COMMENTARY | Tora Bora Reconsidered
Coalition forces offload from U.S. Army
Chinook during Operation Torii Lock) T. (Jeremy U.S. Air Force Tora Bora Reconsidered LESSONS FROM 125 YEARS OF STRATEGIC MANHUNTS
By Benjamin Runkle
rior to the raid on Abbottabad, appeared alive on a videotape on December Pakistan, in May 2011, the 27. Unfortunately, much of the debate on this seminal event in the 13-year operation has been marked by partisan fin- P hunt for Osama bin Laden ger-pointing and bureaucratic score-settling, was the operation to capture or kill the generating more heat than light and doing Saudi terrorist at Tora Bora in December future U.S. commanders and policymakers a 2001. Although the operation started with grave disservice. great anticipation due to reports that bin But the killing of bin Laden allows for Laden and al Qaeda’s senior leadership were more measured analysis of what went wrong Dr. Benjamin Runkle is a Veteran of Operation surrounded in a remote mountain fortress, in the hunt for the al Qaeda leader than was Iraqi Freedom, former Department of Defense and anticipation turned to frustration as bin possible while he remained on the run. This National Security Council Official, and author of Laden’s fate remained uncertain after 2 analysis is important, as the operational Wanted Dead or Alive: Manhunts from Geronimo to weeks of intense bombing, and frustration problems posed by strategic manhunts Bin Laden (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). turned to recriminations when bin Laden remain relevant given the continued pursuit
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of Ayman al-Zawahiri and other al Qaeda Jawbreaker established a command center On December 16, numerous reports leaders, as well as the ongoing hunt for Lord’s in a schoolhouse in the foothills near Tora of genuine surrenders came into the school- Resistance Army commander Joseph Kony Bora. Satellite imagery and photographs house, and by the next day, the battle of Tora by U.S. special operations forces (SOF) and from reconnaissance planes showed deep Bora was over. Estimates of al Qaeda fighters our Ugandan allies. snow stacking up in the valleys and passes, killed ranged from 220 to 500, although the This article analyzes the failure to leading the team to conclude that bin Laden real number was likely higher as the bombing capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora in the would not be able to leave the mountains any literally obliterated or buried the bodies of context of the broader history of strategic time soon. Consequently, the plan for Tora large groups of fighters. Fifty-two fighters, manhunts. Starting with the 16-month Bora closely resembled the operations that mostly Arabs, were captured by the Afghans, Geronimo Campaign in 1885–1886, the had broken the Taliban lines north of Kabul: and another hundred were captured crossing United States has deployed forces abroad a CIA paramilitary operatives and U.S. SOF the border into Pakistan. Yet there was no dozen times with the operational objective would infiltrate the area to identify targets sign of the campaign’s target. Bin Laden’s fate of apprehending—dead or alive—one man. for bombing, which would clear the way for remained unknown until December 27, when The lessons learned from these historical Afghan militias to advance. However, the he appeared on videotape. Despite being campaigns offer a fuller perspective of the Northern Alliance had neither the capac- left-handed and typically gesturing with challenges posed by such operations, and ity nor the desire to push as far south as both hands while speaking, a visibly aged bin especially the hunt for bin Laden in Decem- Jalalabad. Consequently, team leader Gary Laden did not move his entire left side in the ber 2001. In particular, history suggests that Berntsen was forced to rely on local warlords. 34-minute video, suggesting he had sustained the number of troops deployed has little One was Hazaret Ali, a Pashai tribal leader a serious injury during the battle. effect on whether an individual is success- who had distinguished himself as a field “I am a poor slave of God,” he said fully targeted, and that the conventional commander in the war against the Soviets, resignedly. “If I live or die the war will con- wisdom that bin Laden escaped from Tora and the other was Haji Zaman, a recently tinue.”1 The hunt for bin Laden would last Bora because there were too few U.S. troops returned exile whose base of operations for almost another decade until it reached its present is a canard contradicted by 125 years during the anti-Soviet jihad had been Tora climax on a cloudless night in a quiet neigh- of strategic manhunts. Bora but who was a fierce rival of Ali’s. borhood in Abbottabad.
