The other side of the victory is the preparation for a failed military operation of the US military, "Operation Python"

The incident occurred in March 2002, when U.S. forces led by U.S. forces liquidated operations of the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaida in the Gardez Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, and were generally considered to be a major victory, although the U.S. military and its allies paid a relatively high price in the early stages of the operation. This is the general conclusion of the media, but with the emergence of new information, this view has been shaken, this is not to say that the operation of the US military has been defeated, in fact, the US military has absolute superiority in technical equipment and troop strength to be defeated by the mission is unlikely, but the cost it paid and the mistakes in the operation are beyond our previous understanding.

Preparations for "Operation Python"

In early 2002, anti-Taliban coalition forces, supported by the United States military, had driven the Taliban and al-Qaida out of Kabul, and at least on the surface, Afghanistan had been protected by the anti-Taliban coalition, but neither Taliban leader Murvi Omar nor Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been lost. Therefore, the next action of the US military and its allies is to focus on how to catch these two people and their followers.

From the beginning of the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan to Operation Python, the U.S. military supported unconventional forces in northern Afghanistan to cooperate with anti-Tajik coalition forces in northern Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida (hereinafter referred to as "al-Qaida"). This mode of action played an extremely important role in the process of overthrowing the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan and was unanimously endorsed by the U.S. military from top to bottom. However, as frontal combat ended, U.S. and anti-Tajik coalition forces began to face opponents who had been reduced to unconventional warfare, i.e., to guerrilla warfare, and this mode of warfare began to show its limitations.

In late November 2001, the U.S. military organized a siege operation against the remnants of al-Qaida in the Tora Bora Mountains, still using an unconventional mode of operations. With the support of U.S. special forces, Afghan forces launched an attack on the remnants of al-Qaida in the area, but ultimately failed. Hundreds of Al Qaeda forces in the Tora Bora Mountains managed to escape. After analyzing the operation, the US military believes that this is because conventional forces have not been used to block the way for al-Qaida to flee to the Pakistani border. The U.S. military began to consider using conventional forces in combat, acting as a force to block the retreat of al-Qaida, and completing combat tasks with special forces and Afghan troops. Shortly after the end of the operation in the Tora Bora Mountains, CIA intelligence agencies in Kabul learned that Al-Qaida personnel had begun to appear in the Gardez region of eastern Afghanistan. After further reconnaissance, the CIA confirmed that al-Qaida had begun to assemble in the Shasikot Valley in the area.

To this end, the US military began to prepare for the clearance of the Shasicot Valley, which became known as "Operation Python". The name is so because the U.S. military wants its troops to capture, entangle, and eventually hang their opponents like giant pythons.

Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the special forces under the U.S. Military Central Command have been divided into two large parts, the so-called "white special forces" and "black special forces". The former refers to special forces that do not have confidentiality in the tasks they perform that cannot be disclosed, and the latter is a special forces that cannot be disclosed in the performance of confidential tasks. The commander of the "White Special Forces" was Rear Admiral Karan, and the team was divided into two parts, deployed in the northern and southern regions of Afghanistan, and named the "Short Sword" task force and the "K-knife" task force, respectively. Among them, the "K-knife" task force is mainly composed of Allied special forces, including members of the "Navy SEAL" special forces of the US military; The Shortsword task force consisted of the U.S. Army's 4th Special Forces Group and was commanded by Colonel Malho.

By January 2002, the Shortsword task force began sending reconnaissance missions into the Gardès area. The force consisted of the "Alpha" squad of the 3rd Battalion of the 5th Special Forces Brigade and the "Texas 14" detachment of CIA operatives, and part of the Afghan force under zia's command, which was later named the "Hammer" task force. Also operating alongside the aforementioned "White Special Forces" were the "Black Special Forces," named Task Force 11 (code-named "Longsword"), whose existence has never been officially recognized by the United States. The unit's U.S. personnel, all dressed in local Afghan clothing, had only one primary mission: to hunt down America's most dangerous enemy leaders, such as Omar and bin Laden.

