Original subtitles

Previously on The Fighting Season. The enemy is trying harder and harder to get

in, to make that catastrophic attack that will stop the election.

It hit Abdullah Abdullah's convoy.

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

The city is a powder keg.

Movement of lethal aid in Afghanistan is critically important for this fighting

season.

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

Arctic Fox.

We're pretty sure he's there. And we'd go in and raid that target and get

Fox off the battlefield.

I just looked at where we were at, and it was bad juju, man.

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, game time, let's go.

We came to Afghanistan to prevent an ungoverned and essentially failed state

from providing time and space to foster a terrorist movement.

You know, we were very comfortable talking about how bad and how evil

was and socialism.

This honestly is no different when you look at the intent with regards to

the population, and that is total control.

of the population and the inability of the population to question anything that

the government does or says and that is sharia law the guys that we're fighting

that we're still fighting now are not the guys that were just kind of dumb

taliban that you know they paid him a little bit of money to go and you know

conduct a harassment attack these guys that have survived for the last 12 years

that we're still fighting are smart they're flexible they're fluid on the

battlefield and They're a master of their craft.

The folks that are here signed up to do this so that no more American kids need

to come back here.

We are here so that our kids don't need to come back.

Drive. Get it done.

Task Force White Devil has surrounded Soxai while the Afghan National Army

searches the village for a high -value Taliban leader codenamed Arctic Fox.

He is the shadow governor for Zabul province and coordinates the smuggling

lethal aid from Pakistan, weapons and explosives intended to disrupt the

election.

The Taliban attack past Force White Devil while the ANA are in the village.

Until three bombs from a B -1 silence the

insurgents.

Three platoons isolated Soxhai village, but the attack on first platoon came

from an orchard, a green zone, behind them to the north.

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

again.

And then fleeing to the north.

And now all eyes on the ground and in the skies search for any Taliban

that may be fleeing or regrouping.

They're watching for them to exfil now.

three times GBU -38 on three different locations, direct hit on all three.

B -1 bomber dropped three GBU -38s, which are 500 -pound bombs, and all fire

stopped. One enemy KIA confirmed from the 81 -millimeter strike earlier.

Well, it was an interesting morning.

Yeah. One round hit by my feet, one round hit beside your shoulder.

Didn't know that round hit that close to my fucking shoulder.

They're like, that big motherfucker right there, shoot his black ass.

I'm six foot six, so just standing out there, I think they got their chops a

little wet and thought, you know, that guy right there. I thought it was going

to be coming from there, though. I thought they were going to get thawed in

green zone.

No, they hit us from the north because there's fucking, the dude's in this

village. We're trying to get him out.

Uh -huh.

But the ANA's got it fucking locked down. The dude can't move. So the dude's

fucking in there right now? Yeah, he's in there. The ANA's are fucking going

house to house, still searching.

So they hit us from the north to try and suck us up there so he can fucking get

out. They're either defending something that's very important to them, or

they're pretty decisive in their actions that they're doing to make contact with

you. They did that fucking fight all day. They didn't care how many of us

was. We have a very large force.

So if they're willing to commit to that, it's for a significant reason.

Get your fucking attention focused on one area, and then they'll hit you where

you don't expect it. You know what I'm saying?

That's what happened here. They had a bunch of dudes fucking consolidated in

here. You know what I'm saying? So most of our attention was here, and the ANA

went in there, and then they disrupted us from over here so that they could get

that fucking leader out of there. It's all a fucking game, so they throw you

off. After the bombs were dropped, intel was watching guys moving in out of

Kerez systems that were north of the green zone.

And they were moving weapons.

And we shifted our focus from Objective Acuna to Objective Laredo.

Objective Acuna is Soxai Village, where Arctic Fox is presumed to be hiding. But

Objective Laredo is the village north of the green zone, where any Taliban

survivors would regroup.

We're going to advance in conjunction with the ANA to get up there, and

draw them out or flush them out.

When we decided to go up and clear that area, that's probably the time when you

would get most anxious because you know that's where you just got shot from.

You know there were bad guys there, but you're willing to strap up, get your

weapon, and walk to where that enemy was.

All right, guys, we've done well so far. What's coming up now is actually the

tricky part of the mission, okay?

What is this next phase?