U.S. Air Force (Jeremy T. Lock) T. (Jeremy U.S. Air Force By December 4, the first observation The Tora Bora Operation post was established on a mountaintop Not Enough Boots on the Ground? After the Taliban’s hold on Afghanistan overlooking the Milewa Valley, and over The most persistent criticism of the began to disintegrate in the face of the U.S. the next 3 days about 700,000 pounds of bin Laden manhunt as executed at Tora Bora air campaign and the Northern Alliance’s ordnance were dropped on al Qaeda posi- is that the Bush administration failed to ground assault in mid-November 2001, bin tions. On December 9, a 40-man detachment deploy enough U.S. troops and thereby let Laden and al Qaeda’s fighters fled southeast arrived at the base of Tora Bora. Under the bin Laden escape certain capture or death. from Jalalabad toward the Pakistan border. command of a major who would later publish On December 3, 2001, CIA team leader Their destination was Tora Bora (Pashto for a memoir under the pseudonym “Dalton Gary Berntsen sent a request to the agency’s “black dust”), a series of cave-filled valleys LESSONS FROM 125 YEARS OF in the White Mountains where ridgelines rose from wooded foothills to jagged, snow- history suggests that the number of troops deployed has little covered peaks separated by deep ravines. The effect on whether an individual is successfully targeted STRATEGIC MANHUNTS Tora Bora complex covered an area roughly 6 miles wide and 6 miles long and had withstood numerous Soviet offensives in the Fury,” the operators were supplemented headquarters asking to assault the cave com- By Benjamin Runkle 1980s. Moreover, bin Laden was intimately by 14 Green Berets, 6 operatives, a few Air plexes at Tora Bora and block escape routes. familiar with the terrain. In 1987, he used Force specialists, and a dozen British com- He also appealed directly to the head of U.S. bulldozers from his family’s construction mandos. The bombardment—which included Central Command (USCENTCOM) SOF company to build a road through the moun- over 1,000 precision-guided munitions and during a meeting in Kabul on December 15. tains and later fought his first battle against a 15,000-pound BLU-82 “Daisy Cutter” Similarly, Brigadier General James Mattis, the Soviets at the nearby village of Jaji. bomb—continued for another week, and on commander of the Marines in Afghanistan, During the years before September 11, bin at least two occasions directly targeted bin reportedly asked to send the 1,200 Marines Laden kept a house in a settlement near Tora Laden. Although SOF could hear the frantic, stationed near Kandahar into Tora Bora. But Bora and routinely led his children on hikes anguished cries of the al Qaeda operatives USCENTCOM denied all requests for more from Tora Bora into the Parachinar region via a captured radio, the Afghan militias troops. Consequently, as Peter Bergen con- of Pakistan that juts into Afghanistan on the withdrew each night from the ground cluded, “there were more American journal- southern slope of Tora Bora. Thus, Tora Bora gained during the day in order to break their ists at the battle of Tora Bora than there were afforded bin Laden the option of fighting Ramadan fast. Haji Zaman further compli- U.S. soldiers.”2 or fleeing. cated the siege by opening surrender negotia- USCENTCOM commanders cited Elements of the Central Intelligence tions with al Qaeda that were likely a stalling three broad arguments for why troop levels Agency (CIA) paramilitary team codenamed tactic for the terrorists to escape. were kept so low during the operation. First,
ndupress.ndu.edu issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 / JFQ 41 COMMENTARY | Tora Bora Reconsidered former Deputy Commander of USCENT- was kept on the sidelines,” while “bin Laden insurgent leader Augusto Sandino noted, COM Lieutenant General Mike DeLong and an entourage of bodyguards walked “Large bodies of troops had not the mobil- argued, “The simple fact is, we couldn’t put unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared ity necessary to overtake bandit groups and a large number of our troops on the ground into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area.”6 force them to decisive action.”10 The initial [at Tora Bora].”3 The roads from Jalalabad Bergen similarly concluded, “The Pentagon’s plan to capture Mohammad Farah Aideed to Tora Bora were horrible and ran through reluctance to commit more American boots in June 1993, codenamed Caustic