The main personnel of Task Force 11 come from the Delta Force of the Army Special Forces, which is the elite of the elite of the full-time counterterrorism missions in the U.S. Army Special Forces "Green Berets", and the 6th Squad of the Navy's "SEAL" Special Forces, and the elite of the Navy's Special Forces elite. Major General Daley, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command under the U.S. Special Operations Command, is also the commander of Task Force 11. Major General Daly, who held several functions, appointed his deputy, Brigadier General Trebon, to exercise command of Task Force 11 on his behalf. The move led to the suspicion of some within the command that Brigadier General Trebond lacked ground combat experience and was unfit to carry out this command. Under the U.S. military's joint operations system, Trebon was accountable to Admiral Franks, commander of Central Command, who had operational command of Task Force 11, but at the level of joint special operations command, Major General Daley often gave operational orders to the task force. This situation is somewhat characteristic of multi-headed command and may have a negative impact on combat operations.

At Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Harrell leads an intelligence integration team established on the orders of Admiral Franks, which is mainly responsible for integrating all information related to Afghanistan, analyzing and collating it and providing it to Franks. This intelligence integration group was named the "Hunting Knife" task force, and a reconnaissance detachment called the "Advance Combat Unit" was formed under it. The operational control of this reconnaissance detachment belongs to Task Force 11, which can also be understood as part of the so-called "Black Special Forces". The advance combat unit is not a permanent organization, but is composed of personnel temporarily drawn from various special forces according to the needs of the mission, mainly to carry out high-risk reconnaissance tasks deep into enemy-occupied areas. The detachment was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Brabar from the Delta force.

According to the relevant information obtained, the U.S. military carefully studied the topography of the Shasikot Valley. This valley region is divided into upper and lower parts, and Upper Shasikot is very high and uninhabited. It is for this reason that the Valley of Shasikot referred to in the combat area actually refers to Shasikot. The Chasikot Valley is about 8 km long and 4 km wide, and at the southern end of the valley there is an arrow-shaped mountain range called Finger Mountain, which divides the entrance to the valley into two populations, southwest and southeast. The highest peak at the southern end of the valley is Takoukar Peak, which is 3100 meters above sea level, and from the top of the peak you can overlook the entire valley. To the west of the valley there is a hump-shaped peak known as "Whale Mountain". There are 4 villages in the valley, the most ideal of which are the roads that surround Whale Mountain in the west, and the roads in the south and east that lead to the Pakistani border, which are also the main routes envisaged for the escape of Al-Qaida personnel.

Based on this topographical condition, Lieutenant Colonel Rosengard, a combat officer of the Shortsword task force, believed that the enemy in the valley would only have a few men left to resist, and that its main force would choose to flee. In this case, it is likely to choose a path located on the eastern ridge. Therefore, if the operation in the valley is relatively smooth, then the key to total victory is that the US military can stop the retreat of many personnel of the "al-Qaida" group on this path. Rosengald advocated the continuation of the previous conventional approach to warfare, with U.S. special forces supporting Afghan forces in combat. The merit of this approach, he argues, is that Afghan forces can identify al-Qaida members mixed with the population and avoid exposing U.S. forces directly to the local population and treating them as occupying forces. The latter point is strongly avoided by all foreign troops entering Afghanistan, because it will arouse strong opposition from the local Afghan tribes, which have always been known for their militarism and resistance to foreign domination, and even provoke armed resistance.

Although Rosengald's proposal was consistent with the idea of reducing the use of conventional forces in Afghanistan by the U.S. military hierarchy, in view of the failure of Operation Torabora, the U.S. military ultimately decided to devote some of its conventional forces. Carry out the task of cutting off al-Qaida's retreat. Eventually, Central Command approved the use of U.S. special forces, conventional forces, and Afghan forces, and gave it the code name Operation Python.

The conventional unit planned for the U.S. military was the 3rd Brigade of the Army's 101st Air Assault Division, also known as the 3rd Brigade Combat Team. According to the custom of the American army, if it sends a brigade or regiment to participate in combat, but does not deploy it with its superior command unit such as a division, then the brigade or regiment is called a brigade combat team or regiment combat team. In general, brigade combat teams include brigade headquarters and brigade-affiliated units, as well as some reinforced support units. For the 101st Air Assault Division, the brigade's reinforced support units usually consisted of 1 artillery battalion, 1 attack helicopter battalion (usually ah-64 Apache attack helicopter battalion), 1 UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter battalion, 1 CH-47 Chinookan transport helicopter company, and gendarmerie platoons, engineers, communications, and military intelligence detachments. As a result, the total strength of the entire brigade combat team is about 5,000 people. This time, however, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Division did not get so much reinforcement.