This is a rifle company being agile and being flexible and being able to take

intelligence in the enemy situation and turn and conduct a new mission, new

course of action, right? So what we do now is we prepare for TIC, part two of

TIC -1, okay? Full battle stations.

If anything, this TIC is going to be more intense than the first one.

And the ANA is eager to get up there and get into that village and find the guys

that engage them, right?

We will do everything we can to enable them. But this is going to be tricky.

Make no mistake.

So, everybody, let's go back to our original focus we had this morning and

ready to mission command this thing as it develops and as it unfolds. Everybody

with me?

All right, let's go to battle stations.

Basically, when you're moving your element.

Closer to danger. I mean, we're going right to the area where we are taking

fire from. You know, it's going to give you pause, and it's going to make you

think. So as a commander, I have to make sure the conditions are set that take

away the risk or the tactical advantage to the enemy.

Now, we did that by moving our mortar firing point close to where we could

suppress more accurately. I also brought another rifle platoon up, so then we

had the whole company.

And second platoon establishes support by fire that in the event we made

contact, they could immediately establish fire superiority.

Then on top of that, we had the AWT, the Air Weapons Team, which is the Apaches,

that are flying directly over the green zone and then around it. They're going

to clear the green zones that are immediately north of us, so kind of the

farming lands that we can't get eyes on because it's just too thick vegetation.

So they're going to make a path like they're starting to do now and see if

there's any suspicious activity.

Moving up. Everyone was a little hesitant because we had a crossover.

1 ,100 meters just open ground.

Earlier in the day, they were consolidating like 30 guys there.

So we were pretty sure they were just waiting for us there.

I'm sure we'll take contact about 300 meters in.

In between this green zone and that green zone.

ANA is going to lead out.

We're just going to follow in behind them.

Are you guys ready to go?

Yeah, they're ready to go.

We're in order of movement. We're ready.

If you guys want to get in front of our guys, we're ready to go.

When we started moving up there, I was kind of nervous because that was where

were taking fire from, and I was expecting to get shot at again moving up

green zone.

We had our guys spread out because we were expecting to take contact when we

moved up to the green zone.

You know, you can't see in there, and you can't see if they're still hiding in

the trees or, you know, behind cover somewhere.

Convict 6 reports 25 to 30 packs are congregating north of their location in

green zone.

Still picking up LLVI right now. Also LLVI traffic saying that when they see

coming, they're going to hide in the crez. With each of the Taliban's push

-talk radio transmissions, Captain McEwen and his team are building an

operational picture of who is talking and where they are.

It doesn't give us a pinpoint location, it gives us an area.

So we know that somebody has been transmitting in this area, and so we

where all these transmissions overlap.

Picked up another hit, another advisory that, hey, spread out, don't punch up,

we've got bombs on you.

As they continue to come in the area, they identify one individual.

As the radio positioning data accumulates, Captain McEwen thinks he

identified the commander of the Taliban forces.

So we've identified him as being the only guy in the area, but in order to

confirm it, we need to have eyes on him while he talks, and we can say, yeah,

that's definitely him.

So if we can get him to transmit again, we've got the potential to correlate

him, establish a platform with him, and then we can just bring him back.

The ANA stopped right now waiting for us to go link up with them.

Charlie Company has reached the green zone without taking contact.

All right, let's do this. Come on, we got to move. We got 30 minutes of the

fucking Apache, so we got to do this quick.

But despite the time limit on their air cover, Charlie Company cannot rush.

Hey!

Don't forget your fucking trail element.

We're waiting on them, sir.

We got to slow the pace down going through here.

Green zones provide excellent cover for an ambush or for an IED.

It's kind of a tricky situation because the terrain in there is not friendly.

There's walls we had to jump.

Got it?

Everybody knows green zones aren't the best place to be at. So

we'll be in for a fight coming up.

If they want it, we'll give it to them.

There's some murder holes in the walls.

Where we were, you couldn't tell those holes were there.

Perfect fighting position, if you ask me.

12 -inch mud wall. Our bullets aren't going to go through it.

When you get into an area like that, like there's green zones or there's a

of vegetation, it's a completely different dynamic because, you know, the

time you're walking through, you don't know where other people could be hiding,

you know, to try and jump out at you and ambush you.