Brimstone, villages loyal to the Taliban and al Qaeda, on the ground is a decision that historians called for a small force of 50 operators to be making the stealthy or efficient deployment are not likely to judge kindly.”7 Even former deployed to Mogadishu to capture the clan of large numbers of U.S. troops improb- Bush administration defense official Joseph leader. And a raiding force was eschewed able. Moreover, the weather conditions at Collins noted, “It was the lack of expert altogether on June 7, 2006, for fear it would Tora Bora’s high altitudes and the lack of infantry that allowed Osama bin Laden to tip off Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s lookouts, potential landing or drop zones for air inser- escape at Tora Bora.”8 leading to the F-16 strike that killed the al tion and resupply would have made such Yet even where USCENTCOM’s logic Qaeda in Iraq leader. a mission dangerously unpredictable and is questionable, the history of strategic Beyond historical considerations, the logistically unprecedented. manhunts suggests that a larger U.S. ground specific conditions at Tora Bora undermine Second, USCENTCOM Commander force would not have significantly increased the conventional wisdom regarding inad- General Tommy Franks later explained: “I the chances of capturing bin Laden at Tora equate troop strength. In an early December was very mindful of the Soviet experience Bora, as additional troops have never been a meeting at the White House, President of more than ten years, having introduced guarantor of success in similar campaigns. George W. Bush asked Hank Crumpton, the CIA official heading the agency’s Afghan campaign, whether the Pakistanis could seal it would have taken 9,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops to their side of the border during the Tora Bora completely cordon off the 100 to 150 potential escape operations. “No sir,” Crumpton said. “No one routes out of Tora Bora has enough troops to prevent any possibility of escape in a region like that.”11 Indeed, if we apply the planners of March 2002’s Operation 620,000 troops into Afghanistan.”4 USCENT- For example, the 1916 Punitive Expedition Anaconda assumption that between 90 and COM believed that the deployment of large- to apprehend Pancho Villa deployed twice 100 troops were required to block each pass scale U.S. forces would inevitably lead to con- as many troops as the 1885–1886 Geronimo out of comparable terrain in the Shah-i-Kot flict with Afghan villagers and alienate our Campaign used operating over the same Valley, then it would have taken 9,000 to Afghan allies. Both Ali and Zaman had made terrain in northern Mexico—11,000 versus 15,000 U.S. troops to completely cordon off it clear that eastern Afghans would not fight 5,000. Yet it was the earlier, smaller cam- the 100 to 150 potential escape routes out of alongside the American infidels, and Major paign that was successful. Similarly, both Tora Bora, a number that was logistically Fury was “convinced that many of Ali’s Operation Just Cause to arrest Panamanian impossible to deploy there in December fighters, as well as those of his subordinate strongman Manuel Noriega and the United 2001. Moreover, Major Fury noted that “We commanders such as Zaman and Haji Zahir, Nations operation in Somalia targeting had to operate in virtual invisibility to keep would have resisted the marines’ presence warlord Mohammad Farah Aideed involved Ali on top of the Afghan forces,” and that and possibly even have turned their weapons approximately 20,000 troops pursuing “It would have been a major slap in Ali’s on the larger American force.”5 individuals in urban environments. Yet the face” had thousands of Rangers and Marines Finally, General Franks firmly believed former succeeded in capturing Noriega while shown up. If the Afghan militias “didn’t turn that the light-footprint approach—U.S. the latter failed to capture Aideed. And in on [U.S. forces] then they definitely would airpower supporting indigenous ground 1967, 16 American Green Berets trained the have gone home.”12 forces—had already succeeded in overthrow- 200 Bolivian rangers who captured (and Two historical operations conducted ing the Taliban and would succeed in Tora later executed) Che Guevara. Thus, it is clear over the same terrain provide counterfactu- Bora too. Franks was concerned that taking that some variable other than troop strength als that refute this conventional wisdom. the time to introduce significant numbers explains the difference between success and In March 2002, 3 months after bin Laden of U.S. ground forces would disrupt the failure in past manhunting campaigns. escaped from Tora Bora, roughly 2,000 U.S. momentum of the coalition-Afghan offen- In reality, because of the need for troops from 10th Mountain and 101st Infan- sive, thereby giving bin Laden a chance to operational surprise, smaller is often better in try divisions, in addition to SOF and U.S.