Original subtitles

Previously on The Fighting Season.

These elections are big. These elections cannot fail.

Kabul is defended by a series of checkpoints that are called the Ring of

designed to keep suicide bombers away. In the previous few weeks, there have

been eight magnetic bomb attacks.

This is a hard blow to the security of Kabul.

We should expect enemy activity to increase.

Something will happen.

The movement of lethal aid in Afghanistan is critically important for

fighting season.

Arctic Fox's role is to oversee the supply -resupply process that runs

his province.

We invaded Afghanistan, and some of the guys that we're chasing around the

battlefield now were three or four when the invasion occurred.

And the thing is, you're never going to win a counterinsurgency through

brutality. You're just going to face generation after generation of new

insurgents until you correct the political, social, and economic

allow an insurgency to exist.

As people get educated, they realize, hey, wait a minute, I do have a voice, I

have a vote. And being able to do that, to cast that vote instead of throw that

grenade, is going a long way with these people.

And they want what we want. They want their children to have the ability to go

to school without fear of death or their fingers being cut off because they

voted. We are going to hunt down and destroy the elements that threaten

Afghanistan.

and this nation government and the Afghan soldiers.

We are also going to protect the people.

When Americans go to war, we're not contract killers. We are going to help.

are going to build schools. We're going to build roads. We're going to assist

them with the medical clinics. We are going to help the folks who need it the

most.

At Forward Operating Base Sweeney, Lieutenant Colonel Larson, Commander of

White Devils, and Major Will Kanda, his operations officer, review the status of

their mission to capture or neutralize the Taliban leader codename Arctic Fox.

The first air assault effectively flushed a pretty big Taliban player in

Garang Valley.

And so Arctic Fox...

We're pretty sure it's there. And, you know, that's a pretty significant

And certainly the benefits of capturing, you know, or neutralizing Arctic Fox is

big for the campaign. And it's big for R .C. South. So we'd go in and raid that

target and get Arctic Fox off the battlefield.

The White Devils plan a combined operation with the Afghan National Army

conduct a cordon and search of SOCSI for weapons, insurgents, and Arctic Fox.

He's the main facilitator.

He's also an attack coordinator, but really what he does is he facilitates

movement of Lethal Wade through the Grand Valley down further south.

The way we're going to execute this operation is we're going to isolate a

village where one of the C2 or the facilitators of that Lethal Wade lives

take him out of the equation.

All right, everybody's got to be sharp on this, okay? We're using multiple HLCs

to infill and multiple HLCs to exfill.

Accountability of all personnel is key.

First platoon, you'll isolate to the northeast with your attached ANA. Second

platoon, you'll isolate to the northwest.

And third platoon, you'll isolate to the south.

Battalion mortars and company mortars, you'll establish more fire points just

south of HLV and support the company.

We'll be in there at 03 in the morning. We're not leaving until 2200 at night.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. We should have already been doing it.

The White Devils plan the operation, but the Afghan National Army will be the

ones on point to search the village.

We'll take in 60 ANZAP, ANA Army guys.

We'll isolate the objective so they can't get off of it. And then the ANA

go in and clear the village and go to the compounds of interest, trying to

locate the guy.

Where we're going to be setting up, there's a road that's curved.

The platoon leaders brief the operations order in exact detail so that the

troops can effectively rehearse the mission with their Afghan counterparts.

Ramps down, go.

Those rehearsals, that's your bread and butter right there.

Is it okay with you if I just put two of your guys at each position?

Because we'll have, like, different spots around.

You know what I'm saying? They'll be spaced out. No problem.

Speaking.

You speak English? Very good, my friend.

Working with them, establishing that rapport, that relationship, is going to

off when you get on the ground.

I can't wait.

It's going to be great.

And as night falls, final preparations get underway.

Wheels up at 0250.

So really what the company's going through is final PCIs, PCCs.

Squad leaders are checking them in, making sure weapons, everything's good,

have everything we need.

Me, personally, I review the plan.

I make sure everything is synchronized. I do back briefs with my platoon leader,

go around and talk to squad leaders, make sure everybody feels comfortable

it, everybody knows the plan.

And it's really making sure all our assets are tied in together.

I got every fucking thing possible.

Do you have bubble gum?

Actually, no, I don't have bubble gum.

Do you have cigarettes?

That's good for you, though. At least you brought that for your lungs.