You're looking out because you don't know where an IED could be.

And make sure you're keeping your space.

I'm going to control my guys and make sure they're keeping their spacing and

that they're not too bunched up.

Hey, look at this shit, man. Everyone's bunched up. Fix it. Because if an IED

went off, like five dudes getting injured at the same time, it would be a

day. All you guys, look out for TFCs in the trees.

They use directional IEDs. They hang them up around chest level. They put

in the green zones or they build them into walls because really if it's above

the chest, you're looking at more of a catastrophic injury.

The way that the Taliban like to emplace IEDs is in avenues of approach they

think we're going to travel.

So we were jumping over walls, going over big mounds and stuff that were in

orchards, make sure we were taking the hardest, basically the hardest route.

It's one thing to have an enemy that you can see a face or see a muzzle flash or

something, but when you're walking on ground that you don't know it might be

your last step, that's a little unnerving.

Yeah, we're going to get stuck here without fucking A .W. There's no way

it. Hey!

It wasn't until we ended up moving across and we were able to see the

those bombs placed in that area.

It was a very big impact zone.

A lot of leaves on the

ground from the bombs going off, so things shook the earth pretty well.

Pretty cool.

Staff Sergeant Meehan is the Joint Terminal Attack Coordinator, the liaison

between the Army and the Air Force for close air support.

The effects on target validate his long training. Are you happy with your work?

I'm not unhappy.

That was just awesome. It was really cool to see the effect, exactly what it

did. I've never seen anything like that up close. You see videos or pictures,

but until you actually get up on it real close, I don't think.

you really understand how much effect you can have. Captain Adams picked up, I

think, two or three pieces maybe, and he picked up one, and it was just this

frayed neon -colored fabric that was just laying in the middle of, you know,

where there were collapsed trees and everything and burnt -out rubble. It was

believed to have been from Taliban.

Back in the talk, the team refines the location of the commander who was

radioing orders to the Taliban.

They have designated him call sign Afghan.

A lot of command and control and specific guidance was coming from one

sign, and that was call sign Afghan.

And so through the assets that we had available to us, we were able to get a

rough location of where we thought.

callsign afghan was broadcasting from he's the one that's been doing most of

coordination so we'll hear him saying okay hey split up into groups of one and

two now okay right gather into groups of three and four if you don't want to get

hit by the jet and their bombs because they'll say okay initiate the firing

stop the firing he's doing all the coordination but callsign afghan has a

to exploit the coalition's rules of engagement and possibly overcome the u

forces technological advantage. What they do is they go up in the building

create a structure, a sitting structure, which is where Louie's looking right

now. And once he leaves, I mean, that's when they can get the correlation, but

he never does a call -up. We weren't sure it was him until he had to wait for

another transmission just to confirm.

Without absolute certainty, the coalition forces will not strike. We've

recognized over the years it is much more detrimental to make a strike and to

wrong than to allow a situation to develop and be patient and monitor and

sure that you're right.

While some team members track call sign Afghan, others overwatch the green zone

that Charlie Company is clearing.

The Apaches had eyes on a heat signature in the orchard. So the squad

approaches. They're on the other side of these trees.

Once we got up there, there were some farmers, and we talked to them. He

even know that we were taking fire from there. He didn't know that they dropped

bombs on the area.

So it was kind of fishy, you know.

Obviously, you're going to know if someone dropped three 500 -pound bombs

orchard, you know, that you're working in.

He had some residue on his hands that looked like he had been...

You know, possibly either firing a weapon or making an IED or something

that. Hey, we got to get rolling.

He said that he was picking blueberries, and then we didn't believe him because

there was really no blueberries in that orchard anyway.

This guy's full of shit, but we'll keep going.

All right, hey, we'll go back this way.

All right, get ready to miss those.

The only thing is blueberries in his right hand.

Picking blueberries with a shovel.

I don't know. Where do they do that? Just keep an eye on them.

You don't grow up in a neighborhood that small and shoot at Americans and you

don't know who did it.

That's simple. The world doesn't work like that. I don't care what third

country you're from. It doesn't work like that.

They may not know you're full of shit, but I do.

That is one guilty -looking motherfucker, huh?

Nick, tell him to bring that guy with us. We'll just take him with us.