- slip away. strategic manhunts. In 1886, when General trained Afghan allies, were deployed to the In the ensuing decade, a conventional Nelson A. Miles ordered Lieutenant Charles Shah-i-Kot Valley in eastern Afghanistan wisdom regarding the operation has formed. Gatewood not to go near the hostile Chir- to trap several hundred al Qaeda fighters The Democratic staff of the Senate Foreign icahua Apaches with fewer than 25 soldiers, and a suspected senior leader. But as Sean Relations Committee argued in a 2009 report Gatewood disobeyed, later recalling: “Hell, I Naylor notes in Not a Good Day to Die, “At that “The vast array of American military couldn’t get anywhere near Geronimo with least as many al-Qaeda fighters escaped the power, from sniper teams to the most mobile twenty-five soldiers.”9 One Marine officer Shahikot as died there,” despite the reli- divisions of the Marine Corps and the Army, serving in the 1927–1932 hunt for Nicaraguan ance upon thousands of U.S. conventional
42 JFQ / issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 ndupress.ndu.edu Runkle U.S. Air Force (Francisco V. Govea II) (Francisco V. U.S. Air Force
Soldiers fire at targets on Tora Ghar mountains from Luy Kariz, Afghanistan troops.13 And whereas the Bush administra- to capture or kill bin Laden to the “rugged Laden. Five hundred al Qaeda fighters were tion has been faulted for not deploying an and inaccessible” terrain of the border area.16 killed by U.S. forces at Tora Bora, and the additional 800 to 3,000 troops, in the 1930s Physical terrain is obviously a factor terrain apparently did not save bin Laden and 1940s the British hunted the Faqir of in every military operation, whether a tank from being wounded. During the first 3 years Ipi with 40,000 troops over similar terrain battle or SOF raid. Hence, it is true that of the manhunt, 1998–2001, bin Laden was in Waziristan but never caught their prey. terrain can play a role in any individual stra- not hidden among mountains and caves, but Thus, it appears troop strength was not the tegic manhunt. Marine officers in Nicaragua, rather lived openly in the plains around Kan- determining variable of success in the bin for example, attributed Sandino’s ability to dahar. Moreover, since the 2007 advent of the Laden manhunt. elude his pursuers to the unique difficulties of “drone war” against al Qaeda in Pakistan’s fighting in the inhospitable terrain of Nicara- tribal areas, more than half of al Qaeda’s top The Role of Physical Terrain gua’s jungles. Similarly, then-USCENTCOM 20 senior leaders have been killed despite A better argument for the failure to Commander General Joseph Hoar believed the forbidding terrain. Thus, the problem capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora lies the odds were against capturing Aideed due was not merely one of terrain masking bin in the terrain over which the operation was to the warlord’s ability to simply disappear Laden’s movements, but rather of pinpointing waged. Describing the difficult terrain, Major into the narrow alleyways of Mogadishu. Yet his fixed location. Fury told 60 Minutes concerning attacking despite these examples, U.S. forces have cap- bin Laden’s position there that on a scale of 1 tured their quarry in mountains (Geronimo, The Centrality of Human Terrain to 10, “in my experience, it’s a ten.”14 Colonel Che), jungles (Emilio Aguinaldo, Char- More important than physical terrain John Mulholland, commander of 5th Special lemagne Peralt), and urban environments is the human terrain over which a manhunt Forces Group in Afghanistan during Opera- (Noriega, Pablo Escobar). Thus, it would is conducted, which refers to the attitudes of tion Enduring Freedom, noted, “there was no be incorrect to say that any single type of the local population among which the target shortage of ways for [al Qaeda], especially for terrain determines success or failure in a operates. These attitudes determine the people who knew that area like the back of strategic manhunt. availability of the three variables that histori- their hands, to continue to infiltrate or exfil- Although the terrain of Tora Bora cally have proven decisive to the outcomes trate.”15 Consequently, in 2008 CIA Director was undeniably a hindrance, it was not the of strategic manhunts: human intelligence, General Michael Hayden ascribed the failure decisive variable in the broader hunt for bin indigenous forces, and a border across which ndupress.ndu.edu issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 / JFQ 43 COMMENTARY | Tora Bora Reconsidered U.S. Air Force (D. Myles Cullen) U.S. Air Force
