The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger

Amazon.com

The first wave of U.S. Army Special Forces arrived in Afghanistan in mid-October, 2001; a few months later, they had routed the Taliban and taken control of the country. In fact, writes Robin Moore, "fewer than 100 American soldiers were on the ground when Kabul fell." The Hunt for Bin Laden is both a celebration of the Special Forces, "the most fearsome fighting unit the world has ever known," and a detailed account of how just a few hundred Green Berets, working alongside the Northern Alliance, were able to overcome nearly 100,000 entrenched al-Qaida and Taliban members and take control of Afghanistan in such a short time. Though Special Forces had participated in all of the small conflicts since World War II, the war in Afghanistan was the first time they were in charge of an entire operation. For these gung-ho soldiers, it was the moment they had been waiting for.

From the beginning, the operation was a blend of cutting-edge and 19th-century weaponry. The Northern Alliance soldiers, though brave and determined, were often outfitted with only rusted rifles and worn-out boots. In one particularly fascinating scene, Moore writes of the Northern Alliance cavalry leading a charge on horseback while American fighter jets roared overhead dropping laser-guided missiles with pinpoint accuracy on Taliban forces. The author of the military classic The Green Berets, Moore knows his subject intimately and his access to the troops on the ground is impressive. This makes the book incredibly detailed, but unquestionably subjective, so those interested in a political overview or an objective look at the policy behind the operation should look elsewhere. This is strictly a heroic portrayal of a military victory and the difficult search for Osama bin Laden, and at times Moore's writing sounds like copy out of Soldier of Fortune magazine. This bombast may not appeal to all readers, but his deep knowledge of Special Forces and his inside information makes this book a must read for those interested not only in this particular conflict but in how guerilla and unconventional warfare is executed. --Shawn Carkonen

Book Description

“As the [al-Qaida terrorists] charged one wall, three Green Berets leaned over the parapets, oblivious to the enemy small-arms fire that was cracking by their heads and shoulders.

“ ‘Focus, squeeze, focus, squeeze,’ they recited quietly. . . . Each time . . . the lifeless body [of an al-Qaida terrorist] would snap back through the desert air and drop onto the sandy courtyard.”

The war in Afghanistan was the most secret conflict since the CIA’s covert war in Laos; thousands of journalists covered it, yet, ironically, little is known about how it was waged or what really happened—until now.

The Hunt for bin Laden plunges the reader into America’s War on Terror, from the first top-secret meetings of TASK FORCE DAGGER in Tampa on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, through the liberation of Kabul sixty-two days later and the tragedies of OPERATION ANACONDA. The book takes the reader into the heat of battle—as seen through the eyes of the Green Berets on the ground. This is the story of how only a few hundred men, operating from a secret Special Forces base, changed the course of history in Central Asia and destroyed a hundred-thousand-man terrorist army in less than ninety days.

Action-packed and controversial, The Hunt for bin Laden is teeming with revelations and inside information: the truth about John Walker Lindh and Mike Spann; the failure of the “conventional” generals; the courage of the Northern Alliance; the wounding and murder of journalists; and the flaws and frustrations of the hunt for bin Laden himself.

In mid-December 2001, Robin Moore arrived in Afghanistan, where he joined his old friends, whom he had celebrated thirty-five years earlier in his book The Green Berets and who were now calling in airstrikes and fighting alongside the armies of the Northern Alliance against the terrorist al-Qaida and Taliban. In less than three winter months, about a hundred Green Berets accounted for the deaths of perhaps as many as forty thousand terrorists and the winning of a war in Afghanistan—where the Soviets had found fighting a war all but impossible.