3. CIA vs the Taliban: Behind Enemy Lines (Ep 1)

Summary

The Rest Is Classified: Episode 3 - CIA vs the Taliban: Behind Enemy Lines (Ep 1)
Release Date: December 4, 2024
Hosts: David McCloskey & Gordon Corera

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Introduction: The Dawn of a Covert Operation

In the premiere episode of "CIA vs the Taliban: Behind Enemy Lines," hosts David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst turned spy novelist, and veteran security correspondent Gordon Corera delve into the harrowing and clandestine efforts of the CIA in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This episode sets the stage for a deep exploration of espionage, strategy, and the intricate dynamics of Afghan tribal politics.

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Afghanistan's Complex Tapestry: Ethnicity and Conflict [02:16]

David McCloskey opens by painting a vivid picture of Afghanistan's deeply fragmented society. He explains, “Afghanistan is a patchwork of ethnic groups... half the population are not Pashtuns and have really resisted... domination by Pashtuns” ([06:02]). This diversity, coupled with decades of civil war and external interventions, created a landscape fraught with mistrust and violence. The Taliban, predominantly Pashtun, had seized control of Kabul in 1998, establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and providing a haven for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

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The CIA's Strategic Shift: From Spectator to Actor [03:55]

Gordon Corera emphasizes the CIA's unique position and historical ties to Afghanistan, stating, “The CIA is the agency that knows Afghanistan deeply... It goes back to links from the Soviet invasion when the CIA had this massive covert action program to supply the mujahideen from 1981 to 1987” ([09:29]). Post-9/11, the CIA shifted from a background role to taking center stage in the hunt for bin Laden, leveraging its extensive network of warlords and local contacts.

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Assembling Team Alpha: The First Strike Behind Enemy Lines [23:21]

The heart of the episode focuses on the formation and deployment of Team Alpha, the first CIA unit inserted into Afghanistan shortly after 9/11. Comprising eight members, including seasoned paramilitary officers and linguists like David Tyson, the team was designed for speed and agility. Gordon outlines their composition: “They're a senior operations officer with deep regional expertise, paramilitary officers... a medic, a communications specialist, and linguists” ([24:15]).

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Insertion into the Battlefield: High Stakes and Heavy Cash [27:15]

Team Alpha's insertion was a high-risk maneuver, executed via two Blackhawk helicopters from Uzbekistan, laden with $3 million in cash stored discreetly in duffel bags and pelican cases ([15:56]). Upon landing, the team met Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Uzbek warlord with a notorious reputation. J.R. Seeger recounts Dostum's commanding presence: “...he moved with a strength and confidence that commanded attention and respect” ([02:21]).

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Building Alliances: Dostum and the Northern Alliance [19:22]

Despite Dostum’s infamous history and allegations of war crimes, the CIA recognized his strategic importance. Gordon explains, “He's not trusted by the CIA at this point... but the CIA after 9/11 needs to get in touch with him because he is crucial” ([19:22]). The alliance was pragmatic—Dostum sought to reclaim his territories and power, while the CIA aimed to dismantle the Taliban's stronghold and eliminate bin Laden.

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Tactics Unveiled: Combining Modern Airpower with Ancient Cavalry [30:34]

One of the most striking aspects of Team Alpha's operations was the blend of modern and traditional warfare. The CIA collaborated with Dostum’s Uzbek horsemen, executing cavalry charges complemented by U.S. airstrikes. Gordon describes a pivotal battle strategy: “...US Air power is brought in on Taliban positions, and the Uzbeks will ride in mounted on cavalry. There'll be charges... move toward Mazari Sharif” ([32:51]). This unconventional approach leveraged the Uzbeks' superior mobility in Afghanistan’s rugged terrain.

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Cultural Clashes and Operational Challenges [37:34]

Navigating cultural differences proved to be a significant hurdle. The team faced language barriers, differing communication styles, and cultural misunderstandings. A humorous yet telling anecdote highlights these challenges: an airdrop included Uzbek condoms mislabeled as rifle covers, leading to confusion and discomfort among Dostum’s men ([36:15]). J.R. Seeger reflects on the communication gap: “The Afghans are talking about the elevation of the distances... not in terms of meters or yards” ([38:19]).

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Victory and Unforeseen Complications: Capturing Mazari Sharif [42:25]

Team Alpha’s efforts culminated in the swift capture of Mazari Sharif, a strategic city with the longest runway in northern Afghanistan. Gordon narrates the city's fall: “They take Mazari Sharif pretty quickly and effectively... a scene of jubilation... women are not in burqas” ([43:28]). This victory was a significant blow to the Taliban, showcasing the effectiveness of the CIA-Northern Alliance collaboration. However, underlying tensions remained as the mission's dual objectives—overthrowing the Taliban and hunting bin Laden—began to blur.

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Looking Forward: The Road Ahead and Lingering Questions [44:47]

As the episode concludes, McCloskey and Corera hint at the complexities that lie ahead. While Mazari Sharif's capture was a tactical success, the Taliban and Al Qaeda were regrouping, setting the stage for more intense and historically resonant conflicts. The hosts pose critical questions about the sustainability of such alliances and the true objectives of the CIA’s intervention.