According to Franks' orders, the support it received did not include an artillery battalion or an attack helicopter battalion, and its total strength, including Afuvan's troops, was limited to 2,200 men. This happened because the U.S. military leadership believed that it was entirely possible to take advantage of the support of fixed-wing aircraft in the air, without the need for reinforcements of artillery and attack helicopters. But this consideration is divorced from the actual situation on the battlefield. Ground artillery can fire continuously in any weather condition than aircraft that are more severely affected by weather conditions, and their deployment time is much longer than that of aircraft that are severely limited by combat radius and air stay time. Colonel Wilsonsky, commander of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Division, was very dissatisfied with this, and after repeated requests, only 8 Apache attack helicopters were reinforced, which seriously affected the combat effectiveness of the brigade's combat team. Eventually, this weakened brigade combat team was named the "Rick Carson" task force.

The operation was the first time in decades that the U.S. Army had sent a brigade-sized infantry unit to engage a well-prepared adversary without artillery support. Despite air support, those fixed-wing aircraft used JDAM "Joint Direct Attack Munitions" and could only carry out effective strikes with precise knowledge of the enemy's location. The other AC-130 "gunboat aircraft", which can provide effective direct ground support, is slow and has a large target, and the Air Force does not dare to risk letting it fly low over enemy positions during the day or at night with bright moonlight to provide support.

Moreover, even if these aircraft can effectively implement support, the ground force commander needs to apply to the air force or naval command system for such support, and cannot give orders directly as the artillery in his own formation, which greatly affects the timeliness of air support. This situation is exacerbated by changes in personnel on the part of the Air Force. At the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military suddenly transferred Lieutenant General Mosley, who lacked experience in commanding close air support, to replace the experienced Lieutenant General Wardle air force as commander of the coalition air force. Moreover, at the beginning of Operation Python, Lieutenant General Mosley Was not in Afghanistan, but was visiting countries within the jurisdiction of Central Command to gain support for the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq.

During Operation Python, Mosley also lacked coordination with the Commander of the Ground To use the Air Force, Mikrasek, and many of the issues that required their direct consultation were handed over to the staff officers below. This creates considerable difficulties for the rapid resolution of problems, as these staff officers often lack sufficient experience and authority to resolve problems quickly. Because it was not expected to encounter fierce resistance, the importance of close air support for ground forces was not given enough attention. The failure of the staff of the Air Force Command to hand over command of close air support to the Ground Forces Commander during the planning process also had a serious impact on air support in combat.

Not only are there problems in strengthening weapons and air support, but the command relationship between the Rick Carson task force that participates in the war as a regular force and the "short sword" task force that participates in the war is also more complicated. This is because Task Force Commander Rick Carson Wilson and Task Force Commander Malholland are both colonels, and disagreements over operational coordination will be difficult to resolve at their level. To address this, the U.S. military decided to establish a tactical command at Bagram Air Base to unify the command of special forces and conventional forces participating in the war.

Colonel Mullholland recommended that Major General Hagenbeck, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, be the commander of this tactical command agreed to by Lieutenant General Mikrašek, commander of the Allied Ground Forces Command in Afghanistan, and finally approved by General Franks. As a result, Hagenbeck moved his division from Uzbekistan to Bagram Air Base as commander of the Allied Ground Forces Forward Command to unify command of the special forces and conventional forces involved in the war. Of the units involved, the only one not under his command was Task Force 11, which remained under the direct command of Admiral Franks.

It is worth mentioning that, according to Lieutenant General Mikrasek's idea, it is not necessary for a division headquarters to serve as such a tactical command, but the army top brass believes that this task is most appropriate for a division headquarters. However, from a common sense point of view, since the conventional troops participating in the battle were dispatched by the 101st Air Assault Division, it was more reasonable that the division headquarters should serve as this tactical command. However, at that time, the United States was intensively preparing for the invasion of Iraq, and the 101st Division would have another heavy responsibility, so it had to choose the 10th Mountain Division to fill the numbers.