He's counting us right now.

We don't want to come.

He's mad.

ANA took him, detained him, walked further up the road, and then out popped

of his buddies.

I don't think his buddy knew we were there yet.

I think they were Taliban.

Absolutely. They had that look in their eyes.

What is that?

I want

these two to come with us and then we'll question them there.

Motherfucker looks like he wanted to carve my eyes out.

After

a

long morning, triangulating call sign Afghans radio signals.

And

the

chatter from the other Taliban radio

sources is suspiciously dramatic.

The fact that they were so demonstrative on the radio was a clear indicator that

there was somebody here. These things that are getting said on the radio are

being said for the benefit of somebody that could potentially be listening.

If Taliban forces are trying to look good, even as they fight a superior

a powerful leader must be listening.

A lot of the chatter that you'd listen to and basically hear from push -to

radios indicated the fact that he was there, not by the name Arctic Fox, but

one of his aliases.

Call sign Afghan is likely Arctic Fox, the high -value target the ANA is

searching for in the village. And his capture or death is the mission

He is the number one Taliban commander in the Marouf Valley.

So what that means is he's probably responsible for the facilitation,

transportation, distribution of the lethal aid coming from across the

So he probably has anywhere between 20 to 30 fighters working for him.

We've heard him this morning.

Talking to some of the fighters that engaged us earlier, to neutralize that

target would be a big win for us in this operation.

While the team in the TAC attempts to clear a strike on the enemy commander,

Captain Adams must determine if these two Afghans are just innocent farmers or

Taliban foot soldiers.

How many people live in the village?

Even though we're using an interpreter, they still typically maintain that eye

to eye contact. It's a sign of respect.

I'm talking to you. That guy wouldn't even look us in the eye.

They really didn't want anything to do with me or Samir, the ANA commander,

because they did the same thing to him, which is very odd.

So who were the guys that were shooting at us today?

So you didn't hear anything that happened in your orchard that you were

picking fruit?

And you don't know any Taliban in this area that was down here today shooting

machine guns and other weapons that was in your orchard where we found you?

A village that small.

To not know that there's a huge firefight going on there and three huge

,500 pounds of bombs getting dropped, and you don't know anything that's going

on.

But we find you right back in that same place.

You know, it's just hard to believe.

You guys are full of shit.

He doesn't want to make eye -to -eye contact?

Full of shit. Yeah. And in this point in the war, you have to Google due

process. You have to let the ANA do the process, do the A &B.

So it's not where we can, you know, pin guys up because of what we think, even

though they're in the area where they're getting shot. What do you want to do

with these guys?

Let them go.

Time to go back to their village.

If you don't have hard evidence, they're not shooting at you. You don't have

proof, you know. You can't just contain a guy for what you think.

And we didn't have anything.

It pissed me off to all hell because those two dudes just tried to kill me.

tried to kill my boys.

And they look at you and they lie to you. You can't do anything about it.

It burns you up inside.

You can't shake my hand. I don't fucking play that shit.

I told them to get the fuck out of my face.

I'm not loving war here. It's war.

And I fucking hate you fuckers.

Don't try to shake my hand.

I mean, I understand, you know, the rules of engagement, and they didn't

anything on them. You know, there's nothing we can really do. It's not what

come to Afghanistan for, I guess.

You don't want to see the enemy face to face and walk away from them by no

means.

What'd you think?

You think that guy's full of shit?

Yeah.

What's that?

Oh, yeah, fuck yeah, they're Taliban.

And, you know, even Ahmad, he's from here, and the ANA commander's from here.

They both thought that they were Taliban.

Even Ahmad's like, they're fucking Taliban.

Yeah, they don't wear uniforms.

You wish they did wear uniforms. You wish they would hold on to their weapons

when you start rolling up on them, but, I mean, that's the fight, and it's not

an easy fight, and you gotta...

Gotta have some tactical patience with this fight.

You have to catch them shooting at you or putting in a fucking bomb.

And I mean, even then, if you don't kill them, they go to the ANA, which the ANA

has to turn them over to the police.

And then they go to the prison. They'll spend a fucking week there and be right

back out because it's almost impossible to maintain any type of evidence to

convict those guys.