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Notable Quotes:

• David McCloskey: “Afghanistan is a patchwork of ethnic groups... half the population are not Pashtuns and have really resisted... domination by Pashtuns.” ([06:02])

• Gordon Corera: “The CIA is the agency that knows Afghanistan deeply... It goes back to links from the Soviet invasion...” ([09:29])

• J.R. Seeger: “The warlord was standing in a small group of his senior officers. He moved with a strength and confidence that commanded attention and respect.” ([02:21])

• Gordon Corera: “They're going to use horseback, cavalry charges and air power. A kind of mix of old and new.” ([30:35])

• J.R. Seeger: “We're going to use you and you're going to use us until we get to Mazar.” ([35:48])

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Conclusion: A Glimpse into the Shadow War

Episode 3 of "The Rest Is Classified" offers a gripping narrative of the CIA's covert operations in Afghanistan, blending historical analysis with firsthand accounts. Through the lens of Team Alpha's daring mission, listeners gain an intimate understanding of the complexities and challenges inherent in espionage and unconventional warfare. As the series progresses, it promises to unravel the intricate web of alliances, betrayals, and strategic maneuvers that have shaped modern espionage.

Transcript

[David McCloskey]

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[Gordon Carrera]

Hi David here.

[David McCloskey]

Before you get to today's episode, I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the amazing feedback on.

[Gordon Carrera]

The podcast so far.

[David McCloskey]

We really appreciate everyone who's listened and if you've enjoyed it, make sure you hit subscribe and leave us a review. This week we're going to drop the first of two episodes on the very first CIA teams inserted into Afghanistan in the days immediately after September 11th. The second of those episodes will be out Wednesday next week.

[Gordon Carrera]

I hope you enjoy.

[J.R. Seeger]

The warlord was standing in a small group of his senior officers. He moved with a strength and confidence that commanded attention and respect. He smiled at the difficulty the Americans had in getting down from their horses. Welcome, welcome my friends, he said, extending his hand to the CIA officer and his men. In just a few minutes we'll start the attack. The warlord motioned them towards the battlefield. As the first line of cavalry reached the infantry line, an officer in the middle of the line stood in his stirrups and raised a sword in the air. A shouted command could be heard above the firing, and the line of horsemen surged forward. Almost as one, Dostum turned his horse towards them, raising his arm and and motioning in a broad sweep toward the battle. Come friends, let's follow the attack. We can see nothing from here. And with that, he turned and kicked his horse's flanks, riding straight into the fight raging before them. I'm Gordon Carrera and that's an account by JR Seeger, one of the first CIA officers in Afghanistan after 9 11. And he's describing one of the cavalry charges mounted against the Taliban in the opening battles of the war in Afghanistan.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yes, and I'm David McCloskey. Welcome to the Rest is classified. This time we are telling the story of the very first CIA teams that went into Afghanistan in the weeks after the 911 attack. And I think Afghanistan in kind of the CIA consciousness over the last generation is a tremendous amount of resonance, right? I mean, this is a place where there have been 18 CIA casualties in Afghanistan since 9 11. It's more than any other war in the agency's history. And maybe that doesn't sound like a map massive number, but the Agency is a very small place. This is a place where a lot of officers who came in after 911 served in Afghanistan. Right. And we're going to talk today about really the beginning of all that and the story of the very first casualty in Afghanistan, a paramilitary officer named Mike Spann, who was on this team that was inserted behind Taliban lines Really, just weeks after 9 11.

[J.R. Seeger]

And it's a story of, as we heard in the opening quote, of cavalry charges, horseback and forts. I mean, there is a Wild west feel to it, isn't there?

[Gordon Carrera]

There's very much a Wild west feel to this. It's a period, I think, where we were the insurgents in Afghanistan, which now is a very. It's almost impossible to think about that. But there was a Taliban government, and the US and its allies were actually trying to overthrow it, you know, in many respects. And there were so few CIA officers there, which is another theme of this story. It's an exceptionally light footprint before this whole kind of militarization of the war that was to come.

[J.R. Seeger]

So we're recording it now with the Taliban back in control of Afghanistan after the US Withdrew a couple of years ago. But this is a point in which they are first overthrown by the US And I think it raises some interesting questions about whether things could have turned out differently in Afghanistan in the following years based on what happened at this period in 2001. But let's go back. Let's start in 2001 and that period around the time of 9 11, that those attacks on the US in September 2001.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, yes, the Afghanistan of 2001. It's. Is it really a country? You know, it's kind of a question. If it is, it's an unlucky one. In the words of its former president, Mohammed Karzai, it's a patchwork of. And this is going to be critical for the story here, but it is a patchwork of ethnic groups. The Pashtuns, which are sort of the dominant ethnic group in Afghanistan, are governing it on September 11, run by this group called the Taliban, or as they like to call themselves, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. And for hundreds of years, Afghanistan had been sort of Pashtun ruled, but about half the population are not Pashtuns and have really resisted for much of that time, sort of domination by Pashtuns. There are Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Hazara, which is sort of a Shia group. And there's been a civil war in the 90s between all of these groups between 1992 and 1996. That's absolutely brutal. Bunch of ethnic killings. People locked and sort of baked alive in shipping containers. I mean, Kabul didn't have electricity for much of the 90s. And another key point here, Gordon, I think, to sort of set up how the Afghanistan the CIA comes into, is that it's only recently that the Taliban has really conquered many of the places that we're going to discuss. They don't control the whole country. And there are groups of these, you know, Uzbeks and Tajiks, so called Northern alliance that have been fighting sort of this valiant rearguard action to try to resist the Taliban and who on the eve of September 11th are really kind of losing. Many of them have been pushed out. They're sort of domains have really shrunk over the last few years.

