FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan, May 2, 2011 –
News of Osama bin Laden's death raced through the tents and
plywood buildings that make up the headquarters of the 101st
Airborne Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team here this
morning.
Within minutes of the president's televised
announcement brigade leaders met this morning in their daily
battle update briefing, and soldiers checked in by cell
phone with buddies on other parts of the base: “OK, just
wanted to be sure you heard.”
Task Force Currahee is
on its second deployment to Afghanistan, responsible for
counterinsurgency operations in Paktika province. Soldiers
here smiled as they discussed the death of the terrorist
responsible for murdering nearly 3,000 Americans and other
nations' citizens in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the
United States.
Army Maj. Rob Born, brigade operations
officer, said bin Laden's death won't require the task force
to change its operations significantly.
“The
assessment was in many ways, he was more of a symbolic,
moral and figurative leader than he was involved in the
command and control of day-to-day operations,” Born said. “I
think we will find out whether or not that hypothesis was
true, and what the impact is.”
He said the task force
will analyze the effects of the al-Qaida leader's death
within its area of operation over the coming days and weeks.
“We definitely expect and anticipate retaliatory
attacks,” he said. “[But] if they're hasty and not well
planned, it's not going to work out well for the
insurgents.”
Born said bin Laden's death is a
validation of the nation's efforts to combat terrorism.
“I think it's a tremendous achievement,” he said. “It
shows that persistence and attention to detail, agility,
flexibility, working together with special operations forces
and the intelligence community – it pays off.”
The
positive demonstrations outside the White House and in New
York City during Obama's announcement were encouraging, Born
said.
“It just shows that the American public is
really engaged in what's going on, and they take pride in
the achievements of their armed forces,” he said. “That
really was the best thing that I saw.”
Army Capt.
David McKim, the brigade's assistant intelligence officer,
termed bin Laden's death an example of how his profession
operates.
“That's truly how it does work for us,” he
said. “Things don't happen instantly, sometimes. A lot of
our successes take time to build.”
He said for his
shop, the mission in Regional Command East remains finding
the enemy in Paktika and protecting the soldiers and
population.
Enemy forces the task force faces in
Paktika are not necessarily closely linked to al-Qaida,
McKim said, though many in Regional Command South are.
Insurgents in Paktika are likely to respond to bin
Laden's death in one of two ways, McKim said: their morale
could suffer, or their activities could increase in
retaliation.
The al-Qaida leader's death comes at a
time when I think everybody had given up,” he said. “They
thought, ‘He's either dead, or we're not going to find him.'
But that's how things work in our business – you don't know
when.”
The fact that the military did find bin Laden
“gives you that justification that yes, we are doing the
right things,” McKim said.
In the overall
counterinsurgency campaign, McKim said, bin Laden's death is
a powerful counter to enemy propaganda, which claimed
America would never capture him.
There is no likely
successor to bin Laden who will have the same stature, McKim
said.
“He was tall, he spoke very eloquently, ... [he
had] power, influence, money,” the intelligence officer
said. “Granted, there are lots of other bad guys out there
that will try to take his place.”
Other insurgents
may now think twice about attacking U.S. and coalition
forces, he said.
“I think this is definitely a good
thing,” McKim said. |