What keeps me not acting like an idiot?

Seven beers.

Damn it, I keep thinking about drinking.

I want a barbecue right now.

Want a barbecue?

Drinking, food, stuffed jalapenos.

Tell them it's my birthday.

Boy, yesterday.

What was it?

19.

That's right. We're doing it on me.

Right here, sir.

All right, let's do it.

You get them on helicopters going into an objective under the hours of

it's something magnificent to see.

and what those guys do and how they orchestrate it and execute it.

It's phenomenal.

We got on the helicopters around 2, and we flew in to our HLZ, which is always a

little scary because you don't know whether they're going to shoot an RPG at

when you're coming in.

I'm going to be right behind you guys.

You know, you land somewhere and you step off, the Taliban get a vote.

So no matter what kind of plan you have, it could go to complete shit.

And, you know, you've got to be able to fight the fight and not fight the plan.

First one, let's go.

To isolate the village of Soxhai so the ANA can capture Arctic Fox, Charlie

Company must quickly reach their positions before the Taliban can flee.

Jamshad, hey, can you guys get up in front of my guy up there? Okay. So you

pick him up and then move up to him.

We put the ANA up front because it's their fight now. They're supposed to

it every time, and we just directed them to exactly where we needed to go.

First platoon reaches their battle position and settles in. We're just

put your team and the gun one over here. We're going to have gun one over on

this side of the road that I'm on right now, and then we keep the rest of the

platoon on the other side.

We got to our location, and then we found a rundown compound, basically,

could use for cover.

which was big because we were expecting to just be completely wide open.

We're going to clear all these little broken down walls so we can use them as

fucking cover.

Taliban always think of places the Americans might use to fight, so that

definitely a spot that they could have potentially booby -trapped.

Good? All right.

But as soon as one Taliban threat is eliminated, another appears.

That building they just lazed, there's four to five individuals cycling to a

ladder, and they just keep coming over the ladder. They're watching us.

Okay.

EW has confirmed 10 packs in the compound that was lazed earlier,

of our location.

You can see them moving and shit? Yeah, I see them.

You guys are seeing them coming through.

They're walking around on the roof.

All right.

We got eyes on.

There's males in the compound, and it looks like there's three guys sitting on

the roof.

None of the rest are just consolidated around that motor.

Roger. Stand by.

Roger.

Do you see any weapons or anything? Probably not.

No.

Hey, check it out.

Apparently, EW has already picked up calls from them, and they're instructed

whoever their fucking leader is to not move from their location until they hear

the F -16s leave, so... Okay. We started picking up their ICOM chatter, and it

was tense. You can just tell that...

Same as it's going to be today. It was a good day to fight.

They're not trying to draw any attention, but they do know where all

locations are.

All right.

We're about to lose birds, too.

Fuck.

Did you hear that?

Oh.

Mic check.

Mic check.

It's not prayer time. They already did prayer.

That's not the prayer time. I wish we had a terp.

That's not a prayer call.

Yeah, no, I want to talk to the ANA, see what the fuck's going on.

Good or bad?

What is that?

Is that good or bad?

It's good?

It's fun?

Prayers at 3 .30 and 5 .30, right?

No Taliban?

No,

no, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was prayer, but there's Taliban in there.

Okay, it is a time.

Lots of Taliban in there.

Adams conducts final coordination with the ANA forces before they push into the

village.

We're just looking for weapons, IDs, radios, anything that facilitates their

communications as a commander or a squad leader or a platoon leader.

You have to think about what the enemy's going to do and how you're going to

react to it when it happens.

We'll be here if you need this. We'll be here if you need this. Good.

Yeah.

Let's go. Break it down.

Friendly forces will be holding back.

Yeah.

Commander pointed the ANA in the direction they needed to go into the

They went into the village, and then the commander came and linked up with us.

Put EOD over here with these guys.

Okay.

And then I'll put the JTAC and all these guys over here in the room until they

have some cover to set up TACFAB and everything.

Okay, roger.

So we got set in, and once we started getting set in, I just looked at where

were at, and it was bad juju, man. We were between two villages.

Once daylight broke, we found a berm, so there was some cover there.

While the Afghan forces clear the village, the White Devils wait and

Today we're under a threat of a complex attack throughout the day.

In Kabul, Colonel John Graham and his team advise and support the Afghan

National Police in their effort to keep the city safe for the elections, now

just three days away.