[J.R. Seeger]

And the key link with September 11, 2001 is that this is where Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, has been based, sheltered by the Taliban, effectively planning those attacks on the United States.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right, yes. And he has again, we think about Bin Laden as being in hiding in a cave somewhere, but this is a period where he's close friends with the leader of the Taliban. There's a network of Al Qaeda sort of infrastructure and training camps in Afghanistan and there are hundreds if not thousands of fighters. There's sort of an Islamic international in Afghanistan before 911 of fighters from all over the world who are paired up. They're Al Qaeda, but they are effectively fighting for the Taliban and the US and the CIA.

[J.R. Seeger]

I mean, Afghanistan has not been a high priority, has it, for these countries? So there's not much interest, it's not top of the agenda. But there are some links from the CIA and they've had some contact into Afghanistan in this period, particularly in the 90s.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. You know, we don't have an embassy there.

[J.R. Seeger]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

So there isn't a, there's not a CIA station, you know, or formal presence in country. It is a bit of a backwater, I think, for the US national security establishment. But the CIA does know Afghanistan deeply. They have, it's sort of unique, I think among the national security bureaucracy in the States in that respect. And of course it goes back to links from the Soviet invasion when the CIA had this massive covert action program to supply the mujahideen from 1981 to 1987. I mean, billions of dollars, tons of weapons and a lot of cash, critically for the story to come. A lot of cash given to warlords during that time period.

[J.R. Seeger]

So they've still got these links with these warlords from the 80s and through into the 90s. And it's the CIA specifically because it's the intelligence agency. It does those kind of COVID clandestine links with organizations and people like that.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And as Bin Laden is plotting attacks and conducting attacks against the United states through the 90s I mean you think about the East Africa embassy bombings where a couple hundred Americans were killed in the late 90s attack on the USS Cole, the destroyer in a port off of Yemen in 2000. So bin Laden has blood on his hands before September 11th. And the United States, the CIA in particular, they're trying to find him and they are actually working with some Afghan warlords, supplying them with non lethal equipment, communications equipment, night vision goggles, cash, in the hopes that they can help target and you know, hunt down Bin Laden in Afghanistan.

[J.R. Seeger]

But it's been a bit, not half hearted, but limited that operation. And then I guess September 11th, 2001, nearly 3,000Americans killed and immediately they know it's Bin Laden, don't they're sure of it. You know, this attack has been plotted in Afghanistan. So suddenly it moves Afghanistan to the center of the agenda with the desire to, I guess quickly do something. Which means people turn to the CIA in the Agency.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And we should note that prior to 911 the agency had no formal authorization to actually kill Bin Laden. There was no sort of off the shelf, what we'd call a covert action finding, a lethal finding to give the Agency the authorization to do that. But what the CIA did have, and in particular its counterterrorism center, there was a plan of what they would do in a kind of unconstrained environment if they had one to go and work with really warlords in Afghanistan to hunt down Bin Laden. There's a so called blue sky memo commissioned by the National Security Council at the White House almost a year before 9 11, where the CIA and the Counterterrorism center, what we call CTC, had actually come up with this plan. And it was basically, you know, if you think about the sort of militarization of the war in Afghanistan is the exact opposite of that. It was a really a prioritization of speed and agility, working with Afghan forces on the ground, this Northern alliance to support them, provide them with cash, provide them with weapons, provide them with intelligence so that they could do the legwork to hunt Bin laden. And the CIA, the Pentagon actually, interestingly enough, after 911 the Pentagon didn't even have proper maps of Afghanistan.

[J.R. Seeger]

The CIA is able to move quite quickly because it's got these plans in place, it's got these links with the warlords. The Pentagon wasn't, and I think there was quite a lot of tension, wasn't there? Because normally the military are the ones the President turns to and say, can you do this for me? Can you overthrow The Taliban. Can you do something?

[Gordon Carrera]

Donald Rumsfeld was pissed off.

[J.R. Seeger]

Donald Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of Defense at the time. At the time was pissed off. And I remember hearing about this tension because suddenly it was the CIA people who are like, we can do this or we can go now because we've got the links and the contacts to be able to go fast onto the ground with small teams in Afghanistan. Which is the plan that they're basically coming up with.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And there's a whole bunch of things now that seem insane, but the CIA's risk tolerance at that time really was much higher. You know, the Pentagon, as they got into the planning, they were really concerned with, okay, well, if we send in any kind of special forces teams, do we have the ability to kind of do search and rescue? Right. The CIA was basically like, if we send our people in and, you know, things go sideways, we're going to die anyway.

[J.R. Seeger]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

So we don't care.

[J.R. Seeger]

So. So there's a difference between how the, you know, the Pentagon, the US Military approaches these things and how the more nimble, if you like, in this case, CIA does it.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And the plan was really that the CIA would send in these small teams, you know, eight people or so, so very small, to link up with Army Special Forces or sort of Green Berets as they're colloquially known, to link up with these warlords and basically, you know, use US Air power intelligence to supplement the warlords, infantry to take the fight to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. And the plan again is really to make the U.S. were the insurgents in this plan fighting against the Taliban.

[J.R. Seeger]

And it was run out of CIA headquarters by the counter terrorist center.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yes.

[J.R. Seeger]

And this interesting guy called Kofa Black, who is who I've met, he's slightly larger than life character, larger in every sense. Big guy, quite intimidating, speaks with a slightly unusual accent. I think he spent some time in England.

[Gordon Carrera]

He did, yes.

