GlobalSecurity.org In the News

Elite Forces Would Take Pivotal Role

Joseph Fitchett

In pondering what military action the United States might take in waging war on terrorists, Pentagon planners are concentrating on Special Forces, not the regular troops that prevailed in the Gulf War, according to U.S. and European specialists.

A likely scenario, several said Thursday, foresees the 75th Ranger Regiment and a few thousand other U.S. Special Forces holding an air base in Afghanistan and using Apache helicopters to track down leaders of Osama Bin Laden's terror organization and destroy his base in the Afghanistan mountains.

The 75th Ranger Regiment is the U.S. command unit for special operations, so it has a pivotal role in what is shaping up as the first-ever war waged mainly by Special Forces. These elite units, which in the U.S. armed services include the Rangers, the Delta Force and navy commandos known as Seals - are all designed for highly mobile operations behind enemy lines.

Their missions range from surveillance and sabotage to hit-and-run raids to wipe out people and infrastructure in power centers such as a terrorist headquarters.

In Afghanistan, Special Forces can be used in several key roles: as military advisers to help with intelligence and air strikes for Afghan guerrilla forces fighting the Taleban, as attack groups to pursue, capture or kill terrorists in their mountain hideouts, and as spotters to infiltrate Taleban-controlled territory and provide ground control for bombing attacks and missile strikes.

These missions will require a local air base, the sources said, probably one in Afghanistan since Pakistan seems unlikely to want American forces on its soil and Uzbekistan seems too far away, especially in winter weather, from the Hindu Kush region that is home to the bin Laden facilities.

"You put in several thousand Special Forces, including a slice of the 75th Regiment, and several thousand more troops for logistics and extra protection, and you avoid the historical pattern in which Western armies end up vanishing in Afghanistan," according to John Pike, a U.S. specialist who is head of Globalsecurity.org. Until now, Special Forces have often been viewed with suspicion in the Pentagon, whose war doctrine favors the use of heavy armor battalions to overwhelm enemy forces with minimal losses. In Afghanistan, however, there is no enemy to be lured into a classic battle.

Pentagon reservations about Special Forces in Afghanistan also stem from poor combat record.

In 1993 in Somalia, U.S. troops bungled a raid into the capital, Mogadishu, and were mauled in the streets by tribesmen armed with machine guns and bazookas. They were promptly withdrawn by the Clinton administration.

In Afghanistan's rugged terrain, Russia's Special Forces, known as spetsnaz, were the cutting edge of an unsuccessful decadelong counterinsurgency war against Afghan tribesmen.

A key difference, if U.S. Special Forces now go to war in Afghanistan, is that they will be fighting guerrillas - several thousand bin Laden recruits and perhaps 20,000 Taleban troops - who lack help in terms of weapons and intelligence that the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China covertly funneled into Afghanistan to help defeat the Soviet invaders.

A U.S. campaign against the bin Laden hideouts and operational facilities for his terror network, known as Qaida, or "Base," has to target caves and manmade bunkers in the almost impassable mountains of the Hindu-Kush in northeast Afghanistan.

U.S. planners would strive to get intelligence about Taleban fighters or terrorists while on the move and dispatch helicopters to pin down the targets long enough for them to be surrounded by Special Forces.

Almost 30,000 men belong to the U.S. Special Operations Forces, including a tiny killer elite, known as Delta Force, whose members are trained, in essence, for rescuing hostages and for assassination of enemy leaders considered to fall into the category of legitimate targets.

The backbone of the U.S. Special Forces are the Rangers, a prestigious army force of paratroopers said to be constantly battle-ready and trained to ride helicopters into firefights at close range without artillery or close-in air support except from helicopters.

Similar forces exist in allied armies, especially Britain's Special Air Service and France's Foreign Legion and 13th Paratroop Regiment.

All these units have experience operating in enemy-held territory during the Gulf War and in the Balkans.

"The key is have your base close to the enemy's front line so that you can put small operations team in quickly and get them out in a hurry," a French military official said.

Like Mr. Pike, he envisaged U.S. control of an airfield on Afghan territory that could handle transport aircraft and had a security perimeter to keep the Taleban out of artillery range.

Jim Steinberg, a national security official in the Clinton administration, said: "You want to have Special Forces and helicopters ready to move when you finally get a break in the form of good intelligence."

But a U.S. base in Afghanistan, he said, would eventually trigger a backlash against any regime in Kabul that tolerated an American presence.