For Exercise EARLY VICTOR, Forsythe’s CJSOTF directed the operations of two Special Forces companies, a Navy SEAL platoon, an element of Air Force special operations transport aircraft, a 160th SOAR Army helicopter unit, and a company of Army Rangers. The allied elements in the task force were Jordanian ranger and special forces companies and observer teams from Yemen, Egypt, and Kuwait. Forsythe’s mission was to conduct combined special reconnaissance (SR) and direct action (DA) missions—violent, rapidly executed raids. Practicing combined SR and DA missions in a Middle East environment proved prescient in late October when reports of 5th SFG’s ODAs being inserted in Afghanistan after the initial air campaign were received. By the time EARLY VICTOR ended on 26 October, LTC Forsythe and MAJ Solis felt that the 2nd Battalion staff, with its Special Forces Operational Detachments B (ODBs) and ODAs, was combat ready. They were anxious to join the 5th SFG’s fight in Afghanistan.
Figure 26. Amman, Jordan.
The next stop for the “2nd of the 5th” was Al-Jafr Air Base in southern Jordan to await further orders from the SOCCENT forward element in Qatar. LTC Forsythe was told to be ready for several possible missions. His battalion might be sent to Masirah Island, near Oman, or to Yemen or Qatar to be the CENTCOM theater crisis response element (CRE) or to serve as the headquarters for other units serving as a theater CRE. Solis was convinced that they would be moved to a base in Pakistan and from there into Afghanistan. As trained and most recently practiced in EARLY VICTOR, Forsythe and his staff planned to commit the 15 Special Forces ODAs first and then the three Special Forces company headquarters (ODBs) for regional command and control while the battalion base (FOB) initially remained outside the “denied area.” The battalion intelligence staff provided daily updates from the war zone and distributed information on Afghan culture; the country’s terrain, weather, infrastructure, and politics; and some history on British and Soviet interventions while they waited for orders.
3rd SFG Prepares for the Horn of Africa at Fort Bragg
In the wake of 9/11, COL Mark Phelan, commander, 3rd SFG, Fort Bragg, flew to Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) headquarters in Tampa to receive planning guidance for future operations. He anticipated that the coming war would eventually expand to attack terrorist bases outside of Afghanistan, and his 3rd SFG would be assigned to SOCCENT to deal with those in eastern Africa. U.S. Navy Capt Randy Goodman, the SOCCENT J3 operations officer, told Phelan that intelligence reports indicated that some of the al-Qaeda were leaving Afghanistan for Somalia and some of the neighboring countries. Since there were no war plans on the shelf for counterterrorist action in that region, Goodman granted Phelan “mission planning authority” to support deployment to the Horn of Africa. Phelan briefed his initial concept for this mission to the principal staff officers at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and received their approval. He intended to rotate his 1st and 2nd battalions in the theater every 30 days. CENTCOM directed the 3rd Battalion to complete Exercise FOCUS RELIEF in Nigeria. When that battalion returned in December to Fort Bragg, it would recover and then backfill shortages in the other two battalions moving in and out of the Horn of Africa.
Figure 27. The Central Command’s Horn of Africa region.
While the 3rd SFG staff refined this plan to carry Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) to eastern Africa in fall 2001, COL Phelan alternated his 1st and 2nd battalions to Camp Pickett, Virginia, where they rehearsed the daily tasks they would need to perform as forward perating bases (FOBs) once they arrived in the war zone. In particular, they practiced roundthe- clock communications with isolated units dispersed over a wide area. The 3rd Battalion in Nigeria was already operating as an FOB and would have two months’ experience when it returned in December.
Thinking Ahead: Senior Liaison Officers for Resistance Leaders
The 5th SFG had identified only two key resistance leaders in northern Afghanistan and none in the south based on initial intelligence briefings. It had learned little more than the names—Fahim Khan of the Northern Alliance and Rashid Dostum. These were the highestranking military commanders, and it was assumed that each had considerable political influence. In the UN, a delegate from Fahim Khan’s faction had been accepted officially as the political representative for Afghanistan. Detailed personal information about Fahim Khan and Rashid Dostum—ethnicity and education; personalities and backgrounds; the size of their forces; and the tactical state of their soldiers, weapons, and equipment—was not yet fully available.
Figure 28. TF Dagger Commander COL Mulholland gives GEN Myers (CJCS) an update at K2.
Despite that limitation, COL Mulholland chose to build his UW campaign around those two Afghan leaders. He believed that “it was going to be important to put a senior level of leadership” with Dostum and Fahim Khan “to help influence the political battlefield as well as the military.” He felt that he could accomplish this by using two of his three lieutenant colonel battalion commanders as liaison officers to the two Afghan warlords. Mulholland recounted that battalion commanders provided a more senior presence with these significant Afghan leaders. In addition, they were to establish sectors of responsibility. He contended that this arrangement would provide the Afghan generals “with an extra level of experience and expertise” and “disseminate the command and control dilemma.”
As the campaign progressed, the planning staffs anticipated that a Pashtun counterpart to Dostum and Fahim Khan would emerge to rally resistance in the south. If that happened, Mulholland would have a third battalion commander to send to that leader. While this concept fragmented the three battalion staffs and gave initial command and control of nine Special Forces companies and their ODAs directly to him, Mulholland considered it to be necessary to accomplish the assigned mission. It also allowed him to fill JSOTF-North staff vacancies.
Civil Affairs to Islamabad, Pakistan
In his remarks to the State Department on 4 October 2001, President Bush declared that “we are friends of the Afghan people,” pledging $320 million for humanitarian aid. He emphasized that the United States was not alone in this effort: “We will work with the UN agencies such as the World Food Program and work with private volunteer organizations to make sure this assistance gets to the people.” Three nights later, the commander of the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion (CAB) knocked on MAJ Matt DiJurnigan’s (pseudonym) door and told him, “Pack your bags.” This former marine and Army enlisted soldier, and DESERT STORM infantry company commander suddenly found himself a “first responder” to the president’s pledge.
On 9 October, DiJurnigan was in Tampa at the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) as the 96th CAB liaison officer in the civil-military operations cell in the J5 section. As the liaison officer to CENTCOM, he was familiar with the headquarters, the civil-military operations staff, and his normal duties. What he had not expected was his assignment on 12 October to the CENTCOM liaison cell at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. DiJurnigan’s mission was to determine whether there was a need to establish a civil-military operations center (CMOC) in Pakistan to implement the president’s desires.
A CMOC serves as the primary interface between the U.S. Armed Forces and the local population, humanitarian organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),