U.S. and Canadian soldiers prepare to depart Bagram Air Base to Tora Bora, Operation Mountain Lion
the target can seek sanctuary. In the case of based on intelligence gained from captured Since moving back to the region, he had dis- Tora Bora, each of these variables was slanted members of their networks. tributed money to practically every family in against U.S. forces, and it was the inhospi- The hunt for bin Laden reinforces these Nangarhar Province. Noted Milton Bearden, table human terrain around Tora Bora that lessons. Although the CIA was working eight former CIA station chief in Islamabad, bin led to the failure to apprehend bin Laden in separate Afghan tribal networks, and by the Laden “put a lot of money in a lot of the right December 2001. time of the September 11 attacks had more places in Afghanistan.”19 Human Intelligence. Perhaps the clear- than 100 recruited sources inside Afghani- This practice continued after U.S. forces est dividing line between successful strategic stan, these assets could rarely predict where arrived in Afghanistan. At a November 10, manhunts and failed campaigns is the ability bin Laden would be on a given day. Despite 2001, banquet at the Islamic Studies Insti- to obtain actionable intelligence on the target several years of effort, the CIA was unable tute in Jalalabad, nearly 1,000 Afghan and either from the local population or sources to recruit a single asset with access to bin Pakistani tribal leaders rose and shouted within the target’s network. Conversely, in Laden’s inner circle. As a former senior U.S. “Zindibad, Osama!” (Long live Osama!) every failed strategic manhunt, there has counterterror official told Peter Bergen, an al without prompting. The tribal elders each been a distinct inability to obtain intel- Qaeda operative betraying bin Laden would received a white envelope full of Pakistani ligence on the targeted individual’s move- be like “a Catholic giving up the Pope.”18 The rupees, its thickness proportionate to the ments or location from the local population. territory around Tora Bora was controlled chief’s importance, with leaders of larger Whereas Mexican farmers tipped off the U.S. by tribes hostile to the United States and clans receiving up to $10,000. In exchange, cavalry to Geronimo’s location in August sympathetic to al Qaeda. Villagers turned the tribesmen promised to help smuggle 1886, 30 years later General John J. Persh- the places where al Qaeda fighters were Afghan and Arab leaders to freedom in ing complained, “If this campaign should buried into shrines honoring holy warriors Pakistan if escape became necessary. One eventually prove successful it will be without fighting against the infidels. In the wake of leader later claimed his village escorted 600 the real assistance of any natives this side the Taliban’s collapse, the “Eastern Shura” people out of Tora Bora and into Pakistan, of” the border. Unfortunately for Pershing, became the principal political structure in receiving between 500 and 5,000 rupees per historian Herbert Mason notes, “Going into the region, and its most influential leader fighter and family for the use of mules and Chihuahua to lay hands on Villa was like the was an aging warlord who had welcomed bin Afghan guides. Sheriff of Nottingham entering Sherwood Laden at the airport in 1996 upon his return Indigenous Forces. One way in which Forest expecting the peasants to help him to Afghanistan from the Sudan. Bin Laden U.S. forces are able to develop human intelli- land Robin Hood.”17 Alternatively, Saddam had been providing jobs and funding for resi- gence is through the use of indigenous forces. Hussein, al-Zarqawi, and more recently dents since 1985 through the construction of Apache and Filipino Macabebe scouts were Anwar al-Awlaki were successfully targeted the trenches, bunkers, and caves in the area. critical to tracking down Geronimo and
