Posted on 09/24/2001 8:51:11 PM PDT by SunStar
US aims to take vital Afghan airbase
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent, and Rahul Bedi in New Delhi
(Filed: 25/09/2001)
THE US air force intends to attack the Taliban's front line north of Kabul before sending airborne troops to secure the large former Soviet base at Bagram.
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The base, Afghanistan's only all-weather airfield, would make an ideal forward operations base for American and British special forces who are expected to be sent in to snatch Osama bin Laden.
It would also allow ground attack aircraft to be deployed from the heart of Afghanistan.
The Taliban have been bombarding opposition positions around Bagram's T-shaped airfield with "Stalin's Organ" multi-barrel rocket launchers inherited from the pro-Soviet regime of President Najibullah.
US defence sources have indicated that one of the main targets of early air strikes will be to destroy the Taliban artillery and force it back to positions from where it will be unable to threaten Bagram airfield.
Once the artillery has been repulsed or destroyed, US airborne troops, possibly Green Berets, will be sent in to provide airfield defence before any aircraft can be deployed.
Charles Heyman, the editor of Jane's World Armies, said the American troops would also have to seize the mountains around Bagram to prevent the Taliban using them to direct artillery fire on to the airfield.
"The key to the fighting in Afghanistan will be to hold the high ground just as it was when the British were fighting on the North-West Frontier," he said. "That will also make it safe for helicopters to fly in and out."
About 1,500 US special forces plus a small number of Special Air Service soldiers have arrived in Uzbekistan and begun to move into Afghanistan, Indian military sources said yesterday.
British sources played down the report that the SAS was already in the region but said Indian claims that American special forces were arriving in Uzbekistan were "entirely credible".
The Indian army has a heavy presence in the region, with intelligence bases in Uzbekistan and a substantial number of "military advisers" assisting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.
American, British and other special forces units expected to go into Afghanistan can be divided into two: the elite teams that will go in to "snatch" Osama bin Laden and those who will provide "force protection".
The main American unit specialising in hunting and snatching fugitives and war criminals is the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta, known as Delta Force.
It was set up at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in November 1977 by Col Charles Beckwith, an army officer who had served on attachment with the SAS, which formed the model for his new force.
Delta Force uses the same concept of small four-man teams as the basic unit, with the larger units known, like the SAS, as troops.
It is widely regarded as the best of the American special forces groups and, after experience hunting down war criminals in the former Yugoslavia, the most likely US unit to be used as snatch squads.
The only real American rival for that job would be the navy's Special Warfare Development Group, better known as Devgru or by its former title Seal Team Six, set up in the early 1980s.
Based at Dam Neck, Virginia, it is believed to number about 200 men and was reported to be involved in a plan to shoot down Saddam Hussein's personal helicopter with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.
The Hereford-based SAS is undoubtedly the most experienced such unit. It was set up in the summer of 1941 by David Stirling to carry out operations behind enemy lines and disbanded at the end of the war.
It was reformed in Malaya in 1950 and has since operated in Yemen, Malaysia during the 1960s, Oman, the Falklands, Northern Ireland, the Gulf war, Bosnia and Sierra Leone.
Members of the SAS also trained mujahideen in camps in Scotland and Pakistan and some resigned and went into Afghanistan on behalf of MI6, helping the resistance against the Soviet Union.
The final unit likely to take part in the snatch squads is the Royal Marines Special Boat Service which, like the SAS, grew out of small special forces units set up during the Second World War.
Based at Poole in Dorset, the SBS has its own anti-terrorist unit. M Squadron was set up amid fears that a North Sea oil rig or an ocean liner might be taken over by terrorists.
The main US units from which force protection is likely to come are the 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Benning, Georgia, which works closely with Delta Force, and the US army's Special Forces, Airborne - better known as the Green Berets - who were involved in the 1968 operation to hunt down Che Guevara in Bolivia.
Britain's contribution to force protection is likely to be from either the Parachute Regiment or the Royal Marine Commandos now on exercise in Oman.
BTW - All Your Base Are Belong To Us!
Does anyone have a link to a map of Afghanistan
showing the Bagram air base?
Yes, I am shocked! shocked!
It never would have occured to the Taliban
that the US would want an airbase
if they hadn't learned it here.
different types
Already got it bookmarked.
For the same reasons that the activities of the First United States Army Group commanded by General George Patton were reported?
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