This country has been at war for 35 years.

Every child in this country to adult has been in nothing but a state of war.

And now they know when this vote happens, they've chosen the path, the

they will go in a peaceful transition.

Each of these candidates represents different tribes.

Each of these candidates have different support from different parts of the

country and different ethnic groups.

As we're going into these elections, we're only a couple of days out.

The belief is that the enemy is trying harder and harder to get in. They've not

been very successful.

They've tried a lot of things.

but they've not been able to get through the Afghan defences. But as we get now

to the last few days, the expectation is that they will take increased risk on

their side to get through, into Kabul, to make that catastrophic attack that

will stop the elections.

This is a challenge for Zahir. His job is to oversee a secure election.

Many folks think that all the attacks on Kabul come from outside Kabul to the

inside. What we don't always account for is the number of bad guys, the number

of insurgents that now live inside the city.

This is a significant threat because what can happen is a checkpoint is

out. but the bad guys are behind them.

Last night an alert came in that there was some type of a threat at KMPC, the

Army headquarters.

There was no additional information other than there was a threat of some

but the roads parallel to that base was black, which means we can't travel on

that.

A massive explosion rocks the street outside the Ariana Hotel.

General Zahir's quick reaction force is the first unit to respond.

It's an assassination attempt on Abdullah Abdullah, a presidential

Across the city at Camp Phoenix, task force volunteer raises their alert

to become a quick reaction force for U .S. and coalition forces.

Okay, we got to go.

Initial report of an explosion in a hotel.

It hit Abdullah Abdullah's convoy.

It was big.

If they got him, this country will fucking light the fuck up.

Outside of Soxhai, three platoons from Charlie Company await word from their

Afghan counterparts, who have advanced into the village to capture or kill

Arctic Fox.

Be advised, the ANA are in the village at this time. I'll copy it. The whole

purpose of this mission is to find a high -value target that we're expecting

be in the area. We're going to do that by setting up security outside of the

village we expect them to be in.

We'll have the ANA push through and clear the village.

Any Taliban in the village attempting to flee the ANA will find U .S. forces

waiting for them.

They're setting up the TCP now, right here. Right here on this corner, roger.

shut down that main avenue of approach once they're set in.

Then I'll send your guys out and you can pick them and set up where to pull

security from. Okay.

So if anybody gets pushed out of the village, they're either going to go

or south through the green zone.

and travel down these roads.

You'll be right here with us. This is where we're going to interdict him.

White double nine one, white double nine one, convict six Romeo, radio check,

over.

Yeah, he said I have you live and clear.

One of my biggest pet peeves is communication.

You have to be able to talk, you know, and what happens if we take contact and

boom, you don't have comms anymore. I mean, nobody knows where you're at,

knows what's going on, you know, I mean, you have to be able to talk.

You should try a different hand mic, too.

It's not the hand mic.

I don't know. The Italian would suggest trying the hand mic. It's not the

fucking hand mic. I can talk to everybody else. It's fine.

White 991, convict 6 Romeo, radio check, over.

Being in my RKO is never an easy job.

Roger, I acknowledge that you guys can hear everything 6 Romeo is passing, but

we still can't hear you.

Oh, God.

It was other people.

We found out later. It wasn't our side. We were able to talk to everybody.

It was somebody on the other end.

If I can't talk to the platoons, or I can't talk back to the battalion, you

know, my RTO is the guy.

That pays the price.

It certainly wasn't me. Right, it's always somebody else.

It fucking is.

I just blame your generation for that bullshit.

Go for it, sir. Fucking millennials, man.

Never take responsibility, always looking for the out. I gave him a hard

just to mess with him.

As the daylight increases, so does the Taliban radio chatter.

536, over. Our ANA forces report of arming a remote IED, over.

Roger. They're sending out personnel to arm IEDs that are in place.

If it's anything outside of the village, we'll be able to see it.

So the only thing I can imagine is they're trying to arm something inside

village. Over.

But IEDs are not the only threat revealed by the constant radio chatter.

9 -1. The LLVI is picking up chatter that they're trying to get more fighters

into the village.

Reinforcements will come via Kerez system. Over.

A Kerez is basically just an irrigation tunnel.

So you'll have a bunch of Kerez holes. It leads the water underneath into more

of an irrigation process.

