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Smoking him out

By Margarette Driscoll, Michael Prescott and Tony Allen-Mills

The air war against terror has been won but, as ground troops stand ready, the next phase will be the toughest. Margarette Driscoll, Michael Prescott and Tony Allen-Mills report

Gary Anderson does not look like a terrorist, but he knows how to think like one -indeed, how to think the unthinkable. He is a retired US Marine Corps colonel with experience of unconventional military operations in the Philippines, Lebanon, Bangladesh and Somalia. That has made him an invaluable weapon in American military preparations for war in Afghanistan.

As the commander of enemy forces in simulated Marine Corps war games, it is Anderson's job to dream up the scenarios that terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden might employ. At the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities (Ceto), a recently inaugurated division of the Marines Corps War-fighting Laboratory based in Quantico, Virginia, Anderson plays the "bad guy". "I've done some very terrible things with bio-weapons," Anderson confessed sheepishly last week. Some of his tactics are so devious and horrible that he thought it better not to reveal them: "I don't want to be accused of giving the enemy ideas."

Although some of the simulated action seems to spring from video games for teenagers, Anderson and his fellow commanders go to remarkable lengths to mirror real-life conflict. From their simulations it has emerged that some of the most dangerous threats in any unconventional battle might come from refugees -a prominent problem in Afghanistan.

Anderson, playing a terrorist, "infected" refugees with viruses, hoping they would be passed on should American troops come close or share their water with the people they are trying to help. With US forces expected to head into Afghanistan in the wake of last week's aerial bombings, Anderson expects to spend a busy winter "thinking like a terrorist".

The man poised to exploit his insights into terrorism is known to his grandchildren as General Pooh. Tommy Franks -he is never known as Thomas -is commander-in-chief of Centcom (US central command) at the MacDill air force base in Tampa, Florida.

Franks was overseeing naval operations in the Gulf when the USS Cole was attacked two years ago. Last year a plane carrying the American ambassador to Yemen was hijacked as she flew to a meeting with Franks and the Yemeni president. Franks is now running the Afghan war.

Franks told his troops last week as the air strikes began: "Our goal in this campaign is neither retaliation nor retribution but victory." He directs military operation from a room at Centcom, one wall of which has been fitted out with electronic screens tracking aircraft in the Middle East. MacDill is also home to the Special Operations Command post, which directs the elite tactical teams who are believed to be already on the ground in Afghanistan. Some 50 to 100 British officers are stationed at Centcom, helping to plot the assaults on Afghanistan. More British officers are attached to the Pentagon.

Off-duty, Franks wears cowboy boots and smokes cigars. He is known for his sense of humour and a vocabulary that can make even a battle-hardened soldier blush. To the president he is not just a military adviser but also a trusted friend. They are the same age and grew up in the same town in Texas. It is to Franks that George W Bush is listening closely as the air war comes to an end and the difficult answer has to be made to the question: what next?

As Bush sat in the basement situation room at the White House last Sunday, gathering his resolve for the start of the bombing campaign, he had one question for his advisers. "Is Tommy Franks ready to go?" he asked. Told that he was, Bush said: "All right. Then we're ready to go."

He asked the White House switchboard to get Tony Blair, his key ally, on the telephone. The prime minister's chartered Boeing 777 had just touched down after a two-day 10,000-mile round trip to Russia, Pakistan and India, where he had been marshalling support for the bombing raids.

Blair was in his bullet-proof Daimler heading for Westminster. According to Downing Street, he and his closest aides, Alastair Campbell and Anji Hunter, had other things on their minds: the remaining moments of the England v Greece football match. They turned on the radio two minutes before David Beckham's equalising goal.

Blair was still euphoric when he took the president's call. Bush asked how he was. "Very happy because England have just qualified for the World Cup," Blair allegedly replied. The president, who relaxes by studying baseball scores and is not known for his interest in foreign sports, was no doubt bemused.

Airstrikes were about to go ahead, he told Blair, who confided the news to a small circle of senior cabinet ministers and to Sir David Manning, his foreign affairs adviser. Shortly before the strikes began, Blair telephoned the Queen. Opposition leaders were also informed under privy counsellor's terms of secrecy.