[J.R. Seeger]

Slightly inflected English accent. And I always remember someone else telling me who was being sent into Afghanistan, that he went in to see Kofa. And Kofa said, I want you to go there and I want you to bring back Bin Laden's head in a box on dry ice, which is a fairly graphic description of what you want. And I went to see Kofar Black about it and asked him about it. And I said, kofa is, you know, do you remember saying that? And he went, well, you know, I was like a junkyard dog which had been led off the leash. And I said, yeah, but did you kind of give that order?

[Gordon Carrera]

It sounds like that's a yes, I.

[J.R. Seeger]

Think, yeah, it sounds like assassination and order. And he said, like Gordon, it's called combat. That was his line to me of how so he's that kind of character and he's there. So suddenly the CIA is kind of unleashed to do things and go for places and go for people in a way it hadn't been before. You know, a sense of being bruised because of what had happened on 9 11.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right, yeah, right. And I think we cannot emphasize that enough in the story is we are talking about a period where we are days or weeks at most distance from 3,000Americans having been killed and frankly the specter of much more horror potentially coming, which now when we look back we say, well, it didn't happen, but no one knew. There's an urgency to it. And by really a week after all of the legal dominoes are in place for the CIA to go to Afghanistan and try to bring his head back in a box.

[J.R. Seeger]

And so these teams are being sent. So these small teams are going to have to get into Afghanistan with what, bundles of cash?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yes.

[J.R. Seeger]

And meet the warlords. That's, that's the idea of it.

[Gordon Carrera]

There is a lot of cash that goes in. So, you know, the, the first team actually goes in in the last week of September with $3 million in cash, sort of non sequential bills, as one does.

[J.R. Seeger]

That's quite a lot, isn't it? It's quite, it's kind of big palace.

[Gordon Carrera]

In the memoirs from this time, there's a lot of discussion about how heavy the money is, where they store it. Yeah, I mean, they end up. There's no, they're not bringing safes with them into the country. So all this money is actually just being stored in duffel bags and pelican cases and things like that, and just kind of used almost as furniture in the places where the CIA officers are staying. Now the first teams go in, they link up with a group of the Northern alliance just kind of north of Kabul in a place called the Panjshir Valley. Now this group that goes in first effectively doesn't do much for the first couple weeks other than try to get this thing going. There's a lot of diarrhea, there's a lot of coffee drinking and a lot of hand wringing from Washington. Because the fall of Kabul is a complicated affair. You have to be careful. We talked about the ethnic diversity of Afghanistan. You need to be careful about who.

[J.R. Seeger]

Takes Kabul, who takes it.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right.

[J.R. Seeger]

What is the government, the Wrong group takes it, they're going to just massacre everyone and it's all going to go wrong. So they want it to hurry up, but they also don't want it to go wrong.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right. And so this group working with Tajiks north of Kabul are kind of. Nothing quite gets going militarily for a few weeks. But there is an Uzbek warlord up in northern Afghanistan who has just recently returned from exile in Turkey. And he is a man by the name of Abdul Rashid Dosto.

[J.R. Seeger]

Okay, let's talk about him because he is a really interesting character. I spoke to someone who was in Afghanistan at this time, a Brit, and who was saying a. He thought he was a bit like Attila the Hun was his was his parallel and his description of him was evil but likeable.

[Gordon Carrera]

Evil but likable. Yeah, that is a very fair description, I would say. So he is, I think he's a Dothraki horse lord is what he is. From Game of Thrones. Yeah, so he is. He's a big guy. He looks sort of bearish. He's. He's got this kind of gruff Persona. He also smiles a lot, he laughs a lot. He is, has never been allowed to visit the US because of his sort of, you know, allegations of war crimes. Right. He has a reputation for being really. He's a very skilled fighter and politician. He's a brawler. He is a practitioner of the game of buzkashi, which is a sort of polo esque kind of horse mounted game in which instead of, you know, you're battling over a headless calf. Right. So he's 47 in 2001. And the other thing to note about him, other than a reputation for violence, is that he fought for the communist regime in Afghanistan. Right. He's taken money from the Russians, the Iranians, the Turks, the Indians. He's been a partner with a lot of these Northern alliance ethnic groups, but he's also fought them at various points. And that reputation for brutality. There's a great story. So many of these are probably apocryphal, but we should probably share them because they've become part of the lore. There's a story that Dostum had a man actually chained to the tracks of a Russian made tank in a courtyard of one of his forts and actually drove the tank around until it, you know, smashed the guy to pieces. There were stories about him actually crushing people's skulls in his hands and that he was known to eat 12 chickens at a time and drink two quarts of vodka in one sitting so anytime you're a warlord that's got this sort of lore around you, you know, you're probably doing something right.

[J.R. Seeger]

And this is the kind of the guy the CIA are going to work with.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, I mean, yes, the answer is yes. Right.

[J.R. Seeger]

Is that not a little bit awkward? But I guess needs must. Is that the thinking?

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. I mean, he's not trusted by the CIA at this point. In fact, the CIA has not been in contact with him in the 90s. The CIA has.

[J.R. Seeger]

Too bad. He's too.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yes. He was not seen as the most sort of trustworthy ally for very good reasons. All the side switching and the war crimes, to name a few. But the CIA after 9, 11, they need to get in touch with him because he is. The little patch of terrain that he sort of naturally would own in northern Afghanistan and which he did own and essentially ran as a mini state in the 1990s is really crucial.