Kerez systems are vital agricultural infrastructure, so coalition forces

never get clearance to destroy a Kerez system, even if the Taliban exploit the

underground tunnels to move fighters and weapons.

Hey, one element, this is one six.

Their plan is to use wells and caresses, so keep an eye on any caresses in our

area.

Like that one right there?

Yeah. That would be fucking hilarious.

That's fucking bottomless.

They use these caresses to traffic lethal aid, fighters, weapons.

Some of them you actually get into and ride motorcycles in, but...

Some of them are hundreds of feet deep, like that one there.

Yeah, they're not using that for shit.

It's an old well.

But back at Fab Sweeney, the White Devils have eyes on a different Perez,

with visible activity.

Hey, that's it, man.

Hey, can we, like, post that directly in front of the screen, please?

What is that?

We need Onlook to ID that.

Right now, the initial report is saying it's a possible communication device.

No, the thing that he just dropped at his feet?

That was definitely... And now he's wrapped in a shawl.

Okay.

The fact that what they pulled out of the Kerez system was clearly identified

a prestige weapon system immediately clues me into the fact that he has the

potential to act against our troops.

A prestige weapon system like an RPG is relatively scarce, highly lethal, and de

facto proof of hostile intent.

First thing that we have to do is identify what it is that we think his

is, where he's going, what kind of actions that he's showing.

While the operations center tracks the enemy on screen, the members of 1st

Platoon improve their position.

There's some villages around the target village that are known to have some

Taliban guys in them too.

My platoon will be in between that village and then the other village we're

expecting the enemy to be in.

So we kind of have some risk being in that spot. But my biggest concern is the

safety of my dudes.

There's nothing worse than, you know, the potential of losing your guys.

Hey, sir, you see that tall, the tallest building in the village?

Yeah.

There's been a dude popping up in all black.

There's two of them. There's two of them now. On the right side of the tallest

part of the building.

They've been popping up and down.

On the south side of the village, the A &A have current intel for 3rd Platoon.

They're using this wadi to go up, right?

Sit rep to report.

Our ANA forces have discovered the Taliban are using phase line cluster and

wadi system to move from the village right north of us over.

They come here, they come here.

That's the best way I can put it.

Okay.

We're ready, so that's all that matters.

You know,

we started hearing the traffic of, we don't care how many there are. Go out

there and God be with you. So we knew, it's game time, let's go.

They don't know how deep we are. They might think it's like fucking ten dudes

here and ten dudes there.

Yeah, they don't know.

They're about to get fucked up. Yeah, they don't know. They don't know how bad

their day's about to be.

But there is surprising news from the A &A in Soxside Village. There's no man

inside of the village. Just there's two guys, and all of the others, they're

women, and there's no male. What happened to them reinforcing Soxside?

You know, that's how they, like, disrupt our operations, right?

They know we listen.

So they just say random bullshit on there to disrupt us, what we're doing.

That's their way of disrupting us.

Like the other day when they straight up said we have stinger missiles.

Fucking really?

I have a fucking battleship back at fucking CAF.

Sometimes this shit happens, sometimes it doesn't.

The fire isn't coming from the village.

It's coming from an orchard behind First Platoon.

The first thing that went through my mind was, well, this is real. And I just

had to figure out exactly where I need to be to control the fight.

Hey,

look for movement.

Yeah, they were impacting really close to us. So, like, damn, this is the act

fire.

2 -6, Convict 6. White Devil 3, Convict 6.

Attention to the top. We're taking contact now. There are two 6 -elements

contact from the green zone to the northwest.

We're taking machine gun fire north of our location.

This is Holes Brown.

Rogers.

An attack on Dr. Abdullah has destroyed his convoy, and the presidential

candidate's fate is unknown.

Colonel

Graham and

his team are on the streets of Kabul when they get the news.

So the decals are just coming in. What we understand is that Abdullah is the

target. And the explosion happened on his event happening at the Ariana Hotel.

Absolute huge attack right in the middle of the city.

They got an IED vehicle and a suicide vest to get through the checkpoints.

Actually, this checkpoint we're passing through right now.

Look at this.

Shit, they're even looking the other way.

This is significant because this is the innermost part of the city.

This is the part of the city that nothing should be able to ever get to.

But now we've had an attack on a presidential candidate inside the center

city. We don't know if he's okay.

What we do know is that if he's killed, this election is done. By Constitution,

they have to start over.

