11.

Capturing Aidid’s Evil Genius

SEPTEMBER 12, 1993

Casanova and I walked into the hangar, beard and hair still growing out. I didn’t get a haircut the whole time I was in Mogadishu. In the hangar, everyone seemed happy to see us. They knew we’d been living for nearly fifteen days in booger-eater territory, and they’d heard rumors about some of the work we’d done. Several Rangers approached us. “Wish you guys would’ve been with us when we were ambushed.” Others wanted to ask, “What’ve you guys been doing?”

We lived with Delta Force, the Combat Control Team (CCT), and pararescuemen (PJs). CCTs were the air force’s special operations pathfinders who could parachute into an area and provide reconnaissance, air traffic control, fire support, and command, control, and communications on the ground—particularly helpful to us in calling down death from above. SIGINT drafted many of their people from the CCTs. The air force’s PJs, also special operations, focused on rescuing pilots downed in enemy territory and administering medical treatment. Both Delta and SEAL Team Six had begun augmenting their forces with CCTs and PJs. On a SEAL Team Six boat crew of eight men assaulting a building, the addition of a PJ, who could take care of patching up bullet wounds, freed up a SEAL hospital corpsman to kick more doors. Likewise, the addition of a CCT carrying a radