interview the Taliban fighters who had surrendered to Gen Dostum’s Northern Alliance fighters the day before. While interviewing a group of prisoners the Taliban suddenly attacked the agents and their Northern Alliance escort. One of the agents and all the Northern Alliance fighters were killed. The 300 prisoners revolted and armed themselves with weapons and munitions the Taliban has stored in this portion of the fortress years before. What followed was a three day battle which transfixed the world – at least the part of the world I lived in at the time.

The American military and their CIA colleagues had arrived in Central Asia mere weeks after the attacks on our homeland. The Pentagon and Langley had been pushed by Donald Rumsfeld to actually go do what they claim to be able to do and to go it quickly. The services hate this kind of risky, ad hoc, fluid mission for a myriad of reasons – most of them, in my humble opinion, born of risk aversion and careerism. However, our professional military always have and always will (inshallah) respond to directives from our executive branch with alacrity and purpose. Once they received their marching orders they let loose the dogs of war allowing our SF teams aided by CIA paramilitary, CIA paramilitary contractors and advance elements of the US Army 10th Mountain Division to operate independently with mission type orders and without micro management. The result of this initial phase in our campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was a brilliant success.

This appears to be what the Marines would term a "Tactical Air Control Party" in action on the north wall of the fortress. They are probably from the 10th Mountain Division. It is interesting to see the old war belt load bearing rigs which were being phased out back then in favor of the load bearing vests in use today.

But it is very hard to conduct such a fluid, wide ranging battle where all your targeting and ordinance delivery is based on the initiative and reads of the fighters on the ground. The fog of war is a powerful performance inhibitor which affects all men on the field of battle and the fog of war inserted itself on the battle of Kala Jangi when a 2,000 pound JDAM hit adjacent to the team who had called it in. Here is a picture of where the JDAM hit – it was a real miracle that none of our troops were killed by this blue-on-blue SNAFU. Dozens American, British and Afghan soldiers were injured, five Americans required medical evacuation and British casualties are unknown because the UK never releases information about SAS operations. The Northern Alliance reported over 30 KIA.

This is a shot looking south at the line of buildings the Taliban occupied from the vantage point of the SF teams who were controlling the tac air. It takes real balls to call in air-delivered ordinance this close to you …and I mean real balls.

I remember watching this unfold through the video of a German TV crew who had the good luck to be on hand when the fighting started. I was amazed that we were conducting such a ballsy mobile warfare style campaign and had gotten there so quickly. Checking out this old battlefield was as opportunity I could not pass up. And as is typically the case in Afghanistan the first thing to catch your eye are the signs.

The “devil Taliban” – you have to love that.

The portion of the fort where all the fighting took place is the southeastern ¼ which was right behind the gate next to this sign. The battlefield is essentially untouched since the battle. EOD teams did remove or destroy most of the UXO (unexploded ordinance) but our Afghan Army guide was adamant that we stay on the many paths through the brush least we step on some live ordinance or a cobra. We were there in July and apparently snakes are a problem in that area during the summer months.

Here is are a couple shots of the memorial the Afghans erected for CIA operative and former Marine Mike Spann. It is erected adjacent to the building where he and his partner “Dave” were interviewing Taliban prisoners.

With 20/20 hindsight the actions of Spann and his partner that day seem reckless. However I don’t think they were given the context of time and place. The CIA agents did not know that Gen Dostum’s men had not searched the Taliban, nor did they know that he had stashed them in the portion of the fort where the Taliban had previously stored about 10,000 or so weapons. I am certain that they had detected in previous encounters with the Taliban a certain battlefield rhythm and part of that rhythm was acceptance of surrendered Taliban of their POW status. For whatever reason the Taliban in Kala Jangi were in no mood to accept their fate and they revolted killing Mike Spann and a dozen Northern Alliance guards in their initial onslaught, taking their weapons and then opening up the weapons storage containers they had put there previously. The other CIA agent “Dave” shot his way out of this scrum of scum and linked up with the German TV crew in the north portion of the fort. The Germans had a satellite phone which Dave used to call the American Embassy in Uzbekistan to request reinforcments.

Dave made this call at 11:15 in the morning. By 14:00 that afternoon a group a mixed group of 9 American special operators had arrived as had six men from the British Special Boat Service. Four hours later another four man SF team and a nine man advance party from the 10th Mountain Division were on scene.

The Taliban weapons stores remain there to this day although the Afghan Army has rendered the weapons unserviceable. The second picture below is of one of the shipping containers which received much attention from an AC-130 gunship during the night of 26 November.

Although the battle lasted for three days it was essentially over after the AC-130’s pounded the Taliban on the night of the 26th. On the morning of the 27th the surviving Taliban retreated into the basements under the mud huts which line the southern wall. This is a shot from the Taliban perspective looking north towards the allied positions.

Here is a shot of what is left of the stairs leading down to that area followed by the basement rooms. You can still find medicine bottles, primitive field dressings, torn and bloody clothing, and a ton of rusty unserviceable small arms ammo down there.

In order to drive the surviving band of die hard fighters out of the basement Dostum’s men flooded it. And when they did out popped this dirtbag – Johnny Walker Lindh and another 80 or so surviving fighters. There are few absolutes in life but the death penalty for traitors to our great land is one of them. Lindh should have been hung a long time ago. In public. Nothing personal but the same principal applies here as it did to the murdering horse thieves in Lonesome Dove. Gus and Captain Call had to string up the group they caught which included their life-long friend Jake Spoon. The didn’t want to do it but they had to because it was their duty under their code. There are some things a man cannot tolerate if he is going to call himself a free man. Horse thieves and traitors are two of those things. Again this is not personal – I can understand the ennui which drove young Walker to Islam. I can admire his courage and fortitude in leaving home at such a young age to venture into the northwest frontier of Pakistan alone. But he turned traitor and at that point all the understanding and empathy in the world is irrelevant. The issue becomes black and white. Just like a Panda.

Here is a picture taken after the battle which I lifted off the net along with Lindh’s pic. Apparently nobody knew the Taliban had an arms cache inside that portion of the fort because Gen Dostum used it to stable his horses.

I arrived in Afghanistan four years after this battle and can only imagine what it was like for the American and British operators who drove into the breach back in 2001. They were free to operate as they saw fit based on what they developed on the ground. The Afghan people were 100% behind our efforts to rid them of the Taliban scourge. They must have been greeted like liberators everywhere they went and when the Taliban tried to stand and fight they were able to defeat them in detail with precision direct and indirect fire. What could be better than that?