I mean, unless he's holding, like, a dead fucking Afghan soldier with a bomb

his hand, he's almost never going to stay in jail.

Like, there's no way in that small -ass orchard he didn't know who was shooting.

The low -level voice intercept team reports another threatening radio

transmission, and Captain Adams suspects the men they just released are making

the call.

Ask him where.

Where is he coming from? Where is he coming from?

It's fucking right there.

It's right there, same place.

You want me to bring him down low?

Yeah. The Taliban might be safely back in their green zone, but they are not

beyond the reach of U .S. forces.

Show of force? Yeah.

You want north to south or east to west? I don't care. Just get him over that

green zone. Let's do east to west again. I was scaring him like that bomb was.

Yeah, right across.

Five from zombie six four.

West four to north five. Show of force.

East to west to west to east. Over that green zone that we just came out of.

That's where the attack credit's coming from.

Just come as low as you want to get.

Take this off. Take this off.

Bringing in Tornado right now for show of force.

There we go.

Good.

And the chatter confirms that Arctic Fox is in command and plotting another

attack.

But before a strike can be executed, Arctic Fox

finds human shields that escort him into the safety of a village.

Even though we knew where he was at, what he was doing constituted hostile

intent. and we had assets in place that could have executed the kinetic strike,

Afghan managed to find himself in the presence of two other individuals.

But since we had nothing on the other two individuals, they were considered

collateral damage.

The target's currently in CDE.

Yeah, I don't think he'll stay in there. I think he will get out.

And we might even see him walk up this pass here.

He'll attempt to get a vantage point and at least position himself to where he's

not going to get formed.

As soon as he figures out that we're pushing, he'll go back again.

You can use your dark magic to flush this guy. That would be big.

But as the minutes tick by and Arctic Fox does not appear, Captain McEwen

to suspect that Arctic Fox and his troops are using the CARES system, the

underground aqueducts, to move unseen from village to village.

First platoon rushes north, hoping to catch Arctic Fox

at the CARES.

So there's footprints that show that somebody walked down into that?

Yeah. They could tell that there had been people down there recently because

they found footprints, and it looked like someone who, like, took a piss or

something.

The cover stuff?

Yeah.

All right.

We'll back the fuck up. So I'm going to get some A &A to check it out. I'm going

to have these guys come down and actually look in there.

Yeah, dude, he's a badass.

He went down there?

Yeah, dude.

Where's he going to come out at?

A couple of guys, you know, had some big balls and jumped down in there.

Because there could have been IDs in there, too, or there could have been

in there waiting to shoot him.

You know, they've been building those tunnel systems like that since the

Russians invaded, so who knows, like, how many they had.

It was awesome seeing the ANA just step up and do the job.

They're aggressive, and they care.

We had intel beforehand that there was caress systems that the Taliban used to

get back and forth from certain villages.

They were shooting at us from there, switched their fucking clothes off,

down in the air, and were fucking coming back, and they're up in the air. You

think there's a tunnel system that starts it that well? Yeah.

It looks like they're pulling out a lot of burlap maybe you'd use for rounds and

shit, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

But all that ended up being there was some expended rounds and some broken

for carrying ammo.

Found a PKM.

PKM round?

It's spent.

They obviously got their weapons out of there and got out of there before we

made it there, so that's got to be the only way they got out because we didn't

see them flee at all. So we think they took that Kerez system and moved north.

They got lucky that time.

As Charlie Company returns from the Kerezes and the Green Zone empty

the White Devils in the talk sense that Arctic Fox may have evaded the trap.

They've gone from the dockside to Coach McKay.

Approval for a strike on a Kerez system, agricultural infrastructure vital

throughout Afghanistan, is almost never granted. But Major Kanda tries one last

time. Talk to the lawyers to make sure that...

Our interpretation of the rules of engagement were accurate.

Bottom line is the CREZ is considered a structure.

So it would be like we were taking fire from a house.

The same kind of escalation of force, the same kind of like three or four

different options before we dropped a bomb on it. So far, division has never

been able to get a bomb dropped on a CREZ. He said the one thing that would

is if we could get someone from the village to say, hey, it's dried up, we

use it.

But even that's a shot in the dark.

That's all.

We will not shoot at Perez.

We were not able to execute a kinetic strike.

