Afghanistan War (2001-2021)

Template:TOC-right After the 9-11 attacks, the United States learned that the al-Qaeda senior leadership, who took responsibility for the attacks, were based in Afghanistan. The ruling Taliban refused to surrender that leadership and shut down their facilities, and the U.S., also invoking the NATO treaty of collective defense, issued a conditional ultimatum that if the demands were not met, a new Afghanistan War would begin in 2001.

NATO participation was the first invocation of Article 5, the collective defense agreement at the heart of the NATO Charter. The operation was also authorized by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373.

Initial concept and its development

GEN Tommy Franks, commanding CENTCOM, set out a four-phase plan that was briefed to the President on September 21, 2001:

• Phase I: Set conditions and build forces to provide the National Command Authority credible military options: build alliances and prepare the battlefield
• Phase II: Conduct initial combat operations and continue to set conditions for follow-on operations; begin initial humanitarian operations
• Phase III: Conduct major combat operations in Afghanistan, continue to build coalition, and conduct operations
• Phase IV: Establish capability of coalition partners to prevent the re-emergence of terrorism and establish support for humanitarian operation: expected to be a 3-5 year effort

It is a maxim of warfare that no plan survives contact with the enemy; it is a reality of modern warfare that no plan survives contact with higher headquarters. This particular set of plans also was quite different than others the U.S. had fought, in several aspects. It was to be a coalition from the start, both with the Afghan Northern Alliance (NA) against the Taliban government, with formal NATO cooperation and with both direct combat and assistive roles from other countries. Within the U.S. military, it was conceived as truly joint, not Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine; Special Operations forces were also to have a major role.

On the 20th, Franks had a tense meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), whom he felt each argued for a plan featuring their service. He asked for and received confirmation from the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF), Donald Rumsfeld, that he had full command authority to develop a service-independent approach.

The actual briefing to the President and Vice President was made by Franks, retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) GEN Hugh Shelton, Vice CJCS GEN Dick Myers (who succeeded the retiring Shelton), and JSOC commander MG Dell Dailey; Dailey indicated the importance of special operations to the plan.

Phase I

Afghanistan is landlocked. Before any operations could proceed, basing rights needed to be established. Kyrgyzstan, which had had Special Forces trainers since 1999, allowed the initial basing at Dushanbe, which subsequently moved to a major facility at Manas.

Before United States Army Special Forces teams could be attached to the various NA forces, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations officers needed to link with their leaders. The first CIA operations team, led by Gary Schroen, left the U.S. on September 19, staged through brief stops in Germany and Uzbekistan, and entered Afghanistan on September 26. Codenamed JAWBREAKER, it reported to the Counterterrorism Center. It was attached the forces of Mohammed Fahim Khan, who had taken command of the Tajiks, and the overall NS military, after al-Qaeda assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud on September 9. Additional teams would later join other NA commanders.

Airstrikes and special operations force insertions needed to be done on relatively moonless night, to avoid making them visible to air defenses. October 6 and 7 were optimal from the standpoint of lunar light.

United States Special Operations Command created three task forces in the theater, under the overall direction of MG Dell Dailey of Joint Special Operations Command. The 5th Special Forces Group would be in the classic unconventional warfare Special Forces role of working directly with native forces; it was designated Task Force DAGGER, under COL John Mulholland. It waited at the K-2 base in Uzbekistan; for political reasons, Uzbekistan announced that it was assisting in humanitarian assistance and combat search and rescue.

Joint Special Operations Force-North (JSOTF-N), under command of COL Frank Kisner, was the organization actually responsible for Combat Search and Rescue. JSOTF-N operated from at Karshi-Kanabad (K2), Uzbekistan.

JSOTF-S, designated Task Force KBAR, under CPT Robert Harward, began staging at Masirah, Oman, in mid-October. Its mission was special reconnaissance (SR) and direct action (DA) against the al Qaeda and Taliban networks, using Coalition rather than Afghan personnel. It was activated on November 15, and first based at Camp Rhino with the Marines on 22 November. By 15 December, however, it permanently moved to Kandahar Airfield, with personnel from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and Norway, as well as from the U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Air Force Special Tactics Group.

Air operations were controlled from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. AC-130 gunships and other fixed-wing support aircraft flew from Qatar.

Phase II

Large-scale overt air attacks started on October 7, 2001; the overall public name was , Operation ENDURING FREEDOM.

It took approximately 2 weeks before the first Special Forces team, Operational Detachment A (ODA) 595 joined General Abdul Rashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance. Just afterwards, two direct action operations took place. The first was a paratroop attack, by the 75th Ranger Regiment, to seize an airstrip coded Rhino. A second force, by a JSOC Special Mission Unit (SMU), was to attack the Kandahar headquarters of Mullah Omar. Rhino was to receive the first conventional ground combat unit, of U.S. Marines.

