real general dostum and mitch nelson

Families back home monitor the news, not wanting to look but more afraid to turn it off. However, the rugged Afghan terrain forced them to adopt the rudimentary practices of the Afghan horse soldiers. -The Fayetteville Observer, Yes. You can bomb it until there is no resistance, or you bomb and, as soon as the bomb goes off, you charge. Outnumbered by enemy fighters 5,000 to 1, the men were also in extreme danger due to the huge bounties placed on their lives by the Taliban. Beyond that, all I know is that Dostum, born a poor peasant, grew up to be a brilliant commander, a general, and a warlordone of the many regional leaders across Afghanistan whose power derives both from ethnic loyalties and from military strength. Finally after two weeks they admitted they could not smuggle me across. But I never travel without a few Mr. real general dostum and mitch nelson Uncategorized September 20, 2021. The rounds are zinging over my head. Accordingly, on 25 May 1997, Malik arrested Khan, handed him over and let the Taliban enter Mazar-e-Sharif, giving them control over most of northern Afghanistan. All I see is grass growing beside abandoned trenches. They are men with wives, children, mortgages, bills. The then-secret Uzbekistan air base, also known as K2, is depicted as a sort of tent city in the movie. The two Green Berets are solemn; they insist on driving through the gap so they can tell their story from the right perspective. Then he rides up on horseback with one pant leg untucked, looking like Bluto.. Its like a casting call for The Dirty Dozen. Aside from the challenges of cultural differences and a sense of distrust on both sides, the Americans, with their state of the art technology and equipment, had to learn to navigate the treacherous mountains and desert landscape the same way the locals did: on horseback. Ill admit, my guard was up, as I dont expect even-handed treatment of military-heavy stories these days. He was authorized to transform his Jowyzjani militia into the 53rd Infantry Division in 1988 and ultimately under the Soviet backed regime of Najibullah, he became commander of the 7th Army Corps in charge of all of Northern Afghanistan. These are the soldiers I saw back at Qala Jangi preparing to go in and retrieve the body of the dead CIA agent, Mike Spann. Two of the Green Berets Ive been chatting withAndy and Paul, the pair with the longest tenure in the companyhave decided that I need to see this place for myself, or maybe simply that they need to go see it again one last time. The videotape cuts to the next morning. He has ended the bloody battle for Kunduz by negotiating with Mullah Faizal and Mullah Nuri, the two most senior Taliban leaders in the north. Weve all been there. If the Taliban can rule successfully, let them. A year later, betrayed by his second in command, who had defected to the Taliban, Dostum fled to Turkey. I grab my cameras and ask Bill, a pensive Green Beret medic, to come with me. My friends were struggling against the Taliban, and I was sitting there., Dostum says that to help him get back into the fray, the former president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, sliced offabout $40,000 from the CIA funds. Ironically, he actually served under the man he is portraying. It was somewhere between harassing and accurateenough to keep our heads down. As the Hespan drips into his veins, I fire up the video camera, and the man begins to tell his story. I assumed he was fricking mean, hard. In the bewildering matrix of Afghan politics, Dostum has frequentlyand nimblyswitched allegiances. Once the ODA 595 linked up with Dostum, they were to "render the area unsafe for the Taliban and terrorist activity," says Green Beret Mark Nutsch, portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie. Dostum in September 2014 First Vice President of Afghanistan In office 29 September 2014 - 19 February 2020 President Ashraf Ghani Preceded by Yunus Qanuni Succeeded by Amrullah Saleh Personal details Born (1954-03-25) 25 March 1954(age 68)[1] Khwaja Du Koh, Jowzjan, Kingdom of Afghanistan Political party Junbish-e Milli Nationality Afghanistan They linked up with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum and his Uzbek fighters. That I am kind and gentle? Captain Mitch Nelson (played by Chris Hemsworth) refuses. Bill and the team were wearing armor decorated with my logo when he died. Their captors brought them here en route to the Sheberghan prison. Over chai (tea), he announces good news. The Green Berets call it the Gap of Doom. They also had two boys, then ages 4 and 3 (in the movie, they have a little girl). He confesses that he had worried at first how the Americans would handle Afghan warfare: It was cold; the food was bad. He never sacrificed his men. Nuri is chatty, although he often looks to the