Kala Jangi Fighter Fortress

Mazar-i-Shariff is home to the Kala Jangi Fighter Fortress, 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 CC (code-name 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 couldn’t 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 in June 2007.

Just last week, the Shem Bot and Michael Yon tried twice to get inside but were denied entry. The Bot speaks good Dari, which the Afghans appreciate; unusually, he could not BS his way in. The Eid holidays were last week, and the commander was home with his family, which may be why Shem couldn’t get past the gate. It would be a shame if American or British visitors were no longer allowed to see where their special operators fought with such courage and ability. Fortunately, I have spent a few afternoons wandering 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 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 that the Taliban had stored in this portion of the fortress years before. What followed was a three-day battle reported to the world in near real time.

The American military, with a few CIA officers, had arrived in Central Asia mere weeks after the attacks on our homeland. Donald Rumsfeld had pushed the Pentagon and Langley to go quickly. No military professional likes to execute ad-hoc seat-of-the-pants combat operations half a world away. Still, the Pentagon let loose the dogs of war, allowing our SF teams, aided by 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 of our campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda was a brilliant success.

It is hard to conduct such a fluid, wide-ranging battle where all the targeting and ordinance delivery is based on inputs from ground controllers in contact. The fog of war is a potent performance inhibitor that affects all men on the field of battle, and the fog of war inserted itself into the struggle of Kala Jangi when a 2,000-pound JDAM hit adjacent to the team who had called it in. It was a miracle that this blue-on-blue SNAFU killed none of our troops. Dozens of 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 from this JDAM strike.

 

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 an opportunity I could not pass up.

 

The portion of the fort where all the fighting occurred is the southeastern quarter, right behind the gate, next to the sign pictured above. 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, lest 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.

Gen Dostum’s men had not searched the Taliban nor the portion of the fort where they put the Taliban (who had owned the fort until just days before they surrenderd) when American CIA agents arrived to interrogate the captured Taliban fighters they had no idea they were being held in a portion of the fort that the Taliban had used for weapons and ammunition storage. I am certain that they had detected in previous encounters with the Taliban a certain battlefield rhythm, and part of that rhythm was the 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 a CIA agent (and former Marine Corps officer), Mike Spann, and a dozen Northern Alliance guards. They then opened the weapons storage containers they had put there previously, and the fight was on.

In response to the call made from a CIA agent identified as “Dave,” a mixed group of 9 American special operators, 6 British Special Boat Service operators, and a nine-man advance party from the 10th Mountain Division arrived on the scene.

The Taliban weapons stores remain there to this day, although the Afghan Army has rendered the weapons unusable. The second picture below is of one of the shipping containers that 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-130s 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 that line the southern wall.

You can still find medicine bottles, primitive field dressings, torn and bloody clothing, and a ton of rusty un-serviceable small arms ammo down in these basements.

Dostum’s men flooded the basement to drive the surviving band of die-hard fighters out. And when they did, out popped 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 hanged a long time ago in public. Nothing personal, but the same principle 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 lifelong friend Jake Spoon. They 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 calls 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 are irrelevant. The issue becomes black and white, just like a Panda.

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?