Operation Dark Heart Read online

  NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

  On Friday, August 13, 2010, just as St. Martin’s Press was readying its initial shipments of this book to be released from our warehouse, the Department of Defense contacted us to express its concern that our publication of Operation Dark Heart could cause damage to U.S. national security. This was unexpected, since we knew the author, Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, had worked closely with the Department of the Army, and had made a number of changes to the text, after which it passed the Army’s operational security review. However, the Department of Defense, and the Defense Intelligence Agency in particular, insisted that the Army’s review was insufficient. Thereafter, Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer met with the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other interested U.S. intelligence agencies to review changes and redactions that they demanded he make to his book. Because Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer is a security professional himself, with some twenty-five years experience, we were confident then, and remain confident now, that he had not revealed anything in his book that could damage our national security, harm our troops, or harm U.S. military intelligence efforts or assets. However, based on the discussions our author had with the government he requested that we incorporate some of the government’s changes into a revised edition of his book while redacting other text he was told was classified, though he disagreed with that assessment.

  Because we support our author fully, we honored his request that we make those changes and redactions. The text that follows is the result of the extraordinary review of Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer’s book by the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other U.S. intelligence agencies. We apologize for any frustration readers may encounter in reading Operation Dark Heart in this redacted form, but we are confident Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer’s remarkable and vivid story will shine through nonetheless.

  —Thomas Dunne

  New York, September 8, 2010

  To my great-uncle, Joseph “Tony” Fernandez, who served in World War II, and dedicated his life to helping the family. If not for him, I would not have been able to do the things I’ve done. He died never knowing that I was an intelligence officer.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First—my colleagues and friends with whom I served in combat: Thanks to Col. (Ret.) Juan Negro, former director of the Leadership Targeting Cell, Bagram, Afghanistan; Commander (Ret.) David Christenson, Senior Naval Intelligence Officer; and Mr. John Hays, National Geospatial Intelligence Activity imagery analyst and all around brave guy; all contributed to this effort directly and it would not have been possible without them. This book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my colleagues who served with me in combat and in the real-world battles of trying to beat the bureaucracy and win the war.

  Thanks to my FBI colleagues who served with me in Afghanistan—“M” and “D”—while I cannot mention your names, you both were outstanding officers in every way. I am proud to have served with you and would serve with you again, anytime, anywhere. So much for a “benign environment,” to debrief a terrorist, eh?

  Next—to three leaders who did more to help this country than anyone will ever know: For all the “prep” to push me forward, thanks to Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Pat Hughes, U.S. Army; Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Bob Harding, U.S. Army; and Col. (Ret.) Gerry York, U.S. Army, who all provided me guidance and mentoring, and allowed me the extraordinary privilege of being allowed to run real operations with freedom, resources (most of the time), and the opportunity to work for, and learn from, men of intellectual courage and character.

  Thanks to my fellow “Jedi Knight”—Sean, who is even now out on the battlefield fighting the forces of darkness, and that darkness is all too often not al Qaeda, but our own bloated bureaucracy of meandering nabobs of criticism and ignorance. God bless ya, brother!

  Thanks to Col. David Strickland, USAR, Assistant Division Commander, 94th Division, for being smarter and wiser than most colonels in the army today—and my gratitude to him for helping make this book possible.

  Thanks to my support team, Jacqueline Salmon, who offered invaluable advice and assistance in the project, and my agent, Deborah Grosvenor, who served as a wonderful advisor—without their hard work none of this would be real.

  Last but not least, my thanks to Col. (Ret.) John Tempone, USMC, who is himself portrayed in another book, Cook, Baker, Candlestick Maker for his heroic exploits in Lebanon, who was also my class leader at “the Farm.” He encouraged me to endure, to never give up or accept mediocrity or defeat, and to always, no matter what, do “the next right thing.” Semper Fi!

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is based on my recollections, and the recollections of other members of the Leadership Targeting Cell in Afghanistan, who graciously agreed to collaborate with me in this effort. I also drew on a journal that I kept at the time. While memory is never 100 percent accurate, I’ve done my best, with the help of others, to tell the story truthfully.

  Names have been changed in a number of cases. Some people are still undercover, while others, for any number of reasons, chose not to have their real name published.

  The views expressed in my writing do not necessarily represent the views of the U. S. Army or the United States.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Note from the Publisher

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  1. The Usual Suspects

  2. The “Dark Side”

  3. Into Afghanistan

  4. The Boy and the Bomb

  5. “We Will Kill the Infidels”

  6. Mountain Viper

  7. Force on Force

  8. To the Front

  9. The Interrogation

  10. Improvised Raid

  11. IED

  12. Al Qaeda Hotel

  13. The “Heart of Darkness”

  14. Able Danger

  15. Tipping Point

  16. The “Death Star”

  17. Bronze Star

  18. Madrassah

  19. Abort Mission

  20. Under Fire

  21. “Alpha Team, Go”

  22. “They’re Really Pissed at You”

  23. Second Voyage

  24. Unsafe at Any Speed

  25. Darkness Falls

  Epilogue

  How to Win in Afghanistan

  Index

  Glossary

  Copyright

  1

  THE USUAL SUSPECTS

  “War is for the participants a test of character: it makes bad men worse and good men better.” —JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN

  IT’S damned hard to sleep with your head propped up on the butt end of an M-4.