silent Faizal before answering my questions. -NPR, No. Dostums meetings do not end until well after midnight. From there, American and Afghan forces would liberate Kabul in the east, Herat in the west, Kandahar in the south, and Jalalabad, resulting in the Afghan forces taking control of the country from the Taliban. They were all quitting demanding to be sent to other units rather than put up with new commander ideas on what soldiering was. Dostum points to the fresh dirt of new graves in the cemetery. His lack of combat experience is pointed out in the movie. On the morning of September 11, the team was returning to base after an all-night training exercise. As portrayed by actor Chris Hemsworth in the major motion picture, 12 Strong, Mark Nutsch (aka Mitch Nelson in the film) shares lessons learned in the now-declassified saga of a U.S. Special Forces team that overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to help achieve a historic military victory. Note that there is strong language throughout, as well as violence. Our commanders said they didnt know what to expect, but at least they were honest enough to admit it, the Green Beret continues. Its a high, lonely place. Before the arrival of the Americans, Dostum fought mostly at night. Yes, and that's why Gen. Dostum kept the American soldiers back from the front lines at first. Some are provided by Dostum and others. A few yards before the turnoff to Khvajeh Do Kuh, he gestures to a place where 180 of his men died fighting the Taliban. (In his book Taliban, author Ahmed Rashid reports a tale he heard that Dostum once ordered his men to drag a thief behind a tank until all that was left was a bloody pulp of gore. Since he cant speak Urdu, he was assigned to the Arab-speaking branch of Ansar (the helpers), a faction that Walker claims is sponsored by Osama bin Ladenwhom Walker says he saw many times in the training camps and on the front lines. America was fully committed to defeating the Taliban and ousting them from power. Yes. You see the village; you see the bunkers, says a second Steve, one of the two Air Force men attached to the team to help coordinate air strikes. That is one of the premises Osama bin Laden operates under. Dostum wasnt about to let an American casualty put a premature end to his battle plan. They sit patiently for hours, clutching tiny pieces of paper, seeking his aid. He talked for half an hour. Our Team So I approach a war movie set in the days after 9/11 with a certain amount of skepticism. Rifles, night-vision gear, and boots are strewn everywhere. I wondered if they could adapt to these circumstances. They had gone only about 600 meters when they started taking fire. I watch a fighter go up to the top, then crumple into a black pile of rags. Although I spoke out on behalf of the team the media, didntpublish my eyewitness photos and testimony because it would go against a narrative thata Pashtun backed by a European-backed central government must rule Kabul, not a coalition of regional leaders.We did not want the Taliban voting themselves back into power, yet we restrained the grass roots power of the ethnic minorities. On October 7, 2001, ODA 595 arrived in Karchi-Khanabad (K2) Airfield, Uzbekistan. The B-Team had already set up shop at theTurkish School in Mazar and was getting ready for the push to Tora Bora. Dostum arrives that night, ducking to avoid banging his head as he strides through the guest-house door. Newsweek, The New York Times and other outlets insisted that eyewitness had seen American soldiers laughing and shooting into containers. Nelson must convince Col. Mulholland (William Fichtner) that his team is ready to meet with Northern Alliance General Dostum (Navid Negahban) to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Santos pointed out that with Massoud dead, and no Pashtun resistance, Dostum was Americas only hope. The baby was born early while Mark was in Afghanistan. Three or four bombs hit right in the middle of the enemy position, says Will. And we were going to oblige them.. You felt the air leave. A clock sounds loudly. Is Captain Mitch Nelson still alive? In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks, the elite U.S. Special Forces unit, Operational Detachment-Alpha 595 (ODA 595 for short), was one of three teams of Special Forces soldiers sent into Afghanistan. At first, the planes wouldnt fly below 15,000 feetthe brass was worried about surface-to-air missilesso targeting was sketchy. Yes. Within hours, they are gone. The first words I wanted to learn in Dari were, How do you make him stop?, Their most important immediate order of business was to establish themselves in Dostums eyes. ", Yes. Although nighttime gunfire is normal in Afghanistan, there is an urgency to the sound of the deep explosions that come from the 19th-century fortress of Qala Jangi, just