Several weeks after the September 11th attacks, U.S. Special Forces were already in Afghanistan working with anti-Taliban forces performing reconnaissance on Al-Qaeda and Taliban targets.
In early 2002, U.S. Special Forces called in airstrikes on caves, terrorist complexes and military facilities along the Afghan-Pakistan border, sometimes only 500 yards away from the enemy - the minimum safe distance from an air-burst bomb.
At Zawar Kili, a huge 3-mile long, 3-mile wide Al-Qaeda terrorist complex, 60 buildings and 50 cave hide outs were destroyed by Air Force and Navy bombs. With the help of Special Forces on the ground, who called in new coordinates after each hit. In the end, it took 400,000 pounds of munitions dropped from every imaginable aircraft to destroy the complex.
Zawar Kili served as a garrison for some of Bin Laden's 4,000-man Arab army, a recruit training station for would-be terrorists and a communication hub to stay in contact with his worldwide empire. The destruction of Zawar Kili eliminated the last major Al-Qaeda training base in Afghanistan and denies Bin Laden's terrorists one more hiding place. Green Berets found equipment as large as tanks and artillery pieces, along with the basics: ammunition, rifles and grenades. They came across classrooms used to train terrorists. On the walls were crude posters of a 747 crashing into the World Trade Center towers. |