[J.R. Seeger]

How do you get in touch with someone like that if you haven't been in touch with them?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, clearly you work through a friend who used to work at the National Automobile Dealers Insurance Trust in Washington D.C. yes, because this is. So Dostum again has no direct relationship with CIA. Dostum has a friend in the States who in the 80s got sort of connected to Afghanistan because one of his colleagues at the National Automobile Dealers Insurance Trust was an Afghan politician who had left after the war. So Dostum gets in touch with this guy who puts Dostum in touch with the Pentagon. Dostum gets put in touch with the CIA and specifically with a CIA officer named David Tyson who's going to be critical for the story to come and who is the only Uzbek linguist at the CIA. He's a Central Asian focused case officer who's been working in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, out of the station there.

[J.R. Seeger]

And he's the one person who speaks Uzbekistan.

[Gordon Carrera]

He's the one person.

[J.R. Seeger]

He becomes a very important person in the CIA at this point, having probably not been the most important person previously.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right.

[J.R. Seeger]

He's going in then with the team to see Dostum.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And he gets on the phone with Dostum and says, you know, Dostum, of course, is asking him, well, how many tanks will you bring? And David Tyson says, well, it'll just be me and six or seven guys, but don't worry, we'll bring our sleeping bags. And of course, Dostum in the accounts is audibly taken aback by how light this footprint is going to be. But you know, he's used to sort of improvising. And he says, well, I have no armored personnel carriers or heavy guns. All I've got is horses, mules and donkeys. So I suppose we're even.

[J.R. Seeger]

Okay, so with the CIA preparing to join Dostum for this guerrilla war on horseback, let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by our new friends at NordVPN. Now, David, in the 20 or so minutes that listeners have heard so far, how many phishing sites have been launched?

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[Gordon Carrera]

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[David McCloskey]

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[J.R. Seeger]

We're in Afghanistan. It's just weeks after the 911 attacks in 2001 on the United States, which were carried out by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He's being sheltered in Afghanistan by the Taliban. And the CIA has sent in teams to try and link up with Afghan warlords who in turn have been battling the Taliban. David, tell us about what those teams are and what they're going to do.

[Gordon Carrera]

One of the teams I think we'll talk about extensively here is the CIA is Team Alpha. And they are the first team that will actually go behind Taliban lines, be inserted behind Taliban lines to link up with this Uzbek warlord, Abdulrashid Dostum. And these teams, they're constructed in a very interesting way. They're small. Team Alpha's eight people. And the structure is basically they're going to be headed by a senior operations officer who's going to have real deep regional expertise and linguistic ability to actually communicate with The Afghans that they're. They're linked up with paramilitary officers. Right. Because you think about that as basically a CIA officer who's going to have the ability to fight. Right. To have to be armed. I mean, everyone will be armed. But these are guys who have really special forces backgrounds, special operations backgrounds, prior to joining the agents.

[J.R. Seeger]

And it might be worth saying here that that's something which the CIA does, Which, for instance, MI6 in Britain doesn't do. In the same way the CIA has analysts, it has case officers who are the people who kind of handle agents. And it's got this paramilitary division who are. Who, if you like the gunslingers.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And at the time it's known as the Special Activities Division. Yeah, These guys, many of them work in Ground Branch is what it's called, that have these paramilitary officers that usually come out of Army Special Forces or special operations backgrounds. There's a medic, a communications specialist, and as many linguists as they could possibly fit in that also sort of align to those roles. Now, these teams, of course, they're going into a country that's ruled by the Taliban and they're doing this under very covert auspices. Right. So there's not a lot of military equipment. And in fact, the teams went to outdoor and camping stores in many cases around Washington, D.C. to get the kit that they would bring in with them. You know, cargo pants, dry wick shirts, camping towels, binoculars, all this kind of stuff, because they didn't want anything to indicate sort of a military, in most cases, military or CIA, of course, or even an American sort of connection.

[J.R. Seeger]

Because I've seen some pictures and video of these guys, and they're wearing jeans, some of them jeans, and a fleece and some boots. I mean, that's.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right.

[J.R. Seeger]

Rather than kind of military gear.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right, that's right. And a few of these guys are worth mentioning specifically. Right. There's the. The head of Team Alpha is a case officer named J.R. seager, who's a sort of expert on Afghanistan's tribes. There's a guy named paramilitary officer named Mike Span. He's a former Marine. And there's David Tyson, who we mentioned before, who's the CIA's sole Uzbek linguist. He's added to the team a little bit late because of the connection with Dostum and the fact that Tyson speaks the language. And before leaving all of these guys, I think it's important to say there's a sense that, I mean, they know that they're going into immense danger so they update their wills. A bunch of them have what they call kill files on their computers, which are basically instructions to their family on everything to be done in the case of their death. They go in on the 17th of October, Team Alpha, and there's a lot of debate over how to get them in. And of course, we think now about supply routes during the war into Afghanistan that were very stable. They had nothing of the sort. So there really is a debate about how to get them into the country. They think about parachuting, they think about paying smugglers to bring them in. Eventually they decide to fly in on two Blackhawk helicopters from Uzbekistan. And, you know, this is an interesting helicopter flight in because they've got. There's no seats, so everyone's just sitting on pelican cases. They have, of course, a large green sack stuffed with $3 million in non sequential hundred dollar bills. Everyone has an East German version of the Kalashnikov rifle, a 9 millimeter Glock pistol. And David Tyson has a pistol that he took from Tashkent Station. Its serial Number ends in 007, which.

[J.R. Seeger]

Is Little James Bond.

[Gordon Carrera]

Little James Bond.

