HQ$History - United States Special Operations Command

On 13 November, Daoud met his first heavy
resistance, and after receiving both heavy direct
and indirect fire, the SF element repositioned to
a different OP, called in air strikes, and helped
to repel a Taliban counterattack. Daoud relied
on U.S. air attacks to weaken the Taliban, and
for the next ten days, the ODAs and their TACPs
called in air support
to pound
Taliban forces
near Khanabad
and Konduz.
Daoud initiated
talks with the
enemy in Konduz,
and the Taliban
leaders agreed to
surrender on 23
November.
Qala-i Jangi
The Trojan Horse
As part of the
terms, the Taliban
and foreign fighters would capitulate on 25
November, and the Northern Alliance would
incarcerate them in Qala-i Jangi fortress,
Dostum’s former headquarters. But on 24
November, at a checkpoint near the Mazar-e
Sharif airport, NA forces stopped an armed
enemy convoy and accepted the surrender of the
enemy force, a day early and 100 miles west of
the agreed upon capitulation site. Despite warnings
by the American Special Forces soldiers, the
NA did not search the prisoners and, instead,
only simply told them to lay down their arms.
The prisoners were taken to the Qala-i Jangi
fortress, meaning “house of war.” This
huge, nineteenth century fortress on the
western outskirts of Mazar-e Sharif was
divided in half by a 20-foot high mud-brick
wall. The enemy prisoners were housed in
the southern compound, which contained a
storage area for ammunition and weapons
and an underground bunker.
As the prisoners were unloaded at the
fortress, NA guards attempted to search
them, and one prisoner exploded a grenade
in a suicide attack, killing himself, two
other prisoners, and two NA officers. Later
An Aerial View of Qala-i Jangi.
95
the same evening, prisoners carried out a second
grenade suicide attack against the guards,
whom they outnumbered four to one. The next
day, two CIA agents went to the fortress to question
the prisoners. While they questioned prisoners,
the enemy attacked and overpowered
their guards, seizing control of the southern
compound along
with its stockpile
of ammunitions
and
weapons. They
killed one of the
A m e r i c a n s ,
Mike Spann,
and the second
American narrowly
escaped
but remained
pinned down
inside the
fortress.
The Battle
of Qala-i Jangi
lasted from 25
to 29 November, and U.S. SOF assisted the NA
forces in quelling this revolt. The ad hoc reaction
force—consisting of American and British
troops, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) linguists,
and local interpreters—established overwatch
positions, set up radio communications,
and had a maneuver element search for the
trapped CIA agent. The agent escaped on the
25th. The next day, as the SOF reaction force
called in air strikes, one bomb landed on a parapet
and injured five Americans, four British, and
killed several Afghan troops. The pilots had
inadvertently entered friendly coordinates
U.S. SOF and NA on the northwest parapet of the
Qala-i Jangi Fortress.