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Authors: Linda Robinson

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One Hundred Victories

BOOK: One Hundred Victories
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ALSO BY LINDA ROBINSON

Tell Me How This Ends:
General David Petraeus and the
Search for a Way Out of Iraq

Masters of Chaos:
The Secret History of the Special Forces

 

 

 

 

"To win one hundred vistories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

—SUN TZU

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Also by Linda Robinson

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Photo Section

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Copyright

 

 

 

CAST OF CHARACTERS

 

(Listed in order of appearance. Military ranks are current as of July 2013.)

INTRODUCTION

Maj. Gen. Christopher Haas

CFSOCC-A commander, 2011–2012

Bismullah Khan Mohammedi

Tajik leader, minister of interior, minister of defense

Col. Mark Schwartz

CJSOTF-A commander 2011–2012

CHAPTER 1: HITTING TARGETS

Maj. Gen. Edward Reeder

CFSOCC-A commander, 2009–2010

Lt. Col. Brad Moses

CJSOTF-A operations officer

Col. Pat Mahaney

battalion and deputy CFSOCC-A commander

Maj. Christopher Castelli

company commander

CHAPTER 2: INTO THE VILLAGES

Maj. Gen. Scott Miller

CFSOCC-A commander, 2010–2011

Command Sgt. Maj. J. R. Stigall

CFSOCC-A command sergeant major

Capt. Geno Paluso (Navy)

CFSOCC-A chief of staff

Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc

CJSOTF-A and deputy SOJTF-A commander

CHAPTER 3: THE TALIBAN’S HOME

Col. Chris Riga

Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2010–2011

Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq

Afghan police general in Kandahar

CPT Dan Hayes and ODA 3314

team in Maiwand, 2010–2011

Jan Mohammed

Afghan Local Police commander in Maiwand

Maj. Scott White

company commander at Camp Simmons

Col. Bill Carty

Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2011–2012

CHAPTER 4: PAKTIKA

Maj. Mike Hutchinson and ODA 3325

team in Paktika, 2010–2011

Commander Aziz

Afghan Special Squad leader in Paktika

CHAPTER 5: ON THE BORDER

Cpt. Matt and ODA 3316

team in Kunar, 2011

Nur Mohammed

Afghan Local Police commander in Kunar

Maj. Eddie Jimenez

company commander at Camp Dyer

Lt. Col. Bob Wilson

Special Operations Task Force East commander, 2011–2012

CW2 Mike and ODA 3313

American team partnered with Afghan 1st Commando Kandak

CHAPTER 6: THE BURDENS OF COMMAND

Gen. John Allen—ISAF commander

Col. Heinz Dinter

CFSOCC-A operations officer, 2011–2012

Capt. Wes Spence (Navy)

CFSOCC-A chief of staff, 2011–2012

Cdr. Alec McKenzie

CFSOCC-A staff officer in charge of ALP program

CHAPTER 7: ON THE SAME TEAM

OR NOT

CPT Brad Hansell and ODA 7233

team in Maiwand, 2012

Captain Najibullah

Afghan Special Forces team leader

Lt. Col. Richard Navarro

Special Operations Task Force South commander, 2012

Command Sgt. Maj. Brian Rarey

SOTF-S battalion sergeant major

Maj. Angel Martinez

company commander at Camp Simmons

Sgt. Maj. J. R. Jones

company sergeant major at Camp Simmons

CHAPTER 8: SEALS DO FOREIGN INTERNAL DEFENSE, TOO

Cdr. J.R. Anderson

Special Operations Task Force Southeast commander, 2011

Commander Mike Hayes

Special Operations Task Force Southeast commander, 2012

Abdul Samad

Taliban leader

Lt. Marshall

SEAL platoon leader partnered with Afghan 8th Commando Kandak

Lt. Col. Ahmadullah Popal

8th Commando Kandak commander

CHAPTER 9: GOOD ENOUGH?

CPT Jason Russell and ODA 1114

team in Paktika, 2012–2013

CPT Jae Kim and ODA 1411

team in Paktika, 2012–2013

CHAPTER 10: HIGHWAY ONE

CPT Terrence Jackson and ODA 1326

team in Ghazni

Lt. Col. Chris Fox

Special Operations Task Force East commander, 2012–2013

Maj. John Bishop

SOTF-E operations officer

CHAPTER 11: WILL THE VALLEY HOLD?

