Decapitating strike that wasn't to be
In October 2001, the CIA could have killed Mullah Omar along with a significant chunk of the Taliban leadership
This post draws heavily from Steve Coll’s Directorate S.
With us or against us
After 9/11, as the Bush administration went into its “with us or against us” mode, the CIA reported that the Taliban was anything but a monolithic organisation.
There are ideological adherents but many others are with them because it is how you get money and guns.
And they set out to drive wedges in the organisation, identifying individuals in the Taliban leadership who disagreed with Mullah Omar’s decision to provide refuge to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. These individuals were acutely aware that sheltering them had resulted in Afghanistan being denied international recognition and aid, and sought to change that.
The ISI pleads for the Taliban
The ISI, meanwhile, was desperate to protect its clients in the Taliban. Lt Gen Mahmud Ahmed, Director General ISI, lobbied the CIA’s leadership. He wanted them to let the ISI negotiate with Mullah Omar, try and persuade him to give up Bin Laden to the Americans.
He flew to Kandahar on September 17 and spent 4 hours trying to talk Omar out of a suicidal defence of Bin Laden. But Omar’s answer was unequivocal:
Only his [Bin Laden’s] death or mine [would relieve Mullah Omar of the obligation to protect Bin Laden].
On September 20, Bush addressed a joint session of Congress and condemned the Taliban regime.
It [Taliban] is not only repressing its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying terrorists. By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder.
He then made a list of demands on the Taliban which Omar couldn’t have met even if he wanted to. And it wasn’t as if he was likely to change his mind about handing Bin Laden over. As an opium smuggler from Omar’s home district who had funded the Taliban recalled:
[Omar] had one characteristic: He was very stubborn … His attitude was that he knew better than anyone else.
Air war begins
On the night of October 7, the CIA had a MQ-1 Predator drone flying over Kandahar. Realtime infrared video feed of Omar’s residence on the outskirts of the city was displayed on screens inside the CIA’s Counterterrorist Centre. HUMINT had confirmed that Omar was present there along with his inner circle.
CIA officers hoped that the first bombs dropped by US Air Force and US Navy aircraft would be on that compound, a decapitating strike on the Taliban leadership. But the aircraft were commanded by Gen Tommy Franks of Central Command (CENTCOM), and he decided to follow a more conventional doctrine of bombing Kandahar airport even though the Taliban had no air force or air defences of their own.
Omar flees to a madrassa
The sound of bombs falling on the airport caused a host of Taliban to rush out of Omar’s house and board vehicles. They first drove to a house in Kandahar known to belong to Omar’s mother, then headed to a madrassa to the West of Kandahar. Once there, they entered the building and stayed put.
[Other accounts state that Omar’s house was bombed shortly after the vehicles had left, killing his 10 years old son and injuring his uncle who was also his stepfather.]
The Predator followed their progress and continued transmitting video. But the resolution of its sensors wasn’t sufficient to identify those who had entered the building. It carried one AGM-114 Hellfire missile, an Air to Ground Missile with a small, 8 kg warhead more suited to taking out vehicles. It’s impact on the madrassa building would have been minimal.
CIA’s request to CENTCOM
The CIA put in a request with CENTCOM asking for the Madrassa building to be flattened with thousand pound bombs. USAF aircraft circling Kandahar at that moment carried such ordnance and could have finished the job within minutes.
The problem with that request lay in what was a hundred yards away from the Madrassa, a mosque. CENTCOM’s lawyer, who was present when the request came in, advised against the strike because the nearby mosque would be damaged unacceptably. As a CENTCOM intelligence officer who was present when the decision was made recalled:
The military was not out to kill [Omar] at all costs. We were intent on killing him at a time and place where we could do so surgically.
Bush had ordered SecDef Donald Rumsfeld and Gen Tommy Franks to minimise collateral damage and civilian deaths during the air war. In fact, he had explicitly told Gen Franks:
If you see Bin Laden go into a mosque, wait until he comes out to kill him.
CENTCOM decided not to flatten the building. The CIA appealed against that decision to Rumsfeld and Bush, but their response would take time.
The urge to make history
Meanwhile, the CIA was eager to fire the Hellfire missile. No missile had been fired from a drone until then, so there was an element of history to be created. Besides, they sought to create a psychological effect by blowing up one of the vehicles — now empty of passengers — that had carried Omar and his entourage to the Madrassa. They also thought doing so would scare the Taliban out, allowing them to identify and target Omar with precision.
The Hellfire caused the vehicle to explode, and then a bunch of armed adults emerged from the building, taking up defensive positions. Then, realising what had happened, they boarded the remaining vehicles and drove off. As the Predator followed, the CIA analysts in Washington DC watched in dismay as the entourage broke up, with vehicles driving off in different directions.
The CIA followed one vehicle they believed contained Omar. It drove to another mosque. In the meantime, Rumsfeld spoke with Bush and ordered Franks to risk civilian casualties if it meant Omar could be eliminated.
USAF aircraft then deposited two bombs on the mosque where the vehicle believed to be carrying Omar had driven. Omar wasn’t there, of course. He had made his way to Gardez, as had most of his inner circle. No Taliban leaders are believed to have perished in the second mosque.
[According to fellow Taliban fighters, Omar … was last seen riding on the back of a motorcycle driven by his brother-in-law and right-hand man, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.]
The US made a number of attempts to eliminate Omar following that evening. But the opportunity never presented itself as clearly as on October 7. Would Omar’s death on that day have changed the course of the war? Perhaps.
Mullah Omar lived for twelve more years, first at a private home owned by his driver, and then less than three kilometres from United States Forward Operating Base (FOB) Wolverine in Zabul province. It is claimed that he never left Afghanistan, and died from Tuberculosis in 2013.
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You might also enjoy reading my spy novels: Let Bhutto Eat Grass & Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part 2 deal with nuclear weapons espionage in 1970s India, Pakistan, and Europe.