Hamid Karzai entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, with 4 men, on October 8-9. He spent the next 20 days meeting with local groups, and assembled a force of perhaps 50 men. He had been told "You must come with strength. Go to the United States, come back with the resources and money and weapons, and all that, and begin from a point with strength and then we'll do that. But if you just take the population and march it on the cities, they will take the cities, but then they would also get killed. Why should the civilians suffer?" Karzai used his satellite telephone to call the U.S. consulate and ask for support. Within a day or two, he designated his position, and large amounts of weapons and supplies were parachuted to him, greatly increasing his status. Soon afterwards, he asked for advisers, and ODA 574 flew to him on November 14.

Phase III

On October 30, GEN Franks met with Mohammed Fahim Khan of the Northern Alliance and Gary Berntsen of the CIA. Franks set out his priorities: have the Northern Alliance forces of Dostum take the major Northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, use it as a staging area to make a joint attack with Uzbek forces, now under Berryelah Khan, to make a joint attack on Taloquan. Taking those cities would open an overland supply route to Uzbekistan. According to Bertsen, Franks wanted Fahim's forces, farther south on the Shomali Plain, to move west and cut off the escape of the Taliban in the north. Fahim argued that he wanted to move to take Kabul first. Bertsen saw Fahim's argument as poliitical; Franks restated his plan of Mazar-e-Sharif, Taloquan, and the Shomali Plains.

Franks also described the northern cities as priorities, after which the The Northern Alliance would then move to take Bagram Air Base, and then go from the Panshjir Valley to the Shomali Plain north of Kabul. He did not state Fahim's argument for Kabul as strongly as did Bertnsen. Fahim agreed not to enter Kabul without Franks' permission; Franks and the CIA supported Hamid Karzai, a Durrani Pashtun as the interim national leader, and did not want tribal conflict between Pashtuns and the Northern Alliance tribes. A day or two later, Berntsen and a Special Forces team talked to Fahim's forces on the Shomali Plain, and told them they could not have more airstrikes that were needed in the north. There is a widespread but incorrect impression that the Northern Alliance had extensive close air support as soon as the Special Forces teams joined them. The reality was that while there was an extensive bombing campaign, it initially focused on suppression of air defense and objectives that the United States believed were strategic, such as Taliban infrastructure. Close air support was essentially on an as-available basis until the movement to take Kabul; it became much more available from that time onwards.

While plans were fairly specific through the capture of Kabul, they became more ad hoc from that point onwards, especially in the pursuit of al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership. The relationship of Pakistan, and to a lesser extent other surrounding countries, changed in the aftermath of Kabul.

Northern regional campaign

The attack on Mazir-e-Sharif began on November 5; it was captured on November 10. The battle was a series of probes, by Northern Alliance horse cavalry until Taliban resistance was met, and then the Special Forces team called in air strikes. Cavalry charges immediately following airstrikes, if a mix of the centuries, were effective.

Taloqan soon followed, as did Herat and Shindand in the east.

Kabul

President George W. Bush, on November 7, said "We will encourage our friends to head south across the Shomali Plains, but not into the city of Kabul itself." On November 8, Special Forces and CIA personnel were on the Shomali Plains, waiting for air support so that the Northern Alliance could advance against an estimated 10,000 Taliban.

British Special Boat Service personnel joined U.S. special operators to seize Bagram Air Base outside Kabul on November 11. According to Berntsen, on the 12th, "Kabul is reported to be in a state of confusion. The Taliban are withdrawing. We need to move quickly in order to receive maximum benefit from our enemy's retreat." Bismullah Khan's force, accompanied by Special Forces ODA 555, advanced rapidly. ODA 555 was aware of the agreeent between Mohammed Fahim Khan and GEN Franks, but, as a team member put it,

General Sharifi [a subcommander of Bismullah Khan who was the main ODA 555 contact] was like, "Sure we'll stop," and he goes, "But you know, some of the local commanders have family down there," and he kind of let it known that they weren't going to stop. Politically, yes, you know we were going to stop. [But] if a guy is trying to get back to his old home in Kabul, then who's going to stop them? They're not going to stop them, and that's what ended up [happening]. [Some people were asking], "[Were] there gangs running around Kabul?" Someone had to go in there and secure it to make it safe for the people. So that's why they went in.

The Northern Alliance violated an agreement not to take Kabul until an international peacekeeping force was ready. They took control of Kabul on November 13. Pakistan's leader had called for it to be a "demilitarized city", and referred to the previous bloody takings of Kabul by the Northern Alliance in 1992 and by the Taliban in 1996.