It was Blair's decision that the British should join in the first night's raids, not only to show that America did not stand alone but also to turn up the pressure on other European states that may be required to take part as the military action unfolds. "This has to be a broad-based coalition," said a minister. "We don't want people who've signed up for the full ticket going wobbly."

ALTHOUGH Blair chaired a full cabinet meeting on Monday, he quickly set up a small "war cabinet". John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, Gordon Brown, the chancellor, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, David Blunkett, the home secretary, and Clare Short, the overseas development secretary, met him for 50 minutes on Tuesday to discuss war aims and humanitarian aid.

They will be making the critical decisions if and when ground troops go in, advised by Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the defence staff. The key meetings are also attended, however, by Campbell and Hunter, raising eyebrows throughout Whitehall and especially in the diplomatic service.

The two aides flanked Blair at Pakistan's cabinet table when he met President Pervez Musharraf just over a week ago in Islamabad, yet they are Labour party apparatchiks whose appointment to the state payroll was controversial. "Campbell and Hunter never claimed any great expertise in foreign affairs as far as I am aware, so it is a surprise," commented one Labour MP. Less controversially, the war briefings are also attended by Jonathan Powell, Downing Street's chief of staff. He is a former diplomat whose brother Charles was foreign policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher.

The presence of the political advisers constantly at the prime minister's side indicated his main role in this conflict: America's chief foreign ambassador, as The Wall Street Journal put it. While the laconic Bush sent in the military, the loquacious Blair took up the diplomatic offensive.

The overall level of co-ordination within the anti- Taliban coalition constructed by Bush and massaged by Blair is "infinitely more complicated than the Gulf war", said a source. There are military, diplomatic, intelligence and humanitarian considerations, with potential fall-out in Israel and Palestine to consider, as well as relations between Pakistan and India and the role of Russia.

When Bin Laden greeted the initial salvo of bombs with a pre-recorded broadcast on the Al-Jazeera Arabic satellite television channel, Blair's aides set about a counter-attack against "Spin Laden". Blair also appeared on Al-Jazeera, telling his Arab interviewer that he read the message of the Koran with interest and finishing with "shukrun" (thank you in Arabic). He then took his message to the Arab world in person on another whirlwind tour.

A red carpet was rolled out to welcome Blair in Oman, where he was escorted to a guest palace by four military vehicles armed with anti-aircraft weapons. After working on papers for two hours, he flew by Puma helicopter to Al Sha'afa to meet British forces and share a curry.

Wearing a white linen shirt, he addressed everyone from generals to corporals as "guys" and contrived to confide to soldiers that one of his sons was looking to a military career. Then it was back for dinner with Sultan Qaboos, the nation's Sandhurst-educated ruler for 30 years. While in Oman he spoke by telephone to Yasser Arafat, preparing for the Palestinian leader's visit to London tomorrow. Next day he flew on to Egypt, homeland of some of the most murderous Islamic terrorists.

The Saudi Arabians put off a proposed visit, however, saying a clash of engagements would not allow enough time for Blair to meet key members of the government. In reality, Saudi rulers were nervous about the effect his presence might have on their own fundamentalists. Bin Laden is a Saudi and one of the driving forces behind his war against the West is the continued presence of American troops on Saudi soil.

The Saudi nerves were a reminder that the prime minister's diplomatic offensive has been more than a series of bland photo-opportunities. Behind the public smiles and handshakes, he has been attempting to bolster moderate Islamic governments as they try to contain the fury of their own fundamentalists.

A week ago Muslim radicals in Pakistan were burning effigies of Bush: yesterday they stamped on the charred remains of an effigy of Blair.

Blair was apparently shaken by the lack of understanding for the West's cause that he encountered in the Middle East. On his return he set about writing an article for Arab newspapers setting out the argument: "There is a global consensus against terrorism and the question Muslims must ask themselves is: Do you want to live under the sort of regime we see in Kabul?, because that is what Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda want for you." The prime minister's additional message -that military action goes no further than Afghanistan -is aimed not just at an uncomprehending and jittery Middle East but also at Washington.

Insiders believe the doves in Washington -led by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Colin Powell, the secretary of state -have fed Blair lines to help to keep a check on hawks such as Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary, who want to extend the war against terrorism to Iraq. Rice talks daily with Manning and has also spoken to Campbell.

