ARTICLE

February 2002

Will Special Ops Success ‘Change the Face of War?’

by Harold Kennedy

Although deployed in small numbers, U.S. special operations forces played a key role in the war in Afghanistan, one that could reshape the way that the United States uses its armed services in future conflicts, according to experienced observers.

“This was the first time that special operations had such a central role in a military campaign,” retired Special Forces Col. John “Scot” Crerar, now an analyst for the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command in Alexandra, Va., told National Defense.

In fact, nearly all of the U.S. ground action involved units trained in special operations, officials noted.

“It’s fair to say, at least for the ground portion, this was a special-operations war,” said retired Maj. Gen. William C. Moore, chairman of the Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict Division of the National Defense Industrial Association.

At the very beginning of the Afghan campaign, President Bush told reporters that it would be “a different kind of war,” explaining: “There will be a conventional component to the conflict, but much of what takes place will never make it to the TV screens.”

U.S. air power provided much of the campaign’s punch. Wave after wave of Air Force, Navy and Marine combat aircraft pummeled al Qaeda and Taliban fortifications throughout Afghanistan, dropping thousands of bombs.

Unlike the comparatively well-televised air campaign, the U.S. ground element of the war was conducted, as much as possible, in secret. “I hope you’ll understand that I’m not going to discuss any operational details regarding ground forces,” the Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem, told reporters.

It was not until mid-November that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld admitted: “We have had modest numbers of U.S. military forces on the ground in Afghanistan for weeks.”

Initially, Rumsfeld said, just a few hundred troops trained in special operations were deployed to Afghanistan itself. By mid-December, that figure had climbed considerably.

Why the focus on special operations? You don’t fight terrorists “with conventional capabilities,” Rumsfeld told reporters. “You do it with unconventional capabilities.”

There was another reason, as well. U.S. commanders wanted to avoid repeating bitter British and Soviet experiences in the country. In the winter of 1842, a force of more than 16,000 British and Indian troops and their camp followers was virtually wiped out. In 1989, a Soviet army of 120,000 troops was forced to withdraw after losing 14,500 of their number over 10 years.

With that history in mind, the United States limited the combat role of its ground troops, using special operations personnel to focus sharply on advising anti-Taliban forces and improving the accuracy of air strikes.

In the North, U.S. Special Forces teams assisted Northern Alliance elements with communications, coordinating air strikes and bringing in ammunition, food, medical supplies and winter gear.

In the South, other Special Forces teams did the same with tribes from that region. Additional U.S. outfits trained in special operations, including Army Rangers, Marine expeditionary units (MEU), SEALs and Delta Force, conducted raids, reconnaissance and other combat missions. Eventually, they were joined by small numbers of special operations troops from such U.S. allies as Britain, Australia and Canada.

In mid-October, Rangers parachuted into Southern Afghanistan, raiding an airfield and Taliban command and control facilities. Then, a month or so later, special operations-trained Marines from the 15th MEU helicoptered in several hundred miles from their ships in the Arabian Sea to seize the same airfield and set up a semi-permanent forward operating base, which they dubbed Camp Rhino.

At first, anti-Taliban forces, initially confined to a small corner in the north of the country, were outnumbered, with perhaps 15,000 Northern Alliance troops facing as many as 65,000 Taliban and up to 4,000 al Qaeda fighters. Exact numbers were unavailable.

But bolstered by precise U.S. air strikes and the Special Forces advisors, the opposition swarmed over the weakened Taliban defenses, quickly taking the cities of Masar-e Sharif, Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad, Konduz and finally Kandahar. After weeks of calling upon his forces to fight to the death, the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, disappeared.

In mid-December, opposition forces, calling themselves the Eastern Alliance, cornered hundreds of al Qaeda troops in their last stronghold, a vast, mountain complex of caves and tunnels called Tora Bora, near the Pakistani border.

During fierce combat and U.S. aerial bombardment, guided by U.S. special operations teams, hundreds of al Qaeda fighters were killed or surrendered. Many others—possibly including Bin Laden himself—slipped away toward Pakistan. Finding them could take weeks or even months, Rumsfeld warned.

In this war, U.S. special operators rarely have participated directly in combat. But they often have played major roles in the victories of opposition forces. For example, a detachment from 5th Special Forces Group, working with the forces led by Afghanistan’s interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai, helped save a provincial capital called Tirin Kowt from the Taliban. Karzai’s troops arrived in the town just six hours before the Taliban sent a convoy of 500 men to retake the town.

The Taliban “were moving up there to basically slaughter the town,” to kill men, women and children, said the detachment’s commander, Capt. Jason Amerine, in a telephone call with reporters. The detachment called in U.S. close air support.

“We began bombing the convoy pretty heavily,” Amerine said. “After several hours, the Taliban finally figured it out ... and they turned back and ran.”