Bin Laden was observed in Jalalabad on the 12th, and seen moving southeast toward the Pakistani border on the 14th. CIA personnel knew he had had a training camp at Tora Bora, and a network of caves above it; they expected him to move to Tora Bora.

After Kabul fell, a Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) officer observed “we sat there with report after report after report of thousands of vehicles leaving Kabul” on the southwestern road leading to the Khost-Gardez region. Due to concern over civilian casualties, they were not aggressively prosecuted with air strikes. On the 16th, however, the CIA received confirmation that Mohammed Atef, the al-Qaeda military commander, was killed in an airstrike outside Gardez on the 1tht.

Heavy fighting, however, continued. Kunduz continued to resist, as did Kandahar.

Tarin Kowt

A preparatory step before taking Kandahar was taking Tarin Kowt. In the latter engagement, Hamid Karzai was among the fighters; the Taliban sent a strong force to stop him. Special Forces ODA 574, commanded by CPT Jason Amerine, joined him, on November 14. The A-team infiltrated through Oruzgan Province to link with Karzai, who had said Tarin Kowt, even more than Kandahar, was the main area from which the Taliban leadership came. Mullah Omar, for example, was from Deh Rawod, which was just to the west of Tarin Kowt.

Two days later, 500 Taliban fighters were moving against Karzai's force, which had 30-60 Afghans and 11 Special Forces soldiers. The force received extremely effective close air support, leaving only three pickup trucks of Taliban to be fought directly.

Karzai told Amerine that this was the decisive psychological victory of the war. He had been concerned that the local mullahs would tell him to leave with the Americans, but, instead, they said "'If the Americans hadn't been here, we all would have been killed,' meaning the reprisal against them for what had happened and the uprising in the first place."

As they moved toward Kandahar, intense fighting was taking place at Kunduz.

Kunduz

Kunduz was surrounded from three sides: Mazar-e-Sharif in Balkh Province to the west, Taloqan in Takhar Province on the east, and Pul-e-khumri in Baghlan Province to the south. Negotiations for its surrender took place at Emam Sahib on November 15. As many as 20 separate Afghan Taliban leaders were involved, each with his own following. Complicating the situation is that while the Northern Alliance would usually accept the surrender of Afghans, it often gave no quarter to foreign fighters.

Afghan Taliban fighters surrendered at Kunduz, but foreign fighters, including Juma Namangami, a leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, fought on. Namangami led the al-Qaeda force at Kunduz, and was killed in a U.S. airstrike; the overall Taliban commander was Mohammed Fazal.

Kunduz fell on November 23-24; 8,000 Taliban surrendered. Amir Jhan, a former Taliban apparently accepted as a negotiator by both sides, said that after the surrender, he counted only 3,015. There are many theories for prisoner deaths, ranging from compounded errors to deliberate killing; there appear to have been miscalculations on all sides.

Kandahar

When the Taliban evacuated Kabul, they called for guerilla resistance, but still put on a static defense at Kandahar. As Karzai and ODA574 approached from the north, another anti-Taliban force, under Gul Agha Sharzai, the former governor of Kandahar, assisted, from November 13, by Special Forces ODA 583, was moving to Kandahar from the south. U.S. Marines were approaching from the southwest.

LTC David Fox, commanding the Special Forces battalion that controlled the ODAs, joined Karzai on November 28, to become Karzai's military adviser and Special Forces C detachment commander, letting the ODA go back to tactical operations. Fox said Karzai did not have direct military experience, but immense intelligence and political skills. In late November, air attacks forced the Taliban out of Takrit-e Pol, which was then taken by Sharzai's force. Taking the town gave them control of the Spin Boldak-Kandahar highway. From there, they set up an observation post near Kandahar Airfield, from which airstrikes were directed for a week.

The Taliban made a brief stand against Karzai on December 3, but retreated. On December 5, however, ODA 574 and Karzai suffered the worst friendly fire incident of the war. An air controller replaced the batteries in the instrument used to direct bombs. When the device was restarted, it would send its own position until a new target was designated, which did not happen. Bombs hit their position, killing 27 Afghans and 3 Americans, and wounding many more.

On December 6, Northern Alliance leaders, including Karzai, met with Taliban leaders and negotiated a surrender of the city. Some Taliban put down their weapons, while others moved into guerilla warfare.

Karzai had been moving to attack the airfield on the 7th, but learned of the surrender terms negotiated by Karzai, and moved to take the town without fighting. Karzai reconfirmed him as governor.

Tora Bora

Tora Bora is an extremely rugged area, south of Jalalabad, as having two valleys running north and south. One U.S. soldier called it a "vertical no man's land, a hellish place of massive, rocky, jagged unforgiving snow-covered ridgelines and high peaks separated by deep ravines and valleys studded with mines. It is believed that bin Laden and his key supporters fled there after Jalalabad fell, and eventually escaped to Pakistan. There is much controversy over the policies and tactics with which the battle was fought, involving decisions up to the level of the U.S. President.