44 JFQ / issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 ndupress.ndu.edu Runkle capturing Aguinaldo, respectively. Similarly, commander named Ilyas Khel to guard the the ISI paid lip service to U.S. counterterror- it was the U.S.-trained and advised Bolivian Pakistani border, but instead Khel acted as ism goals, it simultaneously used bin Laden’s Second Ranger Battalion and the Colombian an escort for al Qaeda. “Our problem was training camps in Afghanistan to prepare police’s “Search Bloc” who apprehended and that the Arabs had paid him more,” one of its own allied extremist groups for attacks killed Che and Pablo Escobar. Conversely, Ali’s top commanders later said. “So Ilyas in Kashmir. CIA Director George Tenet U.S. forces were unable to rely on indigenous Khel just showed the Arabs the way out of the concluded years later that “The Pakistanis forces in the unsuccessful hunts for Villa country into Pakistan.”23 Zaman’s men were always knew more than they were telling us, and Aideed. from the local Khungani tribe, and many and they had been singularly uncooperative After 9/11, it appeared the United States had been on bin Laden’s payroll in recent in helping us run these guys down. . . . That would be able to draw upon indigenous months, hired to dig caves. “We might as well meant not cooperating with us in hunting forces in its pursuit of bin Laden. Multiple have been asking them to fight the Almighty down bin Laden and his organization.”25 sources suggested the majority of the Taliban Prophet Mohammed himself,” Major Fury In the wake of 9/11, the Bush adminis- opposed him and could possibly be recruited later concluded. “I am convinced that not a tration delivered a set of ultimatums warning as allies in the manhunt. A Taliban official single one of our muhj fighters wanted to be Pakistan that it was either an ally or enemy told a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan that “Taliban recognized in their mosque as the man who in the coming fight. Despite internal opposi- leader Mullah Omar is the key supporter of killed Sheikh bin Laden.”24 tion, Pervez Musharraf agreed to the U.S. his continued presence in the country, while Bilateral Assistance. There are two demands and, on his own initiative, even 80 percent of Taliban officials oppose it.” Al exceptions to the correlation between the replaced the religiously conservative head of Qaeda insider Abu Walid al-Masri later wrote use of indigenous forces and success in stra- the ISI and his cronies on October 8. Part of that a “nucleus of opposition” developed tegic manhunts. During the 5-year hunt for Pakistan’s responsibility was to intercept al among senior leaders of the Taliban who had Sandino in Nicaragua, U.S. Marines trained Qaeda and Taliban fighters fleeing into Paki- urged that the Saudi be expelled prior to the and officered the Guardia Nacional, which stan. This request from Washington came September 11 attacks.20 Immediately after spoke the language and understood Nica- with little advanced warning, and Pakistan’s September 11, an ulema of 1,000 Taliban ragua’s culture. Although the Guardia kept tribal areas on the Afghan order had been mullahs formally petitioned Mullah Omar Sandino’s insurgency in check through two off limits to the Pakistani army since inde- to have bin Laden expelled from Afghani- elections, they and the Marines could never pendence. Consequently, the best Musharraf stan to a Muslim country. As one analyst suggested prior to the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, “Informants might mate- in every failed strategic manhunt, there has been a distinct rialize in faction-ridden Afghanistan, where inability to obtain intelligence from the local population the extremist Taliban and its outside Arab allies such as bin Laden are much hated in some quarters.”21 capture Sandino, who was able to slip across could manage was to deploy 4,000 “Frontier Thus, the United States was not obvi- the border into Honduras whenever things Forces” to the border, although due to poor ously foolish in its choice of allies in the grew too tenuous in Nicaragua’s northern logistics these troops did not arrive until Eastern Alliance: Ali had been fighting with departments. Conversely, U.S. forces did not mid-December. At the same time, Musharraf the Northern Alliance against the Taliban have a comparable indigenous ally during rejected allowing U.S. forces into Pakistan for several years, and Tora Bora