U.S. special operations forces have performed their unconventional roles for generations. The United States has reorganized and expanded them repeatedly to accomplish constantly changing missions.

For decades, special operators helped the nation compete with the Soviet Union in a long, twilight struggle for the Third World. They played a major role in the Vietnam War.

In the 1980s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, special operators found themselves defending U.S. interests in an evolving world of rogue states, international drug smugglers, ethnic strife and terrorism. Special operations units remained assigned to their separate services until a series of events pointed out a need for greater coordination.

First, in 1980, an attempt to free 53 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Iran failed spectacularly. Two aircraft collided on the ground at an isolated site called Desert One, and eight men died. The failed mission helped undermine public confidence in President Carter, who was defeated in his bid for re-election later that same year.

Then, in 1983, a U.S. invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada—which relied heavily on special operations forces from all services—was plagued by command-and-control problems.

A New Command
To correct these flaws, Congress in 1987 combined all special operations units from the Army, Navy and Air Force into the U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, Fla. While the Marine Corps has units trained in special operations, they are not part of this command.

In 1989, special operators played a major role in the invasion of Panama and the arrest of its dictator, Manuel Noriega. In 1990, they deployed to the Persian Gulf to help drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

In 1993, U.S. special operators were part of a United Nations peacekeeping force that tried to broker peace between warring tribes in famine-stricken Somalia. When Army Rangers and members of Delta Force tried to arrest Somali warlord Mohamad Farah Aidid, the U.S. task force was surrounded by heavily armed clansmen, now believed to have been trained by al Qaeda.

In the ensuing firefight, 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis died. One American’s body was dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The images were captured by western television news cameras and broadcast all over the world, resulting in the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia.

In the Balkans—first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo—special operators performed combat search and rescue, psychological operations, humanitarian missions, civil reconstruction assignments and tracking and seizure of suspected war criminals. In 1999, special ops helicopters rescued the only two U.S. downed pilots in the air war against Serbian-controlled Yugoslavia.

In Afghanistan, special operators used a mixture of high and low technology to help defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. Employing handheld laser target designators, forward air controllers or “spotters”—serving with anti-Taliban forces—enhanced the accuracy of U.S. precision-guided munitions. With their help, U.S. bombers were able to destroy enemy fortifications, bunkers, convoys and headquarters. Such tactics were credited with killing some of Bin Laden’s senior aides, including Muhammad Atef, al Qaeda’s chief of military operations.

U.S. bombs, however, did not always hit their intended targets. Three Special Forces soldiers from Amerine’s detachment were killed, and 19—including Amerine— were wounded by a stray U.S. bomb in Kandahar. Despite intense U.S. efforts to avoid “collateral damage,” several bombs accidentally hit concentrations of civilians.

There were other U.S. casualties, as well. A CIA agent was killed in a bloody prisoner rebellion near Mazar-e Sharif. Two soldiers died when their Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Pakistan. A Special Forces sergeant perished in a firefight, and seven Marines were lost when their KC-130 went down.

On the whole, however, the war has progressed very well, thus far, U.S. officials said, and they gave much of the credit to special operators. “These very special people have changed the face of war,” said Robert Andrews, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

“The special operations forces and air power are a combination that the defense intellectuals are going to have to digest over the coming months and years,” Andrews said. “The special operations forces dramatically increased the effectiveness of the air campaign, and on the ground, they turned the Northern Alliance into a conquering army.”

The strategy has worked so well that U.S. leaders are considering using it again in other countries that have harbored international terrorists. “The Afghanistan campaign, of course, is not the only terrorist problem in the world,” Rumsfeld said told reporters. “There are other terrorist networks that threaten us and threaten our friends.”

The United States already is providing assistance and special operations advisors to the Philippines in that country’s campaign against the Abu Sayyyaf terrorist group, which has links with Bin Laden, has beheaded at least one American and holds others hostage. In Yemen—scene of Bin Laden’s attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors in 2000—Yemeni special forces, U.S. trained and armed with tanks, helicopters and artillery, have attacked a local al Qaeda organization. Other potential targets include Somalia, which is believed to continue to host terrorists, and Iraq, which is suspected to be developing weapons of mass destruction.

Over the long haul, analysts said, it will be difficult for U.S. special operators to keep up the pace they have set in Afghanistan. “They have been running on empty for too long,” said Crerar. “They just cannot find the people they need.” In fact, to keep its numbers stable, the Army in early December invoked a stop-loss program preventing Special Forces soldiers and aviators deemed “essential to national security” from voluntarily retiring or leaving the service.

Consideration is being given to assigning some conventional units—such as airborne elements—to special operations. But Crerar doubts that many could meet special ops standards. “They lose about 50 percent of their applicants during the selection process and another 10 percent during training.”

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