There was considerable argument, up to the Presidential level, on how to proceed against Tora Bora, where bin Laden had been identified. CIA had proposed putting American troops on the Pakistan side of Tora Bora, saying Pakistan could not contain bin Laden. President Bush, according to Suskind, decided to trust Pakistan. As an alternative, it had been proposed to mine the passes leading out of Tora Bora, but some U.S. allies had said they would leave the coalition if mines were used. GEN Franks said he was pleased with the operation and was not sure bin Laden had been there. Other Americans, however, believed “because there were not enough boots on the ground, that some bad guys got away. The way to rectify that was to increase the became the later concept for Operation ANACONDA in the Shahi-i-Khot Valley.

Shah-i-Kot Valley

A large concentration of Taliban and al-Qaeda was identified in the Shah-i-Khot Valley of Paktia Province southeast of Gardez. While attacking with Afghan forces assisted by Special Forces was considered, the size of forces there indicated that conventional forces might be needed. Planning of Operation ANACONDA was taken on the 10th Mountain Division on 15 February. Eventually the force would have 1000 Afghan troops with special forces, and a U.S. infantry brigade. They would form three concentric circles around the valley, cutting off escape routes before the main attack. This was to be the first sustained battle by U.S. ground troops.

There were to be command problems throughout the operation. Originally, it was planned by Special Operations, but COL Mulholland realized a larger force was needed. MG Franklin L. “Buster” Hagenbeck, commanding the 10th Mountain Division, was put in charge of planning for Army elements. Air Force planners were not involved until February 23, although Special Operations had begun their planning on February 6. The Air Force was critical of the lack of unified command, and the proper use of air assets. The Army originally expected fairly light resistance, but Khost was already starting to show enemy concentrations.

The active battle ran from March 2 to 16, although troops began to set blocking positions on February 26. The first troops into the area were U.S. and Australian special operations forces infiltrated three days before the main attack, from JSOTF-S/Task Force K-BAR. Their mission was special reconnaissance (SR) for surveillance and fire control. day for forces introduced on Takur Ghar, a peak overlooking the area.

On March 1st, Task Force ANVIL, consisting of 600 Afghan militia led by Special Forces, took blocking positions on lines of escape, and then a U.S. task force, from the 101st and 10th divisions, would make an air assault to an inner line of blocking positions on the east of the valley. On the 2nd, Task Force HAMMER, of 260 Afghan and Special Forces troops, attacked into the center of the Taliban position. This was the plan, but it broke down under heavy fire.

To retrieve the situation, more SR forces were needed, and U.S Navy SEALs were to be put on Takur Gar. Seven of U.S. deaths came on 4 March 2002 at the ridgeline at Takur Gar, when a helicopter insertion of special operations forces, and a rescue attempt, ran into serious trouble. As a U.S. Navy SEAL team was being landed, their helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, and Petty Officer Neil C. Roberts fell from the aircraft. The lead CH-47 from a rescue force was also hit by RPG fire and crashed. In spite of massive close air support, some special operations forces were overcome.

Change in American priorities

On November 27, Rumsfeld asked Franks for more detail on his Iraq planning.

The U.S. set up Combined Joint Task Force 180 (CJTF-180) in June 2002 as the CENTCOM forward headquarters, under a lieutenant general.

Current situation

See also: Taliban

See also: International Security Assistance Force

There is an Afghan government in place, with military capability of its own, the Afghan National Army (ANA) as well as Police.

The war has taken on an international character, with much spillover into Pakistan, where there is an active Taliban insurgency. There is also sanctuary and spillover in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with complex diplomacy involving basing rights for Western forces versus Russian interests. Iran certainly is affected, both from Afghanistan directly and from insurgents crossing from the Pakistani province of Balochistan.

The major combat capability remains with the NATO International Security Assistance Force, commanded by a U.S. four-star general who is also commander of United States Forces - Afghanistan (USFOR-A).

Afghan security forces

Afghan National Army

The Afghan National Army is comprised of five corps, the 201st Corps based in Kabul; 203rd Corps in Gardez; 205th Corps in Kandahar; 207th Corps in Herat and the 209th Corps in Mazar-e-Sharif. Attached to each corps is an Afghan Regional Security Integration Command (ARSIC). Each ARSIC is comprised of a Regional Police Advisory Command (RPAC) and a Regional Corps Advisory Command (RCAC). The RPAC is responsible for training, coaching and mentoring all organizations of the Afghan National Police. The RCAC has the same function for the ANA corps and below.