Team Alpha & The Fort Of War

“Those first teams were going into the wildest Wild West.”

— Bruce Reidel, CIA officer

Nothing about David N. Tyson says “badass.” An academic — a linguist specializing in Central Asia — he found himself in what a CIA colleague called “the wildest Wild West,” in Northern Afghanistan in November 2001. And when the chips were down, he unlimbered a Browning pistol and an AKMS assault rifle to come to the aid of his comrade, CIA officer Mike Spann, who was being swarmed by Taliban prisoners in a sudden and terrifying revolt.

Tyson started stacking Taliban in a chaotic and savage gunfight in Qala-i-Jangi, the Fort of War, in Mazar-i-Sharif.

Journalist Toby Harnden — author of First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 — writes:

“David wasn’t an elite warrior. He wasn’t former Delta Force. He wasn’t a SEAL. He wasn’t even a CIA paramilitary. He was a former academic who was a case officer — a linguist. But when it mattered, he ran towards his comrade — Mike Spann. He ran towards danger. And that’s just incredible that a human being is placed in this situation, and has this choice of kill or be killed. And he took the choice of kill and survive.”

Tyson was part of Team Alpha, a small outfit consisting of CIA officers and U.S. Army Special Forces, who had linked up with Northern Alliance Commander Abdul Rashid Dostum — an ethnic Uzbek —  to disrupt Taliban and al Qaeda forces as the U.S. prepared to invade Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They were also on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

With support from U.S. air power and assistance from Team Alpha and other CIA paramilitaries and Special
Forces, the Northern Alliance routed the Taliban, and forced the surrender of approximately 400-600 foreign fighters outside the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. They were confined in an old 19th Century adobe fortress called Qala-i-Jangi, which translates as The Fort of War.

It would soon be a bloody battleground.

Tyson and his CIA partner Johnny Micheal Spann were culling through the foreign fighters, trying to identify al Qaeda elements. Among the prisoners was a skinny white Westerner who would later be identified as American John Walker Lindh. Spann was a CIA paramilitary operator with the Special Activities Center. Tyson, designated as a case officer, was there as an Uzbek-speaker and regional expert. Spann was armed with a Glock 17 pistol and an AKMS assault rifle. Tyson packed a Browning Hi-Power 9mm that he hadn’t  fired for years.

The situation was chaotic and security was extremely sketchy. The prisoners outnumbered the NA and American personnel by a considerable number and had not been throughly searched. A later investigation suggests that the surrender of the foreign fighters was a deliberate Trojan Horse operation, inserting armed fighters inside the fortress. Perhaps. In any case, while Spann and Tyson were in the courtyard of the fort talking to prisoners, grenades detonated, concealed firearms came out from under rattly, filthy tunics, and the prisoners swarmed Spann.

The CIA operator fought back heroically, and managed to shoot a few of his fanatical assailants before the swarm took him to the ground, wresting the AKMS out of his grip. Spann was shot to death, probably with own Glock. The prisoners took the whole southern half of the fortress, including a cache of small arms, grenades, RPGs and ammunition.

Tyson was about 40 yards away from Spann on the Qali-i-Janga courtyard when the fireworks kicked off. The CIA case officer whom his colleagues called “The Professor” was not trained for anything remotely like the maelstrom he now found himself caught up in. But the man had sand — and he acted.

Harnden writes:

Tyson drew his Browning pistol and stared at it. “Fuck, I’ve never shot this,” he thought. “Do I know what I’m doing with this?” He had not fired a pistol since his CIA training course four years earlier. He chambered a round and craned his head toward the Pink House. The mass of prisoners to his left seemed also to be trying to work out what was happening. None appeared to be paying attention to him. Everything felt jarringly strange. Tyson was frozen. “I don’t have a plan and I’m not doing anything,” he thought. “I should do something — but what?” Split seconds seemed to elongate into minutes.

The idea of running never crossed Tyson’s mind. As well as time slow­ing, he was conscious of experiencing a physiological transformation: he was losing his hearing and peripheral vision. Everything that was not relevant to his survival and that of his comrade was being screened out. He could see muzzle flashes, but he couldn’t hear shots.

He did hear one thing. Spann was yelling his name: “Dave, Dave, Dave!” It was as if Tyson’s brain had filtered out the background cacophony to allow Spann’s voice through. The yells snapped Tyson back into the moment and gave him purpose and direction — literally. Knowing where Spann was, Tyson began to move toward him, realizing that prisoners were in the way so he would have to head east and then turn left, to the north, to reach him. Probably no more than five seconds had elapsed since the initial shouting.

A young Arab ran toward Tyson, firing a Russian Makarov pistol wildly. Tyson put two rounds from the Browning into his engine room and moved on to the scrum where his comrade was dying.

Harnden:

Tyson got to the pile of writhing bodies and could see Spann at the bottom, recognizable by his fleece, jeans, and brown boots. Four prisoners were on top of him, including the Qatari. Tyson used his pistol to shoot each of them once in the torso, finishing with the Qatari, shooting him twice and then each of the others a second time.

Somehow, Tyson managed to grab Spann’s AKMS rifle, which the prisoners seemed to have pulled from his comrade. He then kicked Spann’s legs and feet hard two or three times. “Mike, Mike, Mike!” he shouted. There was no response or movement and there was blood. Spann appeared to be dead, quite possibly killed by bullets from his own Glock after his assailants had wrested the pistol away.

Tyson pushed the AKMS selector all the way down to semiautomatic. Prisoners from the lines in front of the Pink House were now launching themselves at him, shouting, “Allahu akbar!” None of them seemed to be armed, and most still had their arms trussed. He shot at least four at close range — just five to ten feet away — without registering who any of them were.

A calm had descended as he fought for his life. Fear was absent. He had no real decisions to make and faced no dilemmas. Tyson shot every prisoner who came at him as he tried to escape. He had to kill or be killed.

The Professor managed to get to a more secure area of the fortress, where he encountered a German news crew, commandeered their sat phone and called for reinforcements. It would take six days and a whole lot of slaughter to retake Qala-i-Janga. Special Forces personnel painted targets and the U.S. Air Force JDAMed the hell out of the Taliban-held portion of the fort. More than two-thirds of the revolting prisoners were killed.

Tyson received the CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Cross, the agency’s highest award for valor.

In the wake of the shambolic U.S. bugout from Afghanistan, Tyson has teamed up with Mike Spann’s widow Shannon and Special Forces veterans to help get Afghans who aided the Americans out of the country before they can be hunted down by the Taliban. Per NBC News:

Tyson, Shannon Spann and others associated with Team Alpha have formed a nonprofit called Badger Six, named after Mike Spann’s radio callsign. The group, funded by private donations, says it has managed to get about 300 Afghans out by air and over land to neighboring countries, using safe houses, wire transfers and a network of contacts. Many of them are relatives of former Afghan Northern Alliance commanders who rode on horseback with Team Alpha and U.S. Special Forces in the opening days of the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

This is a solid doco on the Battle of Qala-i-Jangi.