over a mile east from Khoda Barq, a Soviet-era apartment complex west of Mazar. At the same moment he was trying to flee Mazar from the Taliban assault. The Battle of Bescham wwas fought on 23 October 2001 at the Taliban-occupied village of Bescham during the Invasion of Afghanistan. The shelling, raping, pillaging, looting, and house-to-house fighting that then befell Kabul stained the name of every mujahidin commander, including Dostums, and fueled his reputation for brutality. Today the government of President Ghani has welcomed the fighters ofHekmatyar from exile in Pakistan and is looking to bring the Taliban into the government. Nutsch is portrayed by Chris Hemsworth in the movie and renamed Mitch Nelson. -The Fayetteville Observer, Only two of the characters in the film actually have the same names as their real-life Green Beret counterparts. His men rounded up vehicles that the Taliban had left behind, and Heavy D entered the city as a conquering hero, standing through the sunroof of a Toyota Land Cruiser. The U.S. refused to work with Dostum until former UN envoy Charlie Santos pointed out to the CIA that the only functioning fighting group besidesthe Panjshiris ofMassoud wereDostums Uzbeks. Theyve just finished installing a satellite TV. The Horse Soldiers monument in New York City is not based on any one person. Theyre polite but wary about having their pictures taken as they set up their night-vision scopes. General Abdul Rashid Dostum is a man who has rarely been interviewed but has often been typecast as a brutal warlordusually because of his reputation for winning. Soon were winding past an ancient brick bridge that crosses a roaring gorge; on the west side are large caves that shepherds have scooped out of the soft rock over the centuries. The entrance to the bunker was pierced by cannon shots and is blackened from explosions. I whip my horse, it takes three steps, and stops. We transfer him to Dostums house, and the next day hes spirited away at the same time that his story is being broadcast around the world. "We slept on the ground the first couple of nights." This is the back jacket of The Hunt for Bin Laden ghostwritten by the late Jack Idema and published as non fiction by Random House editor Bob Loomis. Two weeks after Dostum descended on Balkh, things have calmed down, so the warlord climbs into the front passenger seat of a Nissan, and we head across a sandstorm-blasted desert. In the 1980s, as a young army officer in the Soviet-backed government, he fought against the mujahidin. You know: You better not show any weakness. After the seventh grade, Dostum left school to help his father on the family farm. They brought with them the courage of a whole army.. Yes, Bob Pennington, portrayed by Michael Shannon in the movie, had a herniated disc and suffered from excruciating back pain during the mission. Men who are the Armys elite, who are college educated and fluent in several languages, yet who are paid little more than a manager at McDonalds. Meanwhile, Im hunkered down, waiting for Dostum. In the morning Villagers come out in the crisp, golden light of morning, shivering and tired. The lead horsemen disappeared behind the rocks, and the Regulators all held their breath, praying the bombs would reach the bunkers before the cavalry did. Almost immediately after the bombs exploded, the horses swept across the objectivethe enemy was so shell-shocked. In contrast to the Americans high-tech warfare, some of Dostums tactics would have seemed familiar to the British troops who tried and failed to pacify this region in the 19th century. Their rooms are filled with green Army cots, dirty brown packs, and green flight bags. We only had the time it takes 250 horses to travel 1,500 meters, so I told the pilot to step on it, Will says. For a brief moment, the general stands triumphant, the conquering hero, the bring-er of peace, the warlord who has ended war in the northand, therefore, perhaps eliminated his own reason for being. He brings the mullahs along, to show them the havoc incited by their foreign volunteers. At first he is hostile, like a kitten baring its claws. There was talk that the team might be split uprumors of differences with a commanding officer who didnt appreciate the traditional independence of the Green Berets. And waited. The money was hardly enough for feeding my horses, Dostum says. Bill finds a shrapnel wound in the emaciated mans right upper thigh and wounds from grenade shrapnel in his back; he also finds that part of the second toe on his left foot has been shot away. Their home base is Fort Campbell, Kentucky, but they spend only a few months of the year there. Mitch Nelson," a. A story of how 12 Americansand a Afghan warlord won the war on terror, if only for a brief time still remains to be told. A few minutes later, one of Dostums men runs up