  After your body is soaked by months of exhaustion, however, sleep comes fast—even when you’re aboard an MH-47 Chinook chopper, subfreezing wind blowing through, as it thumps through the thin air of the Afghan mountains headed for trouble.

  First stop: a rendezvous with my team of operators in the field, who were going to be thoroughly pissed off with the orders I was bringing them for our new mission. Second stop: An assault with the U.S. Rangers on a northern Afghan village that the CIA claimed housed senior al Qaeda leadership.

  I was jostled awake when the 47’s momentum shifted as it turned right to follow the valley. Out of the right-side gunner position, I caught a glimpse of a tall, rugged, gray mountain towering over the aircraft, silhouetted by the mid-November full moon. Christ. We were at 10,000 feet, and these mountains go up another 3,000 feet easy. No wonder the Muj could take Russian choppers down in this area during the occupation. We were sitting ducks to any sheepherder with a Red Rider BB gun and careful aim.


  The MH-47s are giant copters used for Special Operations. I was flying on the 47 CSAR bird—Combat Search and Rescue—the medical and recovery chopper. I’d only had thirty minutes to prepare for this ride. No time to get on any combat gear. It had been come as you are: long-sleeved T-shirt, khaki pants, leather boots, black fleece jacket, and my thirteen-round M-11 handgun. I’d just been able to grab my M-4 out from under my cot, along with my gray ammo vest that contained six magazines and my body armor—but no helmet. So I’d kept on my Operation Enduring Freedom baseball cap. It did have a nice American flag on it.

  Whole lotta help it would be if we got stuck in a firefight.

  The crew chief had given me the only seat they had—a standard folding chair that you’d find in any church or school auditorium. Looking at the fresh-faced crew from my chair, I suddenly felt my age. At forty-one, I was old enough to be these guys’ dad.

  Here I was in Afghanistan, ********* ***** *** ***** ** **** **** ***** *********** ******** My job: to run the Defense Intelligence Agency’s operations out of ****** *** ***** the hub for U.S. operations in country. It was late October 2003, and I had arrived in early July for what ultimately, after extensions, would be six months of duty.

  It was to be the longest, strangest period of my life when, despite the best efforts of myself, my team, and some of my commanding officers, the United States squandered the momentum it had after defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks. Official timidity, bureaucratic foot-dragging, overanalysis—I saw it leading up to the September 11 attacks, I saw it in Afghanistan while I served there, and I still see it today.

  We were headed to a staging area set up in the mountains by the Ranger assault team. There we were to pick up 10th Mountain troops, who were going to join with the Rangers in sweeping through a village near Asadabad that the CIA guys had assured them held Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s lieutenants. Hekmatyar was one of the key warlords who’d left the back door open to let bin Laden escape Tora Bora. The plan was for me to rendezvous with my team at the staging area. They were in the area guiding the Rangers to the high-value targets, using Afghan spies or, as we called them, assets.

  It was a hot landing zone (LZ), the Rangers had warned. They’d observed random gunfire, and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) had been fired at the troops earlier that day. Accompanying the Ranger assault team on this flight meant that I would also be along for their assault on the village that supposedly held the bad guys.

  ** *** ***** *** ******* ** ***** *** ******* ****** ** ******** *** ********* ***** ***** **** ** **** ***** **** *** ***** ****** ** ******** ** ** ******* ** ******** ********** ** ******* ***** ********** ** ******* ********** *********** *** *** ******* ** *** ** ******* ** *** *********** The new orders, handwritten by the Ranger G2—the military intelligence officer—were neatly folded and sitting in the warmth of my black fleece jacket.

  My team was gonna take to it like an eight-year-old to asparagus. We’d ********** recruited a scout to help smooth our way with the villagers, but the CIA had maneuvered him out of the picture. Now we were going to be on our own without a native guide.

  Freakin’ CIA.

  With a slight shudder, our chopper moved forward in formation with four other MH-47s, accompanied by five Black Hawk attack helicopters, toward the northeastern mountains of Afghanistan. In the bright moonlight, I could clearly see the desert terrain, a cool, pale, whitish blue. Following the curves and bumps of the terrain—the “nap of the earth”—we passed over it at 150 knots per hour. The two gunners’ doors were open, and the icy nighttime air swirled in. I was cold—as cold as I ever remember being in my life.

  About fifteen minutes into the flight, the door gunners test fired their Gatling-style miniguns, and I jumped when the loud rip of the burst let loose. I could see the tracers arcing down toward the desert floor, and hear the sister helicopters follow suit and test theirs.

  As the crow flies, the distance from Bagram Air Base (the U.S. base 40 miles north of Kabul) to the staging area was only about an hour and a half, but the route this night was in and out of numerous valleys. I felt a push on my shoulders as the helicopter pulled up to clear a ridgeline, then, quickly, my stomach rose toward my throat as it nosed back down. The cycle was repeated over and over for the next three hours.