[J.R. Seeger]

And Tashkent Station is the CIA base.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's in Uzbekistan.

[J.R. Seeger]

That's in Uzbekistan.

[Gordon Carrera]

Exactly, exactly. They've got no body armor or helmets, of course. They've got these little silk blood chits that basically say, you know, I'm a friend in all of the languages of Afghanistan. And they're going in to link up with Dostum's forces.

[J.R. Seeger]

And the idea is they're going to coordinate because obviously they're too small a team to fight themselves and take on the Taliban. But the idea is they coordinate the Afghans to fight and to take on the Taliban and give them the kind of support they need to be able to try and eject the Taliban from power. That's the plan. But that means working with Dostum. And how do they get on with Dostum, I'm curious? This kind of Dothraki warlord as you've described him, I mean, it must be a strange relationship on both sides.

[Gordon Carrera]

I think it is strange. Although it does help that the night they show up, JR Seeger hands him a bag that has a million dollars in it. So that's always smooth smile, that's always a useful hello that gets the CIA team invited in to, quote, have some tea, which is essentially a war council. And so we're 36 days after 9, 11, and the CIA finally has a team behind enemy lines in Afghanistan. Now, I will say they get on pretty well with Dostum, because there is this incredible alignment of interest. And they basically set up and link up with him. And initially it is, of course, it's a little bit. They're feeling out how to work with one another. They set up at a place to, you know, again, there's gonna be Wild west references throughout this. They set up at a base they nicknamed the Alamo. It's a sort of mud. Mud walled structure. They link up with a group of Army Special Forces, or Green berets.

[J.R. Seeger]

This is U.S. special Forces.

[Gordon Carrera]

U.S. special Forces. The Green Berets are sort of organized into these groups called them Operational Detachment Alpha, or A teams. These are 12 man groups. And the idea here is that this eight man CIA team and these special forces teams will combine forces to both convince Dostum sort of how to fight, where to fight, but also bring in air power, US Air power, which is going to be absolutely critical to the fight against the Taliban. And so after they get into Afghanistan, they sleep for a few hours. And the next morning, Dostum appears at the Alamo early. And he's on a horse. He's on his white horse named Serkun. Pieces of this are going to feel like they're out of kind of the Mongol conquests. And in fact, Dostum, he's an Uzbek, he's Turkic. He links himself by lineage to Genghis Khan and the Golden Horde. Right in his mind. In his mind, he is the modern manifestation of Genghis Khan. It's sort of out of. If you've seen the 1965 flick with Omar Sharif as Genghis Khan, he's got the white horse, this sort of burly Mongol. And they basically, they come up with a plan whereby they'll get as close as possible to these Taliban encampments, which, by the way, are not far off. They're in this sort of mountainous river valley. The Taliban control it. The idea is they're going to get close to those and they're going to bring down U.S. air power. And Dostum has this great line. After they come up with the plan, he says, now we will go and kill the Taliban. We leave in 15 minutes.

[J.R. Seeger]

We're going to get on with it.

[Gordon Carrera]

We're going to get on with it.

[J.R. Seeger]

And horses are part of the plan. I mean, that's the thing. It's not just how he rides around. They're actually part of the battle plan.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. Well, you can't. We're talking about terrain that is a valley with massive ridges and cliffs and mountains on either side.

[J.R. Seeger]

So you can't drive a jeep.

[Gordon Carrera]

You can't drive most places. Yes. So horses are absolutely critical to how you move around and scout the enemy's positions. Now they take up a position on a hilltop over where the Taliban is. And this is going to be sort of the one model of attack here is that they'll. They'll look down. Now, Dostum, it's important to say at this point, has a sense that if CIA officers die, if Green Berets die, the United States will just immediately leave. And so he really wants to keep the United. He wants to keep these guys distant.

[J.R. Seeger]

And safe from combat.

[Gordon Carrera]

And safe, which leads to some tension. And it also makes it a lot harder to call in airstrikes initially. So to start, you have a big B52 bomber flying overhead. The special forces there are trying to guide the bomb.

[J.R. Seeger]

Laser point targets.

[Gordon Carrera]

Laser point targets, or to give the coordinates.

[J.R. Seeger]

Right. So that the air support can come in.

[Gordon Carrera]

You think about these big 2,000 pound bombs detonating on Taliban positions. It's quite the demonstration. But to start, it's not particularly militarily effective because they're so far away. Although it will be noted, of course, that it is extremely terrifying to the Taliban to finally have an air force fighting against them. But over time, over just a few days, Dostum sort of relents. The Americans start to get closer. There's also Air Force controllers that are brought in to more effectively target the munitions. And this is where you get this very interesting piece of the. The sort of battles here, because we're going to actually have essentially a kind of playbook in which US Air power is brought in on Taliban positions, bunkers, trenches, things like that. And then the Uzbeks will ride in mounted on cavalry. There'll be cavalry charges, sometimes of 4, 5, 600 people charging Taliban lines after the US has bombed them.

[J.R. Seeger]

It does sound like something out of deepest history rather than something that happened 20 years ago. I spoke to one.

[Gordon Carrera]

Or Game of Thrones.

[J.R. Seeger]

Or Game of Thrones, exactly. I spoke to one person who'd witnessed one of these. I don't think he wants me to use his name, but he knows who he is. And he talks about watching these cavalry charges and they would put their heads down so they couldn't get hit, you know, kind of beneath the horse's head, then ride and kind of jump over the trenches. So they were kind of then behind the Taliban positions and then kind of attack the Taliban positions from behind, having literally kind of jumped those trenches on horseback. I mean, it sounds like quite A sight.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, it must be some of the largest cavalry sort of action since Second World War. Yeah.