breathlessly, saying there is an American in the hospital. Payback was certainly on the minds of some members of the team, while others focused primarily on the mission at hand. As he leans into the Afghan wind, the light falls, and a moment in history fades. Theres the erratic chatter of AK-47s and the deep dut dut dut dut of Taliban machine guns. What we didnt realize was that the Taliban who we saw coming out of the bunker had gone into the low ground and were sprinting up the hills at us in a flanking maneuver. we discovered that all but one of the 12 Horse Soldiers depicted in the movie were married and 10 of them had at least two kids. Even the CIA was reticent to land paramilitaries and officers to set up the conditions for an Special Forces ODA to be inserted. In exploring how accurate 12 Strong is, we learned that some members of the ODA 595 Special Forces team had been involved in a nighttime training exercise along the Cumberland River. The general climbs out of the tiny black car and tucks his hands into his belt. It was September 12, 2003. None of the 12 soldiers died during the 2001 Afghanistan mission. Dostum, a former Communist general, had a reputation for violence. Its a gritty reminder of who our common enemy wasone that not only strove to kill Americans, but also attempted to force its archaic way of life on whole countries. The Afghans shoot from horseback, but there is no aiming in this country. It was at K2 that their team received new orders, after which it was no longer a mission about personnel recovery. Most of the fallen look as if they were killed instantly. Mitch Nelson, scanned the dark landscape around the landing zone. Dostum, portrayed brilliantly by Navid Negahban, comes off as a kind of Obi Wan Kenobi, the ancient-wisdom-dispensing warrior. The doctors huddle around a steel-drum stove, smiling and talking, oblivious to the pain and suffering around them. Late in the afternoon, a convoy of mud-spattered off-road vehicles pulls up, and a dozen dusty Americans in tan chocolate chip camo climb out. What made working with him particularly dangerous was that he was known for switching sides during several conflicts with Afghanistan. "And to me, that was a plus when you got saddled with a mission that was going to be as complex as this one." The crumpled bodies of prisoners, frozen in agony, are scattered everywhere. Some American soldiers are billeted upstairs in the guest houses; men in camo pants run up and down the stairs. He studied Arabic in Yemen and then enrolled in a madrasah, or religious school, in northern Pakistan. The Regulators flew in from Uzbekistan at night on a blacked-out Chinook helicopter. We begged, Mark says, but we were told to stay away. (In the end, the Regulators wouldnt get clearance to enter Qala Jangi until the uprising was over. This is where the Taliban made their last stand. As they began unloading their gear, they were met by Afghans in turbans, their faces wrapped. ODA 595 followed by ODA 555 were the first two teams to have boots on the ground in Afghanistan following 9/11. Later, one is shown penning a goodbye letter to his family. . It turns out theyre staying next door, guests in Dostums house. A man whois said by some journalists to define violence and treachery. We thought Kunduz was [going to be] a full-scale attack, says Captain Mark. The estimated 30 Alliance soldiers who died have already been taken away by their friends. Staying off the roads and in the wilds, they could swoop down andattackthe Taliban but could not hold the ground. You could see horses falling. An outcrop obscured views of the last 250 meters to the target. ), Commander Abdul Karim Fakir, who was in charge of the fortress while Dostum was in Kunduz, had worked with the Green Berets since they landed in Afghanistan. Some hide their faces, others convulse and shiver. Nutsch said that the movie leaves out a key river that the men often had to swim across in the freezing cold water with their horses, one of the bigger obstacles they faced on the mission. On another truck are the seriously wounded. He is a kingmaker who works the ethnic minority to choose who will rule and who will fail. Mullah Faizal and Mullah Nuri refuse: They claim they dont know these people. I waited for it, that inevitable politicization of our troops presence in Afghanistan, but was happily surprised when it never came. The risk they were taking was indeed that great. Paul here is busy shooting at guys. Dostum is actually a nickname thatmeans my friend was born Abdul Rashid in 1954 in the desolate village of Khvajeh Do Kuh, about 90 miles west of Mazar. It feels more than a bit odd to be recognized for my books and TV showas someone who specializes in traveling to the worlds hot spotswhile poking around a war in Afghanistan. In Hollywood I was asked to join meetings during which