But we're okay with that because it's not a decision you make lightly.

You have to be dead, dead sure that you're doing the right thing.

You're so mad you could spit.

You know what I mean?

We fight according to certain principles.

And the moment we decide to play by the same set of rules that they're playing

by, we're no different than them.

Hey, everybody stay frosty.

We're not out of this yet.

What we've seen in the past is there's lulls in these battles, and certainly

Charlie Company has gone out and put in the disrupt, but we have to stay

focused.

Certainly on the ground, they're continuing to be determined and

have to do the same thing all the way up until Exville. Who?

All right.

Arctic Fox may be free for the moment, but he has left a trail.

The tunnel that ran to the north, about 600 meters.

At the end of that tunnel work, he was able to make it up into the mountain.

Now we know the route that builds the intel picture for other units.

Lieutenant Colonel Larson keeps the pressure on Arctic Fox by pushing the

up the chain to the Joint Special Operations Task Force.

Yeah, thanks.

You guys kind of heard the conversation, so definitely why he's going to turn us

on to task force to see if they can actually do anything tonight.

So SOTUS South will continue the chain, and then ideally one of the task forces

that...

you know, operate at echelons higher than we do, have the potential to action

that target.

With the Taliban underground, normal patterns of life return to the village.

The ANA, knowing that, like, yeah, I can go out there and control that valley

now.

Taliban don't think it's theirs. The people don't think the Taliban have it.

So, I mean, the ANA went to the village, and the villagers brought out chai and

bread and fed them and had them bring them back some for us.

Don't get punked.

You get hustled by kids.

I mean,

there's the sign right there. Little kids walking up.

If the villagers weren't for it, there would not have been a pack of kids

wanting some water.

Well, it's a good sign if kids are coming up. Because usually they won't do

anything with kids around.

Usually. So when you go into a village, and if kids and men are around, things

are pretty good. But if you come up to a village and people start leaving, then

you know you're about to get it.

The troops stay alert to possible threats as they wait to return to Fob

and on to the next operation.

We'll start moving tonight. We'll exfil back to Bob Sweeney and then come the

morning of the 22nd, we'll ride back on another mission going east towards the

Af -Pak border.

I think primarily the goal is for us to help facilitate a stable election

period, a peaceful handover, leadership where they were able to elect their own

leader. And I think they're off to a good start.

Although Arctic Fox has not been captured, his ability to deliver lethal

that can be used to attack the elections has been diminished.

We use a disrupt operation largely for defense.

That does not allow him to hit with a fist.

You know, it makes it into a finger, a finger point, as opposed to a fist.

That's disruptive.

Certainly, the guys that fought against us, their commander didn't want them to

get killed that day.

Their job is to ensure that the homemade explosive and the other ammunition gets

to distribution hubs so it can go out to other fighters.

And that's a pretty significant loss.

We have prevented the Taliban from doing what they wanted to do. And that's just

the bottom line.

But based on everything we now know, there's a lot more work to be done in

Jalil. And before this battalion leaves Afghanistan, we will go back to Kabul

and we'll finish the job we started.

But now, on the eve of the vote, will the coalition's efforts be enough to

preserve the elections?

Over the past few months, the insurgents have eluded the city's security forces

and launched several devastating attacks.

But today, Election Day, more than lives are at risk. The hope for peace in

Afghanistan hangs in the balance.

This day is fragile.

These elections cannot fail.

We've spent a lot of national treasure to get here.

They've spent a lot of their national treasure to get here.

If it disrupts, if it doesn't go flawlessly, we are set back five years.

How do you help get this nation back on track so they can operate on their own?

6 a .m., one hour until the polls open. All this stuff has gone to the polling

sites. Colonel John Graham and his team advise and assist Kabul's police chief,

General Zaheer.

The police have been given responsibility for security of all

country. General Zaheer is on eggshell. At 0400, he locked the city down because

he knows.

Anything goes wrong that's significant could disrupt everything.

General Zaheer heads to one of the most dangerous checkpoints in Kabul.

This is east side of Kabul city.

This is highway for Jalalabad.

Usually the explosions happening at this highway, mostly the insurgents getting

in through this highway to downtown Kabul city.

If Arctic Fox has succeeded in supplying lethal aid, it will come through this

highway.