Maj. Kent Solheim

company commander at Camp Dyer

ODA 3131

team in Kunar, 2012–2013

Asim Gul, Wazir and Gudjer

ALP commanders in Kunar

Maj. Ben Hauser

company commander at Camp Dyer

Col. Tony Fletcher

CJSOTF-A commander, 2012–2013

CHAPTER 12: THE ENDGAME

Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas

SOJTF-A commander, 2012–2013

Brig. Gen. Sean Swindell

NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan deputy commander

Gen. Sher Mohammed Karimi

chief of Afghan army general staff

 

INTRODUCTION

 

“YOU’LL HAVE TO KILL
A LOT OF MEN LIKE MY FATHER”

Chris Haas was one of the first Americans to arrive in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. A shaved-bald special forces officer with a hoarse voice and a love of cigars, Haas is easygoing but essentially private, careful and skeptical while maintaining an outward affability. He bowed his head before each meal, but did not speak of religion. His reserve contrasted with the effusive warmth of his Texan wife, Betty, whose smiling picture he tacked to the bulletin board by his desk.

Haas flew in on October 26, 2001, on one of the first helicopters that made it over the Hindu Kush following 9/11. At the time he was a lieutenant colonel, and he would be in command of the first four special forces teams to soldier through the winter weather and link up with Northern Alliance militia leaders. He would work side by side with CIA veterans of the Afghan-Soviet war of the 1980s, who would r.5eforge their ties with the Northern Alliance, dispensing suitcases of cash for Afghan salaries, equipment, and fuel. The three who arrived first were Agency pros and a pleasure to work with, qualities not shared by some of the whippersnappers the CIA would later send out. They included “Doc,” who had been a special forces medic before joining the CIA; Gary Schroen, a former field officer; and Gary Berntsen, a former CIA station chief.

Haas’s most important duty was serving as liaison to the Northern Alliance leadership, the Tajik-led militia that had been fighting the Taliban for years and was the only armed group with the ability to topple the regime and oust its Al Qaeda allies. The “G chief,” or guerrilla leader, was Bismullah Khan Mohammedi, a wily, determined Northern Alliance leader who was highly beholden to his Tajik faction, the second largest of the groups making up Afghanistan’s ethnic mosaic. As he grilled Haas in his headquarters at Jabal Saraj, he sought to put his would-be patron on the defensive. “Are you ready to lose men? There will be fighting,” he said to Haas and his operations officer, Mark Schwartz. “Is the United States going to abandon us again?” he continued, referring to the abrupt end of America’s interest in Afghanistan after the Soviet departure in 1989. Haas knew it was a test. Bismullah Khan—or BK, as he would come to be known in the years ahead, when he went on to become Afghanistan’s army chief of staff, interior minister, and then defense minister—was trying to level the playing field. The Northern Alliance certainly wanted American help, and it desperately needed the firepower that Haas had at his disposal. But BK wanted to stay in the driver’s seat. The Northern Alliance wanted American help in order to throw out the Taliban and take control of the country.

From his training, Haas knew that managing this relationship was crucial. He could not change BK or his group’s objectives, but he could not become captive to them either. Over the weeks and months ahead, he and BK became friendly, but Haas never gave in. “Haas would call him on that righteous talk,” Schwartz later recalled. “He would talk to him straight.”

The basic objective—toppling the Taliban and getting Osama bin Laden—was clear, but the details were complex. Haas was to strengthen the Northern Alliance militia while simultaneously restraining it from sweeping south to capture Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, and wreaking vengeance on the Pashtuns—who formed the largest of Afghanistan’s ethnic groups. He was to stall the alliance until a multiethnic power-sharing agreement had been forged in Bonn and a leader had been chosen. Meanwhile, he was to keep tabs on feuds among the various militia leaders of the north as well as among the Pashtun factions jockeying for control over Kandahar, the second largest city in the country after Kabul.

During his eventful first tour in Afghanistan, Haas experienced firsthand the difficulties and limitations of warfare with guerrilla allies, first in the drive to capture Kabul, which was complete by November 2001, and then in the December pursuit of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda fighters as they fled into the Tora Bora mountain stronghold, bound for Pakistan. At Tora Bora, special operations teams joined up with Pashtuns from eastern Afghanistan who proved dubious allies, as some of them sold safe passage or turned a blind eye as Al Qaeda slipped through the 14,000-foot peaks and across the border.

BOOK: One Hundred Victories
2.68Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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