This is a big deal.

The candidates, Abdullah and Ghani, represent different ethnic groups.

If Dr.

Abdullah has been assassinated, Afghanistan could erupt into a civil

destroying everything the coalition forces have fought for.

Across Kabul at Camp Phoenix, the leaders of Task Force Volunteer are

the attack.

They're a quick response force, but only for coalition casualties or if their

help is requested by the Kabul police.

Push out of Warno, explosion at Ariana Hotel.

They hit Abdul Abdul's convoy. They initially reported two magnetic IEDs,

we're thinking it's actually a VBID. It was pretty huge.

So it could be a mass cow situation?

If they actually got him, it will be huge implications for this country.

He's dead.

It's about to get rid of him. Yeah.

Are we going?

Once we start getting casualty estimates and if there is any Westerners

involved, we'll most likely roll.

Do you want him to stay there?

No, just give him a Warno, kind of Raycon 2 right now.

Listen up.

We're in an election window right now, all right?

Do not get complacent.

This is when things start to pick up.

I'm not going to get too far ahead here, but we had a guy downtown.

Keep this in mind.

Everybody stays as sharp as you have from day one.

Just bring the kit down, lock the trucks up, leave your gear out here.

Everybody copy?

They have not been called out, but task force volunteers prepare to leave at a

moment's notice.

On the other side of the city, Graham and his team have received intel of

another potential attack.

PD -5 has an active threat. It's a suicide vest looking for a target in PD

Police District 5 is where all the schoolhouses are for the Army, for the

police, for the military academy.

Potentially what this suicide vest is looking for is a student population to

blow itself up on.

They're looking for a soft target of a lot of people.

They're looking for a crowd.

opportunity yeah so far uh so far so good though i haven't seen uh when we

about sketchy behavior what we're really looking for is there somebody that's

obviously surveilling us or is there somebody that is just providing a lot of

scrutiny to us whether it's not natural or normal the threats are

higher than the first election

This time, Pakistan has emptied the madrasas. That is, they've shut down

schools that train kids in what we consider radical Islam. The purpose that

put to that is that it's to release those kids that want to be suicide

to come back to Afghanistan to unleash on the Afghan security forces that are

trying to conduct the elections.

And according to the intelligence that's working, we've got a lot.

Two hours after the attack destroyed Dr. Abdullah's convoy, task force volunteer

remains on standby.

Scary thing for me was, if you see the pictures, it was a big -ass fucking

Hundreds of pounds.

Probably. What do you think the odds are we're going to roll?

If Abdullah Abdullah is hurt or dead, it's going to be about a 24 -hour grace

period where everybody tries to figure out what's going on.

Constitutionally, the election, let's put, if he falls back, the cars die and

they start all over again.

That's convenient.

Isn't that interesting?

Because Abul Abul is the guy who almost beat Tarzai last time. I think it would

be imperative for him to get on TV immediately and say, hey, I'm alive.

Yes.

There's been a little lull in the fire that we've been taking. Outside Sox Eye

Village, Captain Adams takes advantage of a break in the firefight to update

white devil talk.

I'll give you a sit rep over here.

Roger, standing by.

It's fucking stupid.

They were just fucking lobbing rounds, man. It's just in our direction, though.

Well, at least my 240 gunners are a little lighter now for the walkout.

Everybody went down.

Instantaneous, the 240 gunners just started returning fire.

Just land lead all over the wood line.

He was rocking that thing.

It's a little scary because when you're on the machine gun, everybody can sit

down on the hole and pop up and fire up a couple rounds, but I have to be on the

gun at all times, so my head's up the whole time.

I have to be seeing where the muzzle flashes are coming from, and I have to

suppressing fire.

Without that gun, it cripples the platoon.

I know at one point I sat back and kind of laughed because it was just like the

rounds are tracking pretty close, and you're just like, man, crazy.

My job is an FO, so I got to go up there and call for fire.

The rounds are kicking up around, downed it up, ran through, hopped in a hole.

All right, now you see where the fucking herd of goat sheep are? I'm just trying

to identify where it was coming from, but...

It blew my mind. Hey, that high ground where that goat herder is, that's where

the fuck we're taking it from. Like where that little fucking compound is

the trees?

The high ground, sir. See where the green zone is? Yeah. Now come to the

of the fucking green zone. Okay. There's the fucking, the highest high ground.