[J.R. Seeger]

I don't know when else we've had cavalry charges recently.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, and it is. I think it's worth a note on the Uzbek fighters and the horses, because the guys who are on the ground, the Team Alpha guys, will note just how much willpower these horsemen have, how much suffering they've endured, and it makes them relentless and quite cruel in many respects. And of course, the Team Alpha guys, David Tyson, Mike Spann jr. Seeger, they have to be on horseback a lot. Now, many of that Team Alpha group were actually fairly accomplished horsemen and had experience on horses in the States.

[J.R. Seeger]

Hang on a second. Is this normal in Sarah training? Did you get taught how to ride?

[Gordon Carrera]

Day one, they put you on horseback.

[J.R. Seeger]

Just to see can you ride it all. Seriously, because they didn't put the you through that.

[Gordon Carrera]

No, no, no, no. I had no horseback training during my time.

[J.R. Seeger]

That's not how I imagined.

[Gordon Carrera]

It's not normal. But the Afghan, these Uzbek horses, and the Uzbeks, by the way, will call their horses to the Americans. Uzbek Humvees is how they refer to them. They're smaller than horses you ride in the States. They're meaner. They fight with one another. And the Uzbeks have trained them to run toward gunfire rather than away. David Tyson will still recount these rides up in this valley, sometimes 12, 15 hours, and you're on horses that are too small. You're riding with saddles that are essentially like cardboard, very small saddles, stirrups that are too small for large American feet. It's extremely uncomfortable, extremely uncomfortable. And in fact, the Uzbeks get quite a lot of joy about how terrible the Americans are at riding their horses. So in the morning, before David Tyson sort of gets into the saddle, one of Dostum's men got fond of bringing his own horse over and making his horse fight David Tyson's horse until David Tyson fell off.

[J.R. Seeger]

So this is the strategy. You're going to use horseback, cavalry charges and air power. So a kind of mix of old and new to take on the Taliban. And the target for this group is a crucial city in the north of Afghanistan, isn't it Mazar Al Sharif?

[Gordon Carrera]

You're not going to let me tell the condom story?

[J.R. Seeger]

Tell the condom story. You wanted to tell this story.

[Gordon Carrera]

All right, there's. Before we get to Masri Sharif and the military objective, there's, of course, a tremendous amount of culture shock between Team Alpha and their Uzbek companions. And all of the supplies are coming in by airdrop right now. One thing to also note here is Abdel Rashid Dostum is a huge fan of military readies. These military meals, right? MREs.

[J.R. Seeger]

They're the ones you carry around when you can heat up.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. Meals ready to eat. I was in this group. So he's a big fan of these.

[J.R. Seeger]

He must be one of the few people who is very nice.

[Gordon Carrera]

Every airdrop, he loves when they bring in the MREs, but they also bring in some. A couple of Dostum's men ask for what they call devil's water, which is vodka. CIA drops. Tashkent station in Uzbekistan is supplying these airdrops. They put some vodka in one. And the station chief in Tashkent decided it would be fun, as kind of a joke, if he included some. Some Uzbek condoms in one of the airdrops. Now, David Tyson tried to convince the Afghans that they were just for covering up their rifles. And there actually is something to be said for covering up your rifle with a condom, because then it won't get wet. There won't be, you know, dirt won't get in. But the Afghans noticed there was a picture of a scantily clad Uzbek woman on one of the wrappers, which led to more questions about what these actually were. And David Tyson tried to explain they were prophylactics. The Afghans thought, why would we ever need these? There's some great stories about Afghans actually wearing them around to try them on. And then eventually, when some of them became frustrated with this, David Tyson apologized and said, no, no, they're just rifle covers. Don't worry about it.

[J.R. Seeger]

So how easy was it for this CIA team to communicate with these Uzbek horsemen?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, and of course, David Tyson spoke Uzbek, but for most of them, I think there really is this. And frankly, I think even for David Tyson, the sense of. There's a tremendous chasm between the cultures, obviously, but also just the ways of thinking, right? I mean, when the Team Alpha guys are talking with the Afghans about calling in, like, where they call in an airstrike, the Team Alpha guys, the Americans are trying to find. They're trying to get, like, geocoordinates, you know, or point a laser at something, and the Afghans are talking about the elevation of the distances in relation to other pieces of the geography, not in terms of meters or yards or steps or anything like that.

[J.R. Seeger]

They don't use that.

[Gordon Carrera]

They don't use that. They don't. They don't think about sort of the world that way. You know, Dostum could read a map. Most of his men couldn't. Right. They couldn't. I mean, even in their language, they couldn't read a map. And it's interesting talking with CIA, Afghan hands, you know, who served in the country over the past 25 years. A lot of the assets. The Afghan assets, you know, they wouldn't.

[J.R. Seeger]

The agents.

[Gordon Carrera]

The agents, yeah.

[J.R. Seeger]

That we're working with in the ground.

[Gordon Carrera]

This is true of those backs. Then wouldn't really know what numbers were. And so if they were given a phone and told to call this number at this time, it was like. It just wouldn't compute. And so you have to enter a number into the phone, save it, and then put like a little orange sticker on the three and say, you're going to push this sticker when you need to talk to me. Because there's the idea of three. The number just wasn't in the vocabulary. And yet I don't say any of this to say that these guys weren't, you know, intelligent or smart. I mean, these guys were extremely physically courageous. And it's a fighting kind of martial culture that the CIA was walking into. And yet the ability to sort of communicate was remarkably absent.