The soldiers look very tired.

We're concerned about the big EBID that will take out an entire city market.

The most horrific one that we think about and is most likely that they will

after the voters. Lined up in long lines, we can see the suicide bomber.

with a vest, seeking to move into that crowd and blowing themselves down.

Each one of these kind of attacks would be catastrophic to this election.

The polls are finally open.

Afghans are coming out to vote. And General Anderson, the 18th Airborne

commander, flies over the city.

His mission is to help the Afghans have a successful election and help end

America's longest war.

General Anderson will monitor the national elections at the Afghan

Police Command Center, along with members of the Afghan National Army and

National Police.

Good to see many of you again.

And we thank you for everything you've been doing as you have been providing

security in Kabul up to the election.

A big day, obviously, for your capital, for your country, for all of you.

Thank you. These elections are big.

The candidates were selected by the people.

without any involvement by the coalition seeking to influence the outcome.

And it will be determined entirely based on the ballots that the people of

Afghanistan cast.

This changes everything in their minds. It becomes their country.

They are no longer a set of tribes. They are people who are voting for their

country, for their nation.

We promise the people of Afghanistan that their future

is guaranteed.

The candidates may have safely voted,

but there is still plenty of time for attacks before the polls close. Over the

past few days, General Zaheer has doubled the checkpoints in the Ring of

Graham and his team monitor them.

We're going to see the Ring of Steel commander to understand what he needs.

This young man that's running this thing, he's got an overwhelming job.

He's running his own men, he's running other people who have been plussed up to

run these checkpoints 24 -7.

How many checkpoints are you running right now?

We are running like 60 checkpoints right now so that they can check each and

every vehicle. How long have you been running this many checkpoints?

It's been like five days. Five days. We are doing it, yes.

How many hours of sleep have you had in the last couple of days?

Every 24 hours, two hours I sleep.

22 hours I am... So you're doing two hours of sleep for the last five days?

The hardened police that have been around for a while, they've seen

They've been through attacks, they've lost family members, they've lost

in arms out there on those checkpoints and other places. They know what the

reality is.

Police on checkpoints is where the casualties happen.

They're sitting...

At the edge of the battlefield.

Why do you do this job?

This is for the security for our country.

Now election is going on.

We want to bring peace. And we don't want our children to have same life as

had. So as the U .S. and the coalition is stepping back, the Afghans are

stepping forward. They're taking the lead.

Intel from polling sites around the country brings mixed news.

See, there are a lot of incidents everywhere today.

In some places, there are shortages for ballots, small arms and some rockets.

People are getting nervous and angry. They are very slow.

Are they? Yes.

We might have problems. Reports of insurgent attacks throughout Afghanistan

depressing voter turnout.

Rod just called and asked for us to fly helicopters over downtown because people

aren't coming out.

So I just approved helicopters to fly around the city to make some noise so

people would hear helicopters and feel comfortable.

With the polls set to close in less than six hours, The legitimacy of this

election depends on a large turnout.

As reports of attacks rise, General Zaheer and Colonel Graham investigate

checkpoint to find out how the insurgents are getting through.

So this guy was just picked out.

individual driver and a corolla so that's always suspicious because a

bomber will travel by himself

He says that inside that vehicle there were some women. That's why I didn't

them.

General says that we have experienced all the time the insurgents coming by

using the burqa, so nobody can recognize if he or she is inside there.

He doesn't instruct them to search carefully.

Early returns show that voters are defying the Taliban and turning out in

numbers. Across this country, we're seeing a big shift.

They want peace.

I'm proud to practice democracy.

I'm proud to come and vote.

The Afghanistan enemy, they say Afghanistan is not ready for democracy.

We proved that we are accepting democracy as a process.

Some of the polling flights are starting to close.

We've had a number of attacks, but none were successful.

The insurgents were ineffective.

General Zahir, the guy that we advise every day, stepped up. Many people have

talked about that previous life he was corrupt, previous life he could not be

trusted. It may be true.

But I'll tell you what, today...

He talks about how he's going to defend the city, and then he does it. People

trust the police now. They trust the police. Think of that. In two months, we

went from don't trust the police, they're corrupt, they rip us off, they

from us at checkpoints, to the police stand up for us, and they're making sure

the elections are clean.