That's not on the ridge?

All right, got it. See it?

Yeah. You saw him fucking shooting from that compound right there?

That's where the fuck we're taking it from. All right. Because every time me

DeVoe pop up, they're cracking off at us. All right.

Hey, tell them. No.

Hey, you call that in the mortar? Yeah.

Let's do it. 81.

We good on TDE?

Yeah, that area is all open. Okay, let's go.

As a commander, I have to make sure the conditions are set to take away the risk

or the tactical advantage to the enemy.

Guidance is, hold your ground, engage the 81 -millimeter mortars, and use your

weapons to take them off the station. Roger, I'm tracking.

Hey, get the fucking mortars going. Let's go. Roger.

Just like, all right.

We'll go ahead and get a grid to that, and we'll call it up.

Let's do 2 -8 -8 -0, 0 -9 -2 -0, 0 -9 -0 -5, with a direction of 5 -700.

I know.

2 -9 -4 -0 -1.

Roger, that was a good readback on grid.

Stand by for refinement.

You hear me?

So they're clearing air right now.

Roger. It's absolutely critical that we make sure that the ground and the air

are clear of any friendly forces, because even though you're shooting a

round that's maybe like the size of a 2 -liter bottle of soda, You're putting

that thing in the air, there's always a risk of hitting an aircraft.

While

they

wait for the airspace to clear, one Afghan soldier decides to make a stand.

Jamshik, he's the leader of the 10 ANA that were working with us for the

mission. He carries an RPG with a backpack full of like five more rounds,

was bragging to us beforehand about how he killed five Taliban or something the

week before with his RPG.

What's he doing?

Uh -oh.

What is he doing?

He wants to shoot that fucking thing.

So we're in the middle of our firefight, and all of a sudden we see Jamshid just

walking up like a boss.

He didn't give a fuck, dude. Not scared of anything. Rounds coming around him,

like everyone else is down, you know, behind cover.

And he's just walking up in the wide open. Go get him, brother!

With his RPG over his shoulder.

He's gonna go fucking get up.

He just stands up, posts up, and starts aiming at the green zone where we're

taking fire from.

Hey, A &M's gonna fire an RPG, just...

Because.

Oh, my. What the fuck?

Damn.

Damn.

Good shot.

American motherfucker.

Perfect.

You couldn't get a more perfect RPG shot than he had. Here we go, Jim, shot.

Yeah, looking better.

Afterward, he had a huge smile on his face, like, giving a thumbs up.

Everyone was, like, yelling for Jamshid. He's like, oh, you Americans, just

laying in the dirt.

So he proved to be a boss, like he said he was before the mission.

Hollywood!

Hollywood cinema!

Finish! One RPG, Taliban!

But that one RPG round isn't enough to stop the attack.

Captain Adams finally received the long -awaited clearance.

Clear to use mortars on the enemy, Sergeant Letnam works the firing

How far do you think that green zone is? 17, sir.

1 -2, it's 1 -6. It's about 1 ,700 from our location.

We got a grid yet? My favorite fire mission is just a grid method.

0 -9 -5 -5.

It's quick, concise, and there's no way you can screw it up. Long shot, this is

convict 9 -5.

I just gave him the distance and direction.

2 -9 -er -1 -3.

And he refined it on the net, started getting the rounds in.

No, I don't see it.

It's got to be fucking... Unobserved?

Yeah, unobserved.

There's no smoke at all.

Hey, Hall!

Hey, that's unobserved, man. I don't see it.

The mortars are like 100 meters south of the green zone break

Two Niner one three great nine five five how copy

Guys

are pretty bald. They stuck

around with the mortar fire coming in. They kept the fire coming We had called

for two more rounds.

Yeah, I see him. I see him. There was a guy. He walked out of the tree line.

That guy was probably trying to stand up to see what had happened, where that

had come from.

I made a pretty significant correction back to the west.

I wanted to fix on that one guy.

Hold my ACOG up. I'm watching, watching, watching.

The dude started to walk to his right, our left, and then boom.

You know,

that's at least one.

that we can chalk up to the effects of our fires if we're able to take him out

of the fight.

Fucking right.

That's one left guy that can harm one of my friends.

If he's gone, he's off this earth, he can't do no more harm.

In Kabul, police have confirmed that Dr. Abdullah survived the assassination

attempt, and task force volunteer stands down.