had been Operation Just Cause, but were able to corner in a combat role. Thus, although about a Zaman’s own base of operations during the Noriega by cutting off his possible avenues hundred al Qaeda fighters were captured Soviet war before the Taliban forced him of escape during the invasion’s initial hours, fleeing Tora Bora into Pakistan, this avenue into exile. Moreover, simply from a tactical whether they were his personal yachts and of escape was far from sealed. standpoint, it was necessary to work with planes or the potential sanctuaries in sympa- In case after case historically, the Afghan allies. As Major Fury observes: “To thetic embassies in Panama City. These cases attitudes of the local population (and by push forward unilaterally meant that we demonstrate the importance of foreign sanc- extension the availability and reliability would be going it alone, without any [muja- tuaries and bilateral assistance in denying of intelligence and indigenous forces) and hideen] guides or security. Without a local safe haven in strategic manhunts. neighboring countries proves to be a more guide’s help in identifying friend from foe, Given bin Laden’s ability to slip across important variable in strategic manhunts we would have to treat anyone with a weapon the boundary between Afghanistan and than troop strength. If the target is perceived as hostile.”22 And after two decades of persis- Pakistan, a reliable partnership with Pakistan as a hero or a “Robin Hood” figure, as the tent war, almost everybody in Afghanistan was critical for operational success. As with peasants of Northern Mexico and Nicaragua carried a weapon. Mexico during the Punitive Expedition viewed Pancho Villa and Sandino, or as Although the decision to rely on Ali and Honduras during the Sandino affair, the Habr Gidr clan in Mogadishu viewed and Zaman was defensible at the time, they however, Pakistan proved an imperfect ally. Aideed, the protection offered by the local turned out to be undependable allies. Ali Prior to 9/11, U.S. intelligence agencies had population will thwart almost any number of insisted that the Eastern Shura had the final documented extensive links among Paki- troops or satellites. Conversely, if the target word on what should be done about the stan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) direc- has committed acts that make him detested Arabs holed up in Tora Bora. He assigned a torate, the Taliban, and bin Laden. Although in his area of operations—as was the case ndupress.ndu.edu issue 70, 3 rd quarter 2013 / JFQ 45 COMMENTARY | Tora Bora Reconsidered
the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 293. 6 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Major- ity Staff, Tora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today (Washing- ton, DC: Government Printing Office, 2009), 2. 7 Peter Bergen, The Longest War: The Endur- U.S. Air Force (Jeremy T. Lock) T. (Jeremy U.S. Air Force ing Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda (New York: Free Press, 2011), 81. 8 Joseph J. Collins, “From the Ground Up,” Armed Forces Journal (October 2006), 46. 9 John Upton Terrell, Apache Chronicle (New York: World Publishing, 1972), 383. 10 Julian C. Smith et al., A Review of the Orga- nization and Operations of the Guardia Nacional de Nicaragua (n.p., n.d.), 30, as quoted in Neil Macauley, The Sandino Affair (Micanopy, FL: Wacahoota Press, 1967), 180. 11 George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm: U.S., Canadian, and Afghan forces secure landing zone My Years at the CIA (New York: Harper-Collins, 2007), 227. Emphasis added. 12 Author interview with “Dalton Fury,” April with Geronimo, Che, Noriega, Pablo Escobar, is by preparing the human terrain well in 22, 2010; and Fury, Kill Bin Laden, 293. Saddam, and al-Zarqawi—the lack of sanc- advance of the decision to target an indi- 13 Sean Naylor, Not A Good Day to Die: The tuaries and available intelligence will prove vidual. Long-term investments in indigenous Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: decisive. Given the reverence with which forces—especially in partner-nation special Berkely Books, 2005), 375. 14 Pashtuns in eastern Afghanistan viewed operations forces—and the development of “Elite Officer Recalls Bin Laden Hunt,” 60 Minutes, October 5, 2008, tran- bin Laden in 2001, it is easy to see why an human intelligence networks in strategically script available at
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