[J.R. Seeger]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

They're moving toward Mazeri Sharif. It's the largest city in northern Afghanistan. It is Dostum's former capital when he had run this region during the civil war in the 90s. It has the longest Runway, military sort of Runway in Afghanistan, and it's a critical piece of the fight against the Taliban. Now, I think it is worth noting here, Gordon, that the CIA teams, at this point, their goal, as Kofer Black so colorfully said, was to bring back bin Laden's head in a box. But as we're seeing over the first few weeks of this conflict, confusion might be too strong. But are we. Are we trying to unseat the Taliban or are we trying to hunt bin Laden? I think the CIA teams at this point are very focused on the fight against the Taliban as a jumping off point to get to the Al Qaeda fighters and bin Laden. Right?

[J.R. Seeger]

Yeah. And I think it's a really important point because actually, I think in the long run, that confusion between Al Qaeda and Taliban. I remember they used to call it the US Military, you know, the times I went to Afghanistan, aqt, and they'd conflate the two. But actually they are different groups. But at this point, they think we've got to get rid of the Taliban in order to get to Al Qaeda, because The Taliban had been sheltering.

[Gordon Carrera]

And there's a fusion of them, right?

[J.R. Seeger]

I mean, when, when there's an overlap.

[Gordon Carrera]

As they're moving through this valley toward Mazari Sharif, you know, having essentially a series of, of battles with the Taliban where US Air power is brought down, the Uzbeks charge on horseback, they take a position, they take a village. They're moving toward Mazeri Sharif. Al Qaeda is embedded with the Taliban, right? I mean, there are Al Qaeda battalions that actually fight alongside the Taliban. So you can see how you get this sort of confusion about who are we? You know, what's the ultimate goal? You kind of have to fight both. And there is kind of this sort of fundamental question that hangs, I think, over the engagement between Team Alpha and Dostum, which is, okay, the CIA wants bin Laden. What Dostum wants are his lands back and his power, his ability to sort of deal with the central government in Kabul. So you have this kind of tension hanging over it. And in fact, on the way to Mazari Sharif, which by the way, along the way, the CIA team picks up something they call the Magic Bus, which they, which is a Soviet era. It's a 10 ton Soviet truck with yellow soccer ball stickers on its doors. It's named after the Hu song and it's a solution to the horseback problem. So they pick this thing up and as they kind of get out of the mountains, the CIA team decides, we're not going to ride on these awful tiny Uzbek horses. We're going to take the magic bus. So as they're cruising into Mazari Sharif or toward Mazari Sharif, David Tyson at one point says to Dostum, you know, we're going to use you and you're going to use us until we get to Mazar. So it is a sense of what happens as we sort of think about the future of Afghanistan. We don't know. It's very transactional.

[J.R. Seeger]

That's right, transactional and uncertain as you get to the feature. But I mean, they take Mazari Sharif pretty quickly and effectively, don't they? I mean, that's an important victory in the overall war against the Taliban and the toppling of the Taliban.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's right. And you know, the Taliban had only held Mazari Sharif for three years. They conquered it in 1998. When they did, the Taliban lost 12,000 men taking the city. The Northern alliance, as they cruise in with the Team Alpha on the Magic bus behind them, there's fewer than 100. So. And the US doesn't even bomb the city. So you do have this. There's this sense, I think, that, well, everything's working, going according to plan. They go in. It's a scene of really jubilation in the city because this is kind of Dostum's patch of territory. The Green Berets are in horses. The CIA Team Alpha is going in on the magic bus. Dostum arrives in kind of a white Land Cruiser. He's filmed. You know, people are coming out, the markets are open. There's a shrine in Masri Sharif, which the Taliban had closed, shuttered over the last three years, that reopens there. You know, women are not in burqas, so there's this sense that something is lifted right in this sort of air of kind of jubilation and celebration in the town. Dostum goes in and sort of famously prays at this. He's not a religious man by any stretch, but he knows.

[J.R. Seeger]

He knows he's got to do it.

[Gordon Carrera]

He's a good showman, I think we can say, for a horse lord. He prays at this shrine. He's got tears streaking down his face. And kind of takes a victory lap around northern Afghanistan because the Taliban have been defeated. I mean, they've landed on 17 October. In three weeks, they've taken the largest city in northern Afghanistan, this critical peace, and they've won every battle along the way.

[J.R. Seeger]

And it's a significant moment in the overall war as well, isn't it? Because there was frustration, I remember in London and Washington that things until then had actually been going a bit slowly. They'd appeared stuck. Everyone was wondering about. I remember all this talk about the Afghan winter, and if once that set in, it would be a disaster. And yet suddenly, things move very fast after this, and Kabul is about to fall and it looks like the Taliban about to be ejected from power. But the question is, have the Taliban really been defeated here in Mazari Sharif? Have they really disappeared? Have they really surrendered? It's not quite so simple, is it?

[Gordon Carrera]

No. And what we'll see is that it is not at all what it seems Taliban and Al Qaeda are regrouping for, really, another attempt at the city. And it's going to be a battle of medieval proportions in some respects, ancient in others, because there will be a Trojan horse involved, more horse lords, of course, a prison revolt in Masri Sharif. And, Gordon, you'll like this. Some Brits are going to get involved as well. On that note, thank you for listening to the rest is classified.