actors and producers pitched the story, read half a dozen books in which the idea of John Wayne like cavalry charges and Dostums ogre like cruelty were fictionalized into cartoons. Dostum enlisted in the Afghan militaryone of the few ways for poor men to escape lives of labor and hardship in rural Afghanistan. A bizarre story called The Convoy of Death surfaced and painted Dostum and the team in a negative light. Up on the parapets, Dostums troops stream toward a gap in the ramparts created yesterday by an errant American 2000 lb bomb. I thought the guy was this ruthless warlord, one soldier says. -Horse Soldiers book, The movie finds the soldiers being told that there is a good chance they won't survive the mission. Sidelined, and in exile in Turkey, In 2009, Dostum was begged by President Karzai to come back from exile to reelect him and again in 2014 Dostum engineered the victory ofPresidentGhani.only to go back into exile. Some cry out in pain, some are weeping, and others lie still, their faces frozen in deathly grimaces. Mullah Nuri insists he doesnt know them and they refuse to come up. Robert Young Pelton, all rights reserved. Mark Nutsch shares the true-life story of helping lead what is considered the most successful . We could see a bunch of Taliban come out of another bunker complex off to the south and disappear behind a hill. What else do you expect my enemies to say? he asks. Men wept as the imam prayed and thanked Dostum for deliverance. He would take a village by getting the mounted guys up close. Dostum proves to be significantly more expansive in conversation than his scant press clippings would suggest, and hes happy to fill me in on his background. Ten minutes later, another 40 riders galloped up. And that he became the first Afghan commander to take over a major city when he entered Mazar-e Sharif on November 10. They just cant figure it out. We thought he was wounded. I talk to an Iraqi, as well as to Pakistanis and Saudisall of whom speak English. You could see machine gun fire from both positions. "We dispersed the team at several positions along the ridges of the Tiangi." That, says Dostum, was when the war against terror began., Living in caves and raiding Taliban positions, Dostums men slowly began to harass the well-entrenched Taliban along the Darra-e Suf. Its more like, I am coming to get youwhether I hit you is another story. Its Old World combat at its finest. Dozens of dark-eyed men in turbans scramble into battered Toyota pickup trucks and assorted four-wheel-drive vehicles. -The Fayetteville Observer, Yes. It's a miracle of sorts given what they faced, a feat that the movie does a good job conveying. John Walker Lindh was the second Irish American jihadi I had met who was trained in Bin Ladens camps. The enemy was 700 meters out and moving quickly. Theyd heard rumors that he was 80 years old, that he didnt have use of his right arm. Later, I find out that theyve come hoping to retrieve the body of Central Intelligence Agency officer Johnny Micheal Spann, who was killed by Taliban prisonersthe first American combat casualty in Afghanistan. But coordination soon improved, and the improbable allies fell into a rhythm: The Americans would bomb; Dostums men would attack. In between conflict there was time to celebrate. I ride in the warlords communications truck, a white Land Cruiser. All I see is brown dirt and men on donkeys leading camels along the road. They are direct military descendants of the Devils Brigade, a joint Canadian-American unit that fought in Italy during the Second World War. Three years of drought have broken: A cold rain pours down in gray sheets. My opinion is an unequivocal yes. The horses cast long shadows in the late afternoon. Its three weeks after the madrasah bombing, and word has come down that 3,000 Taliban are still occupying the city and environs of Balkh, Alexander the Greats old walled capital, a few miles west of Mazar. A crude videotape made by one of Dostums men shows a battle in the rolling hills of the Darra-e Suf, where the yellow grass contrasts with the deep blue sky. In the movie, another team member arrives to pick them up and tells them about the attacks. It was put on display across from Ground Zero in 2012. Our Afghans are running out of ammo. As for why the names were changed, one article stated that the studio did not want to have to pay all of the real-life people for the rights to use their names. I targeted a spot right next to this guys head. Privacy Policy The riders mount their horses, check their weapons, and begin the one-kilometer sprint to the Taliban front lines. The team set up on the roof of a building about 400 meters from the madrasah and called in a strike. Perhaps theyll convince any surviving prisoners to surrender. "Very Good," replied Dostum.

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