  As we approached the LZ, the crew chief stood in the center of the helicopter and held up his hands, fingers spread.

  Ten minutes out.

  Shortly after that, one hand. Five minutes away.

  Two fingers. We were about to arrive.

  As we slowed, I could make out the tiered, plowed fields, like pancakes stacked slightly offset from each other.

  The crew chief caught me as I stood up to walk out. “Sir—don’t forget—ten minutes. We can’t stay,” he yelled into my ear.

  “Got it,” I yelled back.

  As the MH-47 landed and the rear ramp was lowered, I put my rifle on semiauto and moved out to two o’clock from the bird while half the team went out to establish security around the helo. At first, the exhaust from the two jet motors of the 47 washed over me like a tropical breeze. The heat was a welcome surprise.

  I was next to an irrigation ditch that, I quickly found out after putting my foot into it, was full of cold water. I moved out of the ditch and went down on one knee. The noise from the bird was thunderous. I had ten minutes to meet with my guys, give them their new mission, and pass along the gear while the 10th Mountain guys loaded into the empty Chinooks. More than ten minutes, and the CSAR would take off without me and I would be left here with no winter gear, no additional weaponry, no extra ammo.

  Feeling the cold ground on my knee through my pants, I watched the horizon for either the silhouette of an enemy troop moving forward with an AK-47 or one of our officers approaching me to make contact.

  I flashed my blue signal light in one-second bursts, every 45 degrees into the darkness until I’d covered a full 360 degrees to ID my position to our guys. I moved a few meters from the spot where I’d shown the light just in case the bad guys had decided to take a potshot. I waited a few seconds, showed the light again, and moved once more. Because of the noise of the helicopters, short of bullets hitting the ground near me or slamming (hopefully) into the ceramic plate of my body armor, I wouldn’t have known if I was being shot at.

  Soon I saw the dark outlines of the 10th Mountain soldiers loading onto the other Chinooks.

  One of my team showed up—it was Mr. White, the forward officer in charge. It was then that I heard the faint sound of gunfire and a sound like a fast-flying bug not far above my head.

  We stooped and ran toward a mud hut about 200 meters away so we’d have some cover from the gunfire. I wasn’t used to the altitude, and I gasped in the thin air. I was in good shape, but the 50 pounds in body armor and ammo weighed me down, and I struggled the last 100 meters. It felt like my lungs had shut down.

  Now that I was away from the copter, the full-on cold mountain air hit my face. I heard the faint, harsh cough of the Kalashnikovs.

  The other members of my team were at the hut, and we squatted in a loose circle. They’d been out for several days in the high mountains, and they were bleary-eyed. They looked like crap.

  For operational security when we spoke on phones, we had selected color-coded nicknames. I was Mr. Gray.

  Just to my back, I heard the increase of the torque on the rotors of the helicopters. One by one, the noisy beasts lumbered off the LZ and into the air. Only the CSAR remained behind for me.

  The clock was ticking.

  “Gentlemen—I’ve got the new mission with me,” I said, handing over the cash. Mr. Red and Mr. Pink rifled through it. The guys glanced at each other and leaned toward me.

  “Tony, we want to come out—all of us—now,” said Mr. White. “There’s nothing we can do here of use. You know we don’t have access to our other guys who could give us intel on *********. We’ve lost our source and we don’t have any way to conta
ct our other assets.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I told him. **** ****** *** **** *** **** ********* *** ******* *** ******* ******* *** **** **** ****** ******* I ran them through the details of the new assignment. They weren’t happy.

  Mr. Blue, our native ****** **** ******** started, “This won’t work. Without our guy, we’re limited in our ability to guide our guys through these villages. ******* ********** ***** ***** ***** **** *** ******* **** ***** ***** ********

  “I agree,” I said, “but Keller is determined that you all remain with the Rangers. Part of this is political.”

  “Tony this is shit,” said Mr. Pink. His eyes glowed with anger in the moonlight. “It makes no sense.”

  The gunfire was getting closer as our voices rose.

  This is insane, I thought. We’re in the middle of a field being shot at. We might as well have just painted targets on our asses.

  “Sonsabitches …” one of the guys muttered to no one in particular.

  Behind us was another crack of an AK-47.

  Two minutes left. I had to convince these guys to accept the mission and then get my ass back on the chopper.

  “Look, this is the deal.” I spoke rapidly. “I agree. This is a waste. We need to get you guys out. Just help me justify your reassignment.”

  “The SEALs are going into the valleys 10 klicks from here later this week,” Mr. Blue said. His voice was urgent. The gunfire was coming more rapidly. “Our teams can do the recon and prep them for their mission,” he added.

  “What is their target?” I asked, glancing over at the lone Chinook. It was starting to take fire, but the crew didn’t return fire. They couldn’t be sure where we were.

  “One of the HIG’s suspected safe havens. They’ve got good intel to get one of his lieutenants.” He was referring to Hekmatyar’s group.

  “Got it,” I said. “I give you my word I’ll have you all out of here by tomorrow afternoon.”