They told us they need absolutely no coalition support.

Well, this could be a good thing. You know, they're taking this big one

themselves now.

The attack on Abdullah Abdullah, I'm sure everybody's heard about it.

Abdullah Abdullah, of course, made it, but several of the PSD were killed.

This is our expectation of the AI right now. The vast majority of conflict that

we think we're going to see is going to be very similar to that.

People basically trying to improve their own situation through violence, not

necessarily targeting us.

Dr. Abdullah finally appears in public.

The assassination attempt was unsuccessful, but the attack was deadly.

20 civilians and security forces were wounded and 12 were killed.

The enemy did not respect Zaheer when we got here.

But I'll tell you that today, he actually stood up and said, we can't

to continue to happen. We're going to sort it out ourselves without...

Any coalition forces, General Zaheer is positive, he's demanding, and he is

decisive.

What are the photos of the bomb?

The car that was hit.

Man.

Transmission. Transmission.

That guy was loaded down.

Yeah, that's a lot of damage. Eight feet across with the... The blast?

The hole.

The hole.

Man.

Team is feeling a little bit angry and also a little bit bummed.

The reason for this is this attack got deep inside security, and that's caused

lot of concern.

Yeah, S -Beth, you ever seen it? S -Beth, the head just popped straight up.

But the police are at the heart of this thing.

General Zaheer stepped up as we found in this incident.

They had everything organized.

Their top investigators went to work on it. They figured out who the guy was,

where he was from, and they were interviewing his family and everybody

looked out for him.

We're going to work hard to figure out who was his controller.

Who is the person that put them up to it? Who is the network behind this?

Because that's who we want.

Charlie Company Mortifier has created a break in the firefight as the hunt for

the Taliban leader, codename Arctic Fox, continues.

I think they were trying to kill me.

But if they catch their breath, there's new intelligence in the tactical

operations center.

Right now, it looks like the enemy is probably going to engage you from

locations. So you just need to be patient and don't get sucked in.

Hey, hold your ground. Be prepared to be engaged on multiple fronts.

They're getting intel that they're going to try and smash on us on three sides,

so we'll keep you posted. Over.

Do you have movements on, Deval? No, we're just pressing the cell. We're just

doing something.

All right. Yep.

Hey, man, you guys need to have that mortar fire point.

I'm getting intel from ISR that they're going to try and hit us on multiple

fronts.

Don't blow all your load on that ammo.

Hey, control the gun.

Dick says control the gun.

Watch this, too. Hey, watch this, too, all right? If you get in a firefight and

people start pulling the trigger way too much, then you don't have enough ammo

to continue fighting afterwards, so.

The NCOs did a good job of making sure their dudes were conserving their ammo.

We're just suppressing the greens on you. Hold what you got.

While 1st Platoon returns fire, 3rd Platoon, kilometers away to the south of

Soxhi, can only watch and wait. 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon are reporting

contact from the orchards.

They're trying to adjust fire. They don't know exactly where the fire is

from in the orchards. Orchards tend to be big, as you can tell by these fields.

So it's kind of hard to pinpoint them when they're underneath the cover.

Yeah.

Get down.

Klein, get your head down, bro. You're scaring me.

Hey, we're taking contact from two separate locations. The first location

green zone.

The second location is that compound.

Roger,

we're taking fire from the left. The green zone to the left of the compound I

just described to you. Over.

Copy. Now you're taking contact.

Just confirm that's a different area that you're taking contact from. Over.

So they are at 295097.

Hey, 2905 Grid Square, 5 personnel.

5 personnel atop the ridge line moving back and forth.

We're trying to ID weapons right now.

Possible spotters on our positions and locations.

They were determined to fight, to distract us, to keep us out of that

So that's when our JTAC, Tom Meehan, brought in the close air support.

Hey, Tom!

A JTAC, or Joint Terminal Attack Officer, is the liaison between the Air

and the Army, who directs combat aircraft engaged in close air support.

All right, she's tallying with those walls up front and the orchard trees

behind it.

Okay. What do you want? You want them gone?

Yeah. All right.

We use close air support to help the commander achieve his objective for

whatever the mission is, and it really depends on what he's looking for out of

me.

Close

air

support in this case is a B -1 bomber known as Bone.

It's not just a clever name, B -1.

Bone.

Hey, let the RPAs know we're going to drop.