Wow. We've got a great future here if we can hold on to more folks like him.

Now, the polls have closed, and the election is a resounding success. The

ballots from Kabul and across the nation are being collected and counted.

We've been here for 13 years just for this moment, that it becomes

It becomes a nation among a global group of nations.

They are legitimate.

In spite of insurgent attacks, few polling sites were shut down and all

had been secured.

All indications is a very successful day. Thanks for your job. Well done. The

choice is now theirs. So they voted.

The process worked.

Democracy is flourishing. People have spoken. People were not intimidated by

threats. Even female workers who had gotten death notices still came to the

polling centers to go to work. And obviously people that had been told

vote did the same thing.

So they defied the enemy. That means they believe in the process. That means

they want change.

I think that was evident based on reports now of upwards of 60 % of the

population voted.

That's a very high number, I think, even by international standard.

How many purple fingers in here?

All right. So very good, very good for your country, very good. The whole world

watched this, and again, congratulations.

As the ballots are tallied.

it becomes clear that the vote is too close to call.

With peace on the line, Ghani and Abdullah form a coalition government.

Abdullah becomes the prime minister and Ghani the president, forming the first

legitimate democratically elected government in the history of

At the end, they say, why don't we just share power and lead this nation to the

next step?

Not what any of us expected.

Wow.

These people think.

They have a future, and they're planning that way.

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

have a vote. To cast that vote instead of throw that grenade is going a long

with these people.

When people choose ballots over bullets, it's an incredible step towards peace.

The question we're facing right now is, what's going to happen with Afghanistan?

We don't know. They've chosen a path towards peace. There's going to be some

things that happen.

There's going to be some actors from outside this country that try to disrupt

the direction they're going.

There's so many things that are about to happen.

It's a lot easier to start a war than finish one.

They've had a generation of war. They need a generation of peace to pick

themselves back up.

It's within our national interest to the Afghan security forces to be able to

secure their own country and protect themselves so this place doesn't become

safe haven for terrorism.

I was here in 2011, and that was kind of the tail end of us trying to build our

forces up.

Now that force is even, that force is out there, and when we leave, that's

we're going to leave behind. And I know I'll feel a lot better when we leave

here knowing what I'm leaving behind.

I promise to my people until that time we are alive, we didn't let

our enemy to do anything in this country. We will fight with them.

I just don't think that the way it was is something anybody should have

accepted. And there's other parts of the world that are the same, that are like

that, that it's not, it is wrong.

And we should always fight against that somehow.

Afghanistan is significant in how we leave it.

and how much responsibility we take for it because Afghanistan is representative

of other countries in the world where groups like al -Qaeda have established a

foothold. So if we just allow Afghanistan to slip back into what it

that becomes the precedent for how we deal with al -Qaeda in other failed

countries. I've got my finger on the trigger.

But I don't know who to trust When I look into your eyes

There's just devils in dust

We're a long, long way from home, Bob Home's a

long, long way from us Feel the dirty wind blowing

Devils in dust

What's up, man?

I got God on my side.

And I'm just trying to survive.

But if what you do to survive kills the things you love, fear's a powerful

thing.

Can turn your heart black, you can trust.

It'll take you God -filled song.

Feel the devil's hand.

They're not the same as when we got here.

We're not the same for having worked with them.

You are my brother, Tasha Kor.

Surely, I hope for a peaceful Afghanistan in the future.

Close future.

It's our responsibility.

How are you, my friend? Good to

see you again.

As -salamu alaykum. As -salamu alaykum.

As -salamu

alaykum.

And I'm just trying to survive.

What if what you do to survive kills the things you love, bears the dangerous

things, will turn your heart black you can't trust.

Go take your God for you.

I just hope everybody comes back safe so we can all go home and be happy and see

our loved ones.

Home sweet home.

Biggest sacrifice does fall onto our families. We volunteered to do this, but

for them, it's the late nights waiting for us to call to know that we're still

good and we're still okay.

These are young men and women that...

have chosen to serve during a time of war.

And I think that says a lot about them, about their character.

They're the best America has to offer.

They're the best we've got.

The question is, what happens next? And that is the million -dollar question.

So do we know what's going to happen?

We have no idea.

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