Hunting al Qaeda: A Take-No-Prisoners Account of Terror, Adventure, and Disillusionment

The citizen-soldiers of Beast 85 are unusual among the ranks of Green Berets. One day, they’re working at their full-time civilian jobs. Then 9/11 happens, and they’re called upon to join the front lines in the War on Terror, fueled by love of God and country – and dreams of capturing Osama bin Laden. Active-duty special forces units tend to look down their noses at National Guard special forces, calling them the “summer help”. But the men of Beast 85 were much more than summer help. They were experienced, highly qualified Green Berets in every sense of the term, with the kind of exceptional skill and insight necessary to fight an unconventional war. They were anxious to prove themselves in Afghanistan. When Beast 85 went off to fight the enemy, they could not have imagined that the greatest obstacle they would face was not the suffocating heat, disease, or even the enemy itself, but an increasingly risk-averse high command and the modern American military’s culture of “playing it safe”. Even while being short at, they were not allowed to shoot back, ending up sitting on their hands for days and weeks on end. Then, the men of Best 85 did what Green Berets do; they found a way to get the job done. They hunted, cornered, and captured some of the highest-level terrorists in Afghanistan, including one of the Taliban’s top generals, the man responsible for a brutal ethnic-cleansing campaign, and a key player in the assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud (the “Lion of Panjshir”) – a man who struck fear into Osama bin Laden’s own cold and murderous heart. They even tracked down the Taliban’s top leader and bin Laden’s right-hand man, Mullah Omar. And they did so with the initiative and ingenuity that are part of every special forces soldier. But their actions only seemed to rile the military’s play-it-safe leadership, who at every turn let the bad guys slip away to fight another day. That did not deter Beast 85, who proved themselves collectively to be one of the gutsiest and bravest units in the war. Written by the men who were there, Hunting al Qaeda takes no prisoners in its critical look at what went right (plenty, when they were allowed to do their job), and what happens when Green Berets are unleashed in the most hostile place on the planet.