Category: North

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?

The northern regions of Afghanistan are the safest areas in the country. A majority of the population in these provinces is Tajik or Hazara and was not known for supporting the Taliban. We routinely travel in the north without body armor or rifles and occasionally leave the side arms at home out of respect for the local leaders and populace. All my trips into the north have terminated in the fabled city of Mazar-i-Shariff, where our main client, JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), has an office and several programs.

The trip north starts by crossing the Shamali Plain (Shamali means “windy” in Dari), which saw much fighting during the Soviet invasion in the 80s. As a point of interest, the main road from Kabul to Bagram airbase used by our armed forces today was built by the Soviets so they could stay out of the Shamali plain as much as possible. The Soviets fought hard and often all along the main road to the north. After the Northern Alliance and our SF teams drove out the Taliban in 2001, there has been no fighting or attacks on the international or Afghan military on the plain or anywhere else along the route to Mazar-i-Shariff.

In 2006, an American army convoy caused a fatal traffic accident where the roads above terminate inside Kabul. They opened fire on the crowd that gathered at the accident site, sparking an entire day of rioting in Kabul. Unruly and agitated crowds are a staple at Afghan traffic accidents, which occur frequently and tend to be gruesome given the speeds at which Afghans drive and their propensity for stuffing extra women and children in car trunks or on roof racks. Firing into the crowd that day (I saw it live on Tolo TV) is a symptom of the big base, big army mentality that infected our efforts here as soon as the regular army took over the fight. The soldier I saw unleash his 50 cal into the Afghan crowd at point-blank range was scared. He was scared because he did not understand Afghanistan or its people, and he thought the crowd was after him and his fellow soldiers. This was four years after we first set foot in the country. Today, some seven years into the fight, a majority of the soldiers are just as clueless about the Afghan people and their customs as the knucklehead on the machine gun that day. But I digress.

Halfway across the plain is the town of Istalif, famous for its pottery. With a bit of haggling and good humor, you can buy any of these pieces for just one dollar, although after haggling and completing the sale, I always give a tip. Haggling is fun, but a couple of extra dollars thrown in at the end of the deal is fun too. Afghans seem to enjoy foreigners who are funny and fair.

After getting through the Shamali, you have to climb up the Salang Pass, which is 12,723 feet up into the Hindu Kush Mountains, making it one of the highest roads in the world. Here is a view going up the pass and looking back towards Kabul.

The Soviet Union built a tunnel through the pass back in the 60’s, which is 2.6 kilometers long and scary. The roadbed is pitted and often filled with slush, the evacuation fan system stopped working decades ago, it is dark, and the Afghans cannot deal with vehicle accidents or any serious injuries. In 1982, an explosion in the tunnel caused the Soviets to block both ends as they thought there was an attack in progress. Those trapped inside kept their vehicles running to avoid freezing, the resulting buildup of carbon monoxide and smoke killed as many as 700 Soviet troops and over 2,000 Afghans.

Once you’re through the Salang tunnel, it is a steep drop down into the valley floor where one can find the best fresh fish in Afghanistan. Here is my favorite seasonal fish stand seen from the road above:

Like I said, it is a step grade down the north side of the Salang

The guys sitting behind me in the picture above are truck drivers who wandered over just in case I ate like an Afghan, which is to share food and drink automatically. I have been here long enough to understand that, so the three of us tucked into the excellent fish and engaged in conversations using a mix of basic Dari, American slang, and sign language.

The drive from the Salang Pass to Mazar is pleasant and fast over good roads. The largest city along the route is Puli Khumri, which has little international presence but few AOG (armed opposition group) incidents. One of the more interesting aspects of driving around the country is discovering how the industrious Afghans can be with found objects. The picture below demonstrates that point well and is the best use of old Soviet BTRs I’ve yet to see.

From Puli Khumri, it is about three hours of driving through one small hamlet after another. Moving off the main road in areas with no villages or towns is not a good idea. Every natural choke-point has an old Soviet command post, and the terrain around them could still be seeded with anti-personnel mines. Most of these areas have been cleared, but the sign below provides a warning that remains applicable today to the savvy traveler.

The Afghanistan state-controlled media back in the Soviet days called Soviet soldiers Quay Dhost, which means “friendly forces”. When we rolled up to Afghan police checkpoints, we’d smile and introduce ourselves as Quay Dhost, which generated a look of surprise followed by a big belly laugh.  Afghans love jokes and funny foreigners who make an effort to speak Dari.

Mazar-i-Sharif is a small city famous for the Blue Mosque, which is supposed to contain the remains of Hazrat Ali, a son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammad. Islamic scholars believe Ali’s grave is in the Imam Mosque in Najaf, Iraq.

 

I have read and heard from the locals that the Mosque was buried to prevent its sacking by Genghis Khan in 1220 and not uncovered until the 1480s. I have no idea how the locals could have done that back then, but I also don’t know how the Egyptian Pyramids were built, so maybe it’s a true story. For us foreigners, this is as close as we can get to the Mosque, which is fine because the real treat when visiting the North is checking out the Kala Jangi fortress, which was the scene of a big fight on 25 November 2001.

There is also work in Mazar, which means looking after Ms Tani san of JICA, who runs the women’s empowerment program. The picture below shows Tani-san criticizing one of her women’s groups for slacking on keeping the cows and barn that the people of Japan provided clean and functional.

While she is in the villages, the police guard and I hang out with the village’s males, often sitting in the closest field for some nan and yogurt. If we check up on five villages, that’s five lunches of nan and yogurt and sometimes kabob that you can’t not eat because it’s impolite for guests to refuse hospitality. The life of an independent international security operative often looks like this:

The eggplant we eat with the nan (bread) is called Borani Banjan and is delicious. It is greasy, as the day is long, but tasty. Our next stop will be the Fortress, but it deserves a post.