The problem here is that the 10th Mountain Division is not only understaffed, but also dispersed, and more importantly, one-third of its divisional staff are inexperienced novices. In this way, the participating units of Operation Python are obviously characterized by a patchwork. The entire combat force is less than 1 brigade (more than 2,000 people), and its personnel come from 8 countries. The U.S. military alone was drawn from 2 army divisions, 2 special brigades, 1 mixed aviation unit, and secret agencies such as the CIA, which caused a certain negative impact on operational coordination. Not only that, but while the coalition forces were staffed by elite units, the main force was a few hundred Afghan soldiers recruited from different provinces and tribes (they were responsible for the main clearance tasks, and their identities were more convenient when entering the villages). These soldiers have only undergone 1 month of military training, and there is obviously a deficiency in combat skills.

Most of the special reconnaissance tasks on the coalition side are carried out by the K-knife task force, whose personnel come from 6 countries, and the commander is not experienced in mountain warfare because he is a member of the "SEALs" unit, and is even considered not good at mountain combat. Although the "Rick Carson" task force, which was responsible for airborne and ambush blockade tasks, was drawn from the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Division, its personnel were drawn from different battalions and companies of the brigade, and many officers had never trained together, but had only met, which was very unfavorable to the coordination between the various units.

According to the principle of unified command, all units fighting in the same combat area should be placed under the unified command of the same combat commander, which is also an inevitable requirement of the joint operation system of the US military and the joint operation system of all national armies. However, the US 11th Special Force, which also participated in Operation Python, was not placed under the command of Hagenbeck, commander of the Forward Command of the Allied Ground Forces in Afghanistan, which clearly violated the principle of unified command. After consultation, Task Force 11 agreed that The Forward Command would send a liaison officer to its operations centre, and the Commander of the Advance Combat Force, Brabal, under the command of the Intelligence Integration Group, also agreed to provide the intelligence obtained from the operation to the Forward Command. Although some remedies are available, the specific coordination problems between many of the participating forces have not been thoroughly resolved.

After research, the initial battle plan of Operation Python was formulated, which was actually based on Rosengald's plan. That is, the "Hammer" task force enters the western end of the valley to launch an attack, annihilates or expels the "Al Qaeda" organization in the valley to the east, and then the "Rick Carson" task force airborne and occupies the blocking position on the "Al Qaeda" escape route to intercept it, and finally completely annihilate it. The implementation of this action plan began on 25 February. The operational concept was approved by Admiral Franks, who also suggested that Hagenbeck rename the Forward Command to the "Coalition United Mountain Task Force Command."

In order to further refine the battle plan, the staff of the command carried out arduous continuous work. At the same time, the participating units also carried out intensive combat training. The biggest headache for the U.S. military is the Afghan forces that will fight. The Texas 14 detachment was training the Afghan soldiers, but its commander, Captain Thomas, had little confidence in leading the soldiers, who had little operational skills, into the valley at night. At this time, the advance combat units were also distressed by the lack of access to operational regional intelligence. They know that under such conditions, reconnaissance satellites and communications monitoring cannot be of great use, and the use of helicopters will shock the grass and snakes, and can only take the form of reconnaissance groups entering the valley to approach reconnaissance.

To this end, Brabal decided to carry out the reconnaissance of the arrival in two stages and divided the reconnaissance force into two groups, "Julian" and "Indian". The first phase is vehicle reconnaissance, using a car scout to travel along roads southwest and southeast of Galdés, figuring out how to enter the valley by car or on foot; In the second phase, the two teams were sent to reconnoiter the valley from both the north and the south to prepare for the dive into the valley before the start of the operation.

After 2 phases of reconnaissance, it was confirmed that the aforementioned Upper Shasikot Valley could not be a route for attack and al-Qaida escape, and it was determined that only the southern side of the valley could be used as an offensive route, especially several peaks in the south, including Takoukar, which overlooked the valley. The U.S. military believes that there are 150 to 250 militants in the valley, trying to launch a spring offensive after wintering in the valley. These people are likely to mingle with the local population and live in villages within the valley. Once the operation begins, the enemy is unlikely to resist, resisting for at most 24 hours to cover the escape of the al-Qaida leader. On the basis of these reconnaissance results, the detailed operational plan differed little from the initial idea, mainly the addition of the K-knife task force responsible for monitoring the southern part of the valley and deploying a cordon on the periphery, and Task Force 11 was on standby at Bagram Air Base at any time, and was dispatched to arrest the leader of al-Qaida as soon as he appeared.