White Devil 3, BSI, Bone will be on station in about 13 minutes.

Great for Moss.

Make sure we have the same spot.

Shooting pop shots at us from the tree line.

Engaged with 81mm mortar. Currently right now on ground, JTAC is talking to

Bone. to get Bone talked on to engagement area. First platoon holds

waiting for the B -1 bomber to arrive on station.

Hey, Tom, is Bone on?

Yeah, they're on.

They want to get... I'm trying to talk them on. They think they have it, but

they don't know for sure. I got to make sure they bomb the right thing.

Yeah. So... That usually helps. Yeah.

Hey, can you give me ordinance they're dropping?

Getting that now. We can fire a 60 from marching round. Do you want to?

Yeah, we can.

Okay, let's do it.

Whenever you want it. Huh? Want it now?

Yeah. Let's do it.

Roger. Fire it. They're going to shoot a marking round.

We shot one round of illumination that burst on the ground. Hey, there it is.

And we used that to mark for the bomber to come through and drop their bomb.

We just fired a 60 -millimeter round to mark for bone.

You know, from the sky, it's hard for them to tell what's on the ground. We

to kind of paint that picture for them, us being the eyes on the ground. It was

awesome that in this situation we were able to range it, we had the ammunition

for it, and we were able to do it.

to where we could coordinate with our JTAC, Tom.

Recommending 2x38s, one per clump of trees.

Got it.

2x38 is approved, one per clump of trees.

What's a 38?

It's a big -ass bomb.

They have 38s, which are 500 -pound bombs, and they're usually pretty

the pilots that they have.

They practice just as much as we do, so their accuracy is usually pretty

reliable. Five minutes?

Yep, I'm pushing it, but they told me five.

Three 500 -pounders, they're about to level this shit.

Hey, Tom, they got target, right?

Copy. They got everything.

Confirmed through JTAC, on the ground, with bone.

They have target identified.

Relocation. Over.

They're coming in in less than three minutes. 432, Zombie 64, airspace is

Guns are told. I need you guys to come in.

I don't see a fucking three -line burn.

They're coming in this way.

Probably won't see him, though.

I don't care. It's just a bird.

Oh, you'll pick bombs. Don't worry about that.

Look right ahead.

They're getting ready to drop bombs.

Yeah, less than two minutes.

35 seconds.

1 -2 Alpha, 1 -3.

Oh,

there we go. Nice.

Looks like good effect.

The B -1 bomber put the bombs, like, perfect in the little squares, and

when, you know, the fire stopped.

Birds came in, dropped three 500 -pounders on these fuckers.

Silenced them.

Bone drop, three rounds, 38.

Direct hit on enemy locations and positions.

Yeah, that's fucking awesome, Tom.

Oh, yeah.

You're in that beret, brother.

That's what it's all about.

Man, this is all we do. This is all I train for, so to be able to actually put

it into practice is priceless. I can't even tell you how it feels.

That's what it's all about. That's what I came over here for, man. That's what I

reclassed for.

That's what I came to Afghanistan for. It was everything that I'd been training

for this past year and a half.

The bombs may have stopped the gunfire, but enemy survivors are likely

regrouping for a renewed attack.

I would imagine them trying to exfil out of that orchard in case that happens

again, and then fleeing to the door.

They're watching for them to exfil now, the birds are.

Probably the Apaches will take care of them as they're trying to run away.

But the Apaches report no movement, which means the most dangerous part of

mission lies ahead, clearing the orchard from which the White Devils took

contact. They've been able to track guys with weapons and everything into like a

crevice, a crevice system, but they're hiding from the Apaches.

We've confirmed that they do have weapons systems that they've moved down

there, and basically they're just waiting on us to advance on the village,

then they're going to open up on us.

From the green zone to try and keep us out.

The contact's pretty likely, which is the situation we're in exactly right

On the season finale of the fighting season.

We had a crossover.

1 ,100 meters, just open ground.

I was expecting to get shot. The White Devils come face to face.

with the Taliban.

I'm talking.

That guy wouldn't even look us in the eye. You'll be looking for the talker,

huh? While in Kabul and across Afghanistan.

Elite on checkpoints is where the casualties happen.

They're sitting at the edge of the battlefield.

The Taliban make their final push to disrupt elections.

These elections cannot fail.

We've been here for 13 years just for this moment.

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