Operations Center (JOC).
Dagger’s JOC, like TF 11’s, consisted of a series of interconnected, white-walled, temperature-controlled nylon tents that hummed with nonstop staff activity interspersed with the scratchy insistence of radio chatter. The plethora of laptops made it resemble a high-tech stenographer’s pool. Racks of communications gear lined the walls, and the tables were strewn with maps and notebooks, as well as the coffee machines ubiquitous to all military operations centers. In a tent corner sat a couple of boxes filled with snacks from MREs—Meals, Ready to Eat, the U.S. military’s calorie-filled ration packs—that hungry staffers grazed on day and night.
Two of Rosengard’s key planners were SF warrant officers who had served on teams that had just returned to K2 from north of Gardez. One warrant was analyzing the Shahikot area to determine where Al Qaida might have training or logistics bases and how enemy fighters might travel between them. The other leaned over a planning table in a different tent, using his knowledge of key personalities in that part of Paktia to draw up a “people network” not only of likely Taliban or Al Qaida leaders or supporters, but also those figures who might become U.S. allies.
By now Mulholland, the Dagger commander, had decided the intelligence justified a major operation aimed at the Shahikot. Planning proceeded, but was still very compartmentalized. Much of the nuts-and-bolts work was confined to the tent Rosengard’s planning cell shared with CIA officers attached to Dagger. In addition to Mulholland, Air Force Colonel Frank Kisner (Mulholland’s deputy who also commanded the AC-130 gunships and MC-130s at K2), Rosengard, Sweeney, and the two warrants, only a few staffers with a “need to know” were aware something big was in the works.
AS Dagger’s planners and analysts pored over intel reports, maps, and satellite photos, they became increasingly familiar with the Shahikot, which had previously been to them just a vague area south of Gardez.
There were in fact two Shahikot valleys—an Upper Shahikot Valley and a Lower Shahikot Valley. The two valleys ran parallel on a line south southwest to north northeast, separated by a mountainous ridgeline over 9,000 feet high. The Upper Shahikot Valley, which lay to the east, was aptly named. It had a higher elevation, and the valley floor appeared on maps as a thin ribbon of land no more than a couple of hundred meters wide, hemmed in by craggy mountain peaks. No one appeared to live there. But the Lower Shahikot Valley—soon known as the Shahikot—was a different proposition. Depending on where you measured, the valley was about five miles (eight kilometers) long by two-and-a-half miles (four kilometers) wide. An arrowhead-shaped ridgeline jutted into the valley’s southern end, creating southwestern and southeastern entrances. This ridgeline became known as “the Finger.” The valley was bordered on the east by the ridgeline dividing it from the Upper Shahikot. At its southern end this ridgeline peaked at a mountain called Takur Ghar, which at 10,469 feet dominated the valley. An equally imposing terrain feature marked the valley’s western edge: a humpback ridgeline almost 9,000 feet high, over four miles long and almost a mile wide. This ridge was called Tergul Ghar (Ghar means “mountain” in Pushto), but its distinctive shape caused American planners to dub it “The Whale,” after a similar rocky mass at the Army’s National Training Center in California’s Mojave Desert.
Unlike its inhospitable eastern neighbor, the Lower Shahikot’s floor was reasonably suited to human habitation. It was flat enough to support subsistence farming, and several creeks ran through it. As a result, there were four villages in the valley, each with no more than a couple of hundred inhabitants. The farthest south was Marzak, located between Takur Ghar and the Finger. The tiny hamlet of Zerki Kale was just
Dagger’s JOC, like TF 11’s, consisted of a series of interconnected, white-walled, temperature-controlled nylon tents that hummed with nonstop staff activity interspersed with the scratchy insistence of radio chatter. The plethora of laptops made it resemble a high-tech stenographer’s pool. Racks of communications gear lined the walls, and the tables were strewn with maps and notebooks, as well as the coffee machines ubiquitous to all military operations centers. In a tent corner sat a couple of boxes filled with snacks from MREs—Meals, Ready to Eat, the U.S. military’s calorie-filled ration packs—that hungry staffers grazed on day and night.
Two of Rosengard’s key planners were SF warrant officers who had served on teams that had just returned to K2 from north of Gardez. One warrant was analyzing the Shahikot area to determine where Al Qaida might have training or logistics bases and how enemy fighters might travel between them. The other leaned over a planning table in a different tent, using his knowledge of key personalities in that part of Paktia to draw up a “people network” not only of likely Taliban or Al Qaida leaders or supporters, but also those figures who might become U.S. allies.
By now Mulholland, the Dagger commander, had decided the intelligence justified a major operation aimed at the Shahikot. Planning proceeded, but was still very compartmentalized. Much of the nuts-and-bolts work was confined to the tent Rosengard’s planning cell shared with CIA officers attached to Dagger. In addition to Mulholland, Air Force Colonel Frank Kisner (Mulholland’s deputy who also commanded the AC-130 gunships and MC-130s at K2), Rosengard, Sweeney, and the two warrants, only a few staffers with a “need to know” were aware something big was in the works.
AS Dagger’s planners and analysts pored over intel reports, maps, and satellite photos, they became increasingly familiar with the Shahikot, which had previously been to them just a vague area south of Gardez.
There were in fact two Shahikot valleys—an Upper Shahikot Valley and a Lower Shahikot Valley. The two valleys ran parallel on a line south southwest to north northeast, separated by a mountainous ridgeline over 9,000 feet high. The Upper Shahikot Valley, which lay to the east, was aptly named. It had a higher elevation, and the valley floor appeared on maps as a thin ribbon of land no more than a couple of hundred meters wide, hemmed in by craggy mountain peaks. No one appeared to live there. But the Lower Shahikot Valley—soon known as the Shahikot—was a different proposition. Depending on where you measured, the valley was about five miles (eight kilometers) long by two-and-a-half miles (four kilometers) wide. An arrowhead-shaped ridgeline jutted into the valley’s southern end, creating southwestern and southeastern entrances. This ridgeline became known as “the Finger.” The valley was bordered on the east by the ridgeline dividing it from the Upper Shahikot. At its southern end this ridgeline peaked at a mountain called Takur Ghar, which at 10,469 feet dominated the valley. An equally imposing terrain feature marked the valley’s western edge: a humpback ridgeline almost 9,000 feet high, over four miles long and almost a mile wide. This ridge was called Tergul Ghar (Ghar means “mountain” in Pushto), but its distinctive shape caused American planners to dub it “The Whale,” after a similar rocky mass at the Army’s National Training Center in California’s Mojave Desert.
Unlike its inhospitable eastern neighbor, the Lower Shahikot’s floor was reasonably suited to human habitation. It was flat enough to support subsistence farming, and several creeks ran through it. As a result, there were four villages in the valley, each with no more than a couple of hundred inhabitants. The farthest south was Marzak, located between Takur Ghar and the Finger. The tiny hamlet of Zerki Kale was just
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