In the process of refining the battle plan, there was a great deal of confusion about when and where the "Rick Carson" special attack troops carried out airborne operations. The Special Forces believe that in order to improve the suddenness and safety of the operation, the main force of the force should descend on the Upper Xiasicot at night, occupy the high ground and dive eastward into the various blocking positions. This programme clearly exemplifies the way special forces operate, focusing on launching raids to gain a surprise advantage. The 3rd Brigade of the 101st Division insisted on the need for a full-scale air assault on Nizhny Shasikot during the day. Their reasoning was that the upper Hasicote was too high and covered with ice and snow, it was difficult to find a suitable landing field, and the power of the helicopters at high altitudes decreased, and the load capacity also decreased, affecting the number of troops to be delivered in the first batch. Rosengald, on the part of the special forces, strongly objected to this, pointing out that an air assault on Nishikisikot would affect the plan to lure the enemy to flee, and the plan to intercept him during the escape would be frustrated.

On February 20, the US military command organization conducted a wargame exercise, and the contradiction between special forces and conventional forces on the above issues broke out in full swing. Colonel Marhoran was extremely annoyed by this, pointing out that there was no such precedent in the history of the United States army, and if it could occupy the high ground, it should never attack from the bottom. He believes that there will be great risks if task force Rick Carson does as they have planned. The lawsuit between the two sides reached the "Coalition United Mountain Special Road Force Command", and Hagenbeck, who also came from the conventional force, supported the opinion of the "Rick Carson" special force and decided to let the ministry carry out an air assault on Lower Shasicott during the day.

Due to the harsh weather, Operation Python was postponed for 2 days and is scheduled to start on February 27. During the postponement, the CIA's intelligence officer, code-named Spider, provided a new piece of intelligence, saying that local informants reported that there were 580 to 700 al-Qaida militants in the Shasikot Valley. Not only are al-Qaida more than three times as many as previously estimated, but they are deployed to the mountains instead of living in villages as originally estimated. This means that al-Qaida should have known in advance that the U.S. military was about to launch an attack. However, in the face of such a huge change in enemy situation, the US military seemed indifferent.

Both Gray, chief of operations under Commander hagenbeck of the Coalition United Mountain Task Force Command, and Brilli, chief of intelligence, were informed of the intelligence, but they ignored it on the grounds that the intelligence from a single source was not very credible. More seriously, they did not inform the Rick Carson task force of this information. This shows that the problem of intelligence sharing in the US military's joint operations system has not been well resolved. Throughout the pre-war preparations, the commanders of the "Texas 14" detachment did not participate in the exercise process of the "Rick Carson" and "Shortsword" task forces, with serious consequences.

Thomas, commander of task force "Hammer" of the Texas 14 detachment, has always believed that when his troops enter the valley from the west, American aircraft will bomb the area suspected of being enemy positions on Whale Hill for up to 55 minutes. Thomas also informed the Afghan force commander Zia of the plan as a promise, as a way to boost the will to fight of these Afghan soldiers, who lack morale and combat skills. However, staff officers within the command said they had never heard of the 55-minute claim that the bombing lasted. It was not until after the war that it was understood that the reason for this error was that a 55-minute bombing campaign had been proposed during the discussion of the battle plan, but it was not adopted. The wishful Thomas made the proposal a final decision.

One of the reasons for the emergence of such a series of reasons that should not be neglected is that the US military is too light on the enemy, always believing that al-Qaida will not put up stubborn resistance in the Shasicott Valley, and the US military only needs to drive it to the preset blocking position and use air power to crush it, and the ground forces will clean up the mess. This light hostility eventually cost the U.S. military even more. By the 27th, the weather in the combat area was still bad. As a result, Hagenbeck decided to postpone the start of the operation by another 48 hours, with the final start of the operation at 6:30 a.m. on March 2. In this way, in an atmosphere of mutual resentment and incomprehension and lack of communication, "Operation Python" entered the final countdown.