As Blair has consolidated his position as a key partner, with a growing following in America, contact between British and American officials has been expanding "like a club sandwich", according to a Washington source. A team drawn from the Foreign Office and the British embassy in Washington met last week to co-ordinate humanitarian programmes. Another was formed for a discussion of post-Taliban Afghanistan.

Most importantly, a senior British embassy figure visited the White House every day last week for a meeting with officials at the National Security Council to hear what they were telling the president about the bombing campaign so far and to get some indication of Bush's thinking on the next phase. There were plenty of signs in Washington that, as the week progressed, Bush had an open mind.

THE bombs and rockets that began to fall on Afghanistan last week had a bracing effect on Bush and his senior officials, say White House insiders. Key aides such as Rice and Richard Armitage, Powell's deputy at the State Department, had been "utterly drained". Bush, despite his famous 10pm bedtime, had looked "exhausted". The safe start to the bombing campaign was like a tonic. "It was very stressful getting it all together," one source said. "But once it was under way, you could see the spring in their step."

Thursday was exactly a month after the terrorist atrocities that precipitated this crisis. That morning Bush took taken part in an emotional commemorative service at the Pentagon. At ground zero, the ruin of the World Trade Center in New York, there was a minute's silence at 8.48am, the time the first plane struck. The air there was still thick with smoke and dust and, like a reproach to the faint-hearted, the 17-acre crater continued to burn.

In the evening Bush held his first prime-time news conference, daring to elbow aside Friends, the most popular television show in the United States. He was confident that what he had to say would attract a bigger audience than any drama. Coolly, he used the conference to urge the Taliban to give up Bin Laden in exchange for an end to the bombing. "If you cough him up, we'll reconsider what we're doing to your country," he said. "You still have a second chance. Just bring him in, and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him."

There was no response, and none was expected. "They aren't going to hand him over, so we'll have to go and dig him out," one retired senior officer predicted. "We'll smoke him out of his cave and we'll get him eventually," Bush promised. However, the time frame was unclear. "It may happen tomorrow," he said. "It may happen a month from now. It may take a year or two."

ALL week fires had raged 7,000 miles away in the mountains of Afghanistan. Witnesses described how a terrorist camp "melted" under bombardment. The rocks "seemed to turn into fire", said Atiq Ullah, a shopkeeper, who was fleeing to Pakistan. Ghulam Gul, a taxi driver, was listening to the radio when Jalalabad, his home town, was lit up by flames: "We stood on the roof and watched the airport burn all night."

Tracer fire lit the sky above Kabul and dramatic cockpit video recorded huge explosions as cluster bombs sought out terrorist targets. A surface-to-air missile site was hit, causing a huge fireball.

Missiles personalised with messages of revenge -"For the NYPD" -destroyed an arms dump, along with planes and runways at Kabul airport. Fires raged out of control in Kandahar, the home of Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban. His stepfather and 10-year-old son were said to have been killed on the first night of the bombing.

As bombs rained down, so did thousands of vitamin-fortified rice cakes, each stamped "this food is a gift from the United States of America". Air supremacy was achieved in three days. Afghanistan was not, as one military strategist dryly put it, "a target-rich environment".

Kabul was hit again early yesterday, but there is expected to be a lull over the next few days as Muslims prepare to commemorate Miraj un Nabi, the ascension of the Prophet. The air war is all but over. Strategists in Washington and Central Command are planning "phase two", the ground war.

Concerned at protecting the fragile military alliance that has allowed Washington to position its troops in several countries in the region, the Pentagon has been releasing few details of its ground force deployments.

However, local reports indicate a steady flow of heavy American transport planes into former Soviet bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and also to Pakistan, where US military personnel were observed at the Indian Ocean port of Pasni and at a remote airbase near Jacobabad.

With additional staging facilities available on board the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier that has arrived in the region with its decks clear for deploying troops by helicopter, US forces are poised to threaten Kabul either with a long-drawn-out war of special forces hit-and-run attrition, or with a sudden ground invasion aimed at setting Bin Laden's followers to flight.

