GlobalSecurity.org In the News

USA Today
October 11, 2001
Pg. 1

By Dave Moniz, Andrea Stone and Kirk Spitzer, USA Today

Here's what's expected next: In the deepest hours of a cold, moonless night over the bare mountains of Afghanistan, specially equipped Army Blackhawk helicopters packed with infrared sensors and satellite navigation gear will swoop in low and hover over a well-studied landing zone. In less than a minute, teams of U.S. commandos will descend by rope to begin their grisly work: capturing or killing Osama bin Laden's foot soldiers. They'll use non-lethal grenades to stun them, coordinate their stealthy movements with "whisper" microphones and pin their quarry down with laser-sighted machine guns.

For now, these are likely scenarios, described in hypothetical fashion by experts in commando tactics. Even when the actual operations unfold, they might not show up on CNN or in the nation's newspapers - at least not right away. And some covert actions of the new U.S. war on terrorism may never be revealed.

That's because the warriors waging the conflict are the stealth soldiers of the U.S. military: elite special operations forces. The daunting task for several thousand of these commandos is to root out the terrorists in Afghanistan, and possibly elsewhere.

A military source says commando raids in Afghanistan likely will begin soon.

"Clearly, it's going to be dangerous. It's going to be secret," predicts Dave Wilberding, a former team leader with the 1st Special Forces Group in Okinawa, Japan.

Who are these fighters?

They are a collection of seasoned intelligence specialists, deadly snipers, linguists, explosives experts and "snatch and grab" pros who are so secretive about their work that even their wives and parents don't know what they do. They are known by many names: Army Rangers, Green Berets and Delta Force; Navy SEALs and Air Force special ops.

Some almost certainly will die. Others will fight in the kind of fierce ground combat last seen in Somalia, in 1993, when U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers killed more than 500 Somalis but lost 18 of their own in a failed effort to capture aides to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

"These people could go out and drop out of the night with no warning, spend an hour or two on the ground, leaving nothing behind but smoking holes and screams," says John Gresham, a military researcher who co-wrote the non-fiction book Special Forces with Tom Clancy. "Special operations was made" for this war, he adds.

The battle already has been joined. Defense sources say that a dozen Army Green Berets - aided by British special forces - are now operating incognito in Afghanistan, and more are on the way. They are probing the landscape and providing intelligence on the movements of bin Laden's forces and the Taliban troops protecting them.

The commandos also are training anti-Taliban rebels to launch an offensive, possibly within days, against the ruling regime as U.S. bombing raids taper off.

In the weeks ahead, the Green Berets will be followed by helicopter-borne assault troops. Military officials and former Special Forces officers say they will fight a lightning war with strikes from bases in neighboring countries and forays of just a few hours at most on the ground.

Those who have read the history of past armies that have regretted invading Afghanistan say American forces are determined to avoid the mistakes of the British and Soviets, who fought large-scale wars with conventional troops - and lost.

"This is going to be a bunch of guys in black helicopters, flying around at night, jumping off and shooting people," says John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.Org, a defense research group.

The Pentagon never divulges details about missions involving the 45,000 special ops troops. The Army's Delta Force is so secretive that its compound at Fort Bragg, N.C., is off-limits even to other groups of commandos. Some Army soldiers won't dare speak Delta's name, choosing instead to identify them by euphemisms such as "D Boys," "dark ops" or "the dark side."

Each special ops branch has its own specialties:

. Army. The Delta Force, Green Berets and Rangers do everything from rescuing hostages to training rebels to parachuting into hostile territory from high altitudes.

. Air Force. Special ops airmen are expert in rescuing downed aircrews and coordinating airstrikes.

. Navy. SEALs (which stands for sea, air and land) are experts at tasks ranging from demolition to secret beach landings. They are not expected to play a major role in landlocked Afghanistan.

The Marines have troops with similar skills but no separate unit dedicated to special ops.

The elite of the elite warriors are members of Delta Force, just 360 strong. They, along with hundreds of Army Rangers, are most likely to be sent to hunt down terrorists hiding in caves and bunkers. These teams would be supported by the Green Berets, who are advising and training the rebel Northern Alliance troops fighting the Taliban.

