Going After Bin Laden

Two months after the September 11 attacks took place, a group of U.S. commandos, with the help of British commandos, the CIA and an Afghan warlord, trekked into the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in search of the most wanted man in the world. Their mission was clear—capture or kill Osama bin Laden. If he died, then they were to leave his body with the Afghans but bring back proof that he had been slain. But the Battle of Tora Bora—as the showdown between allied forces and bin Laden would come to be known—did not end with bin Laden's death, but with his escape. Seven years later, the senior ranking American military officer and lead Delta Force member of that mission has published "Kill Bin Laden," his account of what occurred. NEWSWEEK's Jessica Ramirez spoke to Dalton Fury—a pseudonym the author uses—about the man that got away. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: In 2001, when you were asked to take on this mission, what were your exact orders?
Dalton Fury: In late November of 2001, I was given the choice to go after Osama bin Laden or Mullah Mohammed Omar. I chose bin Laden. I was given 40 Delta operators and sent to Afghanistan with specific orders to link with an Eastern Alliance opposition group, self-proclaimed Gen. Hazret Ali, the CIA and move to the Tora Bora mountains to go capture or kill bin Laden.

How did your team plan to do this?
The initial plan we came up with was to come in from the Pakistani side of the border. Bin Laden was oriented toward [protecting] the north. He wasn't covering the south at all. Our original idea was to come in through the Pakistan side and crest over the 14,000-foot mountains and come in from behind him with small teams to direct air power and interdict anyone that was leaving the battlefield, while pushing from the north with a large force of mujahedin. That plan was turned down at some level above us. I don't know what level or what the reasons were. I can only surmise that it had something to do with Pakistan being a proclaimed war-on-terror ally to the U.S. So, we were left with coming from the north with the mujahedin. My commander, Lt. Col. Jake Ashley, came up with the idea of also mining the passes and the valleys that were in the south, which were actually bin Laden's escape route, with aerial-delivered surface mines that could be preprogrammed to detonate at a predetermined time. There was not a humanitarian issue there of women and children 20 years from now stepping on one and blowing their leg off. Of course, that [plan] was denied, as well, somewhere above our level. I don't know why.

You also had to deal with Afghan warlord Hazret Ali, who was reluctant about the game plan, even though he was paid to help you. What were his concerns?
I think General Ali gave an awful lot of credit to the terrain and the caves Al Qaeda had. He understood them because he helped build the same caves and trench lines back in the Soviet jihad. He told us that first day that the Soviets couldn't take Tora Bora with 10,000 fighters—what made us think that we could do it with a handful of Delta fighters and his basic ragtag mujahedin? He was also worried about getting one of us killed. I don't think there was any pressure from the CIA not to get one of us killed. I think the CIA was pressuring him to use us. Eventually he came around. He started to send his fighters up the mountain with us after about four days of cajoling him.

Tell me about the first major break you got regarding bin Laden ' s location.
On the night of [Dec. 10], the CIA came into the room and passed me an eight-digit grid location, which is good down to 10 meters. You have to understand that there are various methods in obtaining this information. Some are real time; some are dated several hours and even half a day. But we took it and loaded 33 Delta operators in nine pickup trucks and took off to the battlefield. We had three guys up there already with the mujahedin on a frontal attack. We did intercept a radio transmission that said, "The father is trying to break out of the siege," which gave us cause to believe that it might be bin Laden himself that was under attack by the mujahedin with our three guys up there directing bombs. General Ali had called saying he had bin Laden surrounded. We met him halfway from the battlefield. He was coming away from the battle with about 20 pickup trucks of mujahedin. He led me to believe he was going to turn around with us. He did not. On the way to the mountains we learned that our three guys were abandoned by the mujahedin because the mujahedin was afraid of Al Qaeda at night. I had to make a decision. Do we rescue our three Americans or go after bin Laden? I decided to recover our guys. We were successful in that. Then we had to determine whether we should go toward the grid location without the mujahedin. [The U.S.] certainly wanted to put an Afghan or Muslim face on taking out bin Laden. With our orders of the mujahedin taking the lead and making it look like the Afghans were doing this by themselves, we were basically stuck.

Why is that?
In my opinion, it was just the political sensitivity of it. [They didn't want it to look like it] was a Westerner that killed Osama bin Laden. They wanted it to look like it was a Muslim who killed him because he was an extremist, and not necessarily consistent with the peaceful, loving Muslim community at large.