In either case, the US Army's Green Berets and special anti-terrorist Delta Force, the US Navy's Seal commandos and Britain's SAS are already operating in small groups in Afghanistan, monitoring communications, waiting for targets and attempting to identify the more remote hideouts of Bin Laden's scattered troops.

The operation so far, although high-profile, has been relatively modest. Some 40 aircraft were involved in the first night's bombing and only half that subsequently. When the United States bombed Serbia, the operation began with 300 planes, later rising to 1,000; some 2,500 were deployed against Iraq.

However, what Afghanistan lacks in suitable targets for aircraft is made up for by its difficult terrain. Bush has carefully reiterated that this may be a long war. Boyce, too, said we should expect it to go on until next summer.

Popular thinking says the forces have only three weeks to oust the Taliban and capture Bin Laden before Ramadan starts (when military action would be abhorrent to the Muslim world) and winter sets in. The bitter cold can be intolerable. A wind is expected to start in the next few weeks that can take the temperature down to -50C. Snow closes the mountain passes for five months.

Yet some observers think the Americans could use the winter to their advantage: if they can force Bin Laden and the Taliban into the mountains and cut off their supply lines, they could leave them to starve or freeze while they set about winning hearts and minds by doling out rice cakes on the flatlands.

Military experts point out that the clear winter skies are an advantage for air power -and that the cold increases the usefulness of heat-seeking military technology.

One Pentagon dream scenario is that a "stiletto strike" by highly trained elite commandos will turn the course of the war. If the whereabouts of Bin Laden or his senior associates can be reliably identified, a flight of specially equipped Blackhawk helicopters will dive through the mountain passes, dropping teams close to their target by rope.

With advanced night-fighting equipment, high-tech body armour and near-silent "whisper" microphones, the US commandos will dig in by day, probing the terrain after dark. "This is going to be a bunch of guys in black helicopters, flying around at night, jumping off and shooting people," predicted John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a defence research group.

The troops will also be looking to establish a bridgehead from which to launch raids against Taliban loyalists. A military source said it would not just dent Taliban confidence but would also "look great on CNN".

The Americans are determined to learn from the mistakes of the Russians. They are using Apache helicopter gunships because they want to be fast and flexible, to be able to dip in and out without having to rely on setting up supply lines.

Colonel Vladimir Pesterev, a commander during the 10-year Russian occupation, described some of the hardships ground troops would face. "In the mountains it is very cold, even in summertime," he said. "Food can be thrown from helicopters, but what can be done about water? Rubber containers break when they hit the rocks. Our soldiers would lick the rocks because there would be no water otherwise. If men were sent below to fetch water, there would be an ambush and one or two would be killed."

His advice? "Learn to fight like the Afghans do. They can shoot from any bush, any building. My troops had a truck that was shot at by a 12-year-old boy with a grenade launcher. Nobody even thought he could fire. He shot several men and destroyed the truck."

Pakistani intelligence officers have told the Americans that their best hope is to encourage Taliban defections in the hope that the regime will crumble. To assist this the CIA is sending in a "surge" of spies and has put a price of $ 5m on Bin Laden's head.

Boyce says betrayal is their best hope. "I'm sure there will be someone who doesn't support Bin Laden who will know where he is and will tell us. It will be an Afghan and we will flush him (Bin Laden) out," he said.

Can they capture Bin Laden alive? It seems unlikely. His biographer says his local sha, or bodyguard, have orders to kill him rather than allow him to be captured by the infidel. But the aims of America and its partners go much further than eradicating Bin Laden.

While political strategists discuss the difficulties of rebuilding post Taliban Afghanistan, the arrival of Arafat in London for talks with Blair this week indicates the much grander ambition that is at work in this crisis. To the consternation of Israel, Bush and Blair have moved decisively in favour of the rapid creation of an independent Palestinian state. Bush seems set on forcing Israel to co-operate.

"This is the cleverest move they could make," said Mai Yamani, a Saudi research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. "If they want to isolate and destabilise Bin Laden they need to show that they mean what they say. War is not enough. They have to start sorting out some of the issues."

"Before September 11, Bush wouldn't even think of meeting Arafat," said an Israeli minister. "Now he's talking about an independent Palestinian state." In times of terror, it is not only the military who learn to think the unthinkable.

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Limited