The Green Berets - who trace their roots to the Kennedy administration and were popularized in Barry Sadler's Vietnam-era song, The Ballad of the Green Berets - are divided into five groups of 1,200 soldiers each. They operate in small teams that include specialists in reconnaissance, communications, demolition and weapons.

The 5th Special Operations Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., specializes in Central Asia. Some of the troops speak Afghan languages and know the local culture. The 10th Special Forces, based at Fort Carson, Colo., and Germany, specializes in cold weather missions, which is good training for Afghanistan's fall climate.

America's elite forces are older and more experienced than other combat forces and are selected for physical skills and mental toughness. Fewer than half those who try to become Green Berets make it.

Prospective Green Berets must pass a 3-week assessment course just to become serious candidates. The course involves team problem-solving and grueling daylong maneuvers in mountainous terrain. Those who pass then must take a 5-month qualifying course. All Green Berets are required to become "expert marksmen," the highest shooting rating.

Stan Florer, a retired Army colonel whose last tour was as chief of staff for Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, says many myths about commandos persist. "The guys who will go after the terrorists have mental endurance. They are guys who can deal with ambiguous situations," he says. "They would laugh at the image of Rambo."

Most prefer their unofficial nickname, "the quiet professionals."

Some special operations forces don't look like elite soldiers. Members of Delta Force and some Green Berets, Florer says, would be impossible to pick out of a lineup. They might not be muscle bound or sport military haircuts. They might, in fact, have beards and be fluent in obscure languages. They have to be quick thinkers and resourceful problem solvers. "Their best protection is their brain," Gresham says. They are an exclusive club of men - except for a few women allowed to fly in airplanes.

"They have got to handle the pressure of ambiguous orders and still think clearly," Florer says.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says many commando victories won't be announced. Failures, especially if Americans die, will no doubt be broadcast to the world by the enemy.

After the Somalis dragged the body of a dead Ranger through the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, in 1993, the Clinton administration withdrew forces from the country.

Special ops have left their footprints on several battlefields in recent years, sometimes with disastrous results. A mission in 1980 to rescue American hostages in Iran resulted in the deaths of 8 special ops troops when a C-130 cargo plane and a helicopter collided.

In 1984, poor coordination during an invasion of Grenada to rescue American students on the Caribbean island left 18 regular troops and commandos dead. Five years later in Panama, Delta Force troops rescued an American from a prison during a U.S. invasion. During the 1991 Gulf War, Green Berets sneaked into Iraq to locate targets and direct airstrikes.

The deaths of some forces involved in super-secret operations are never made public. In Special Forces, Gresham lists 14 Green Berets killed in 1998-99 alone. Pat Traeger, a former Green Beret and spokesman for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, says the casualty rate for special operations forces is nine times that of conventional forces.

Special operations forces, well funded at nearly $4 billion a year, are a world apart from much of America's military. The Pentagon also has its own regional headquarters for the nation's elite soldiers, Special Operations Command, at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. Gen. Hugh Shelton, the just-retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed Special Operations Command before he was picked to lead the U.S. military.

Experts say there are encouraging signs that America's shadow warriors can succeed in what is expected to be brutal, face-to-face encounters in Afghanistan.

Although the Soviets retreated from the country in 1989, they had some success fighting rebel forces there in the mid-1980s by using commandos. Former Green Beret commander Florer says that the Soviets were routing mujahedin soldiers with nighttime helicopter raids to hunt down their hideouts.

"They had completely taken apart the mujahedin," Florer says. Experts say only American-provided Stinger anti-aircraft missiles helped turn the tide for the Afghan rebels. The shoulder-fired missiles forced Soviet aircraft to fly above 10,000 feet, which reduced their effectiveness.

The question now: How will U.S. commandos fare?

One of the last U.S. military officers to spend time in Afghanistan believes they could do well. Former Army captain Richard Kidd, who worked in Afghanistan for a United Nations program in 1998-99, says the Taliban fighters are not invincible. Many come from feuding clans who may be tireless fighters but are not well trained and could be bribed into defecting.

In an e-mail distributed on the Internet, Kidd says Taliban troops aren't a great military force, but "Osama bin Laden and others do not think the U.S. has the will or the stomach for a fight."

Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, counters that this time the public is prepared for casualties. "We keep going," he says. "If we are making progress toward getting people and we lose 10 helicopters, I think the country has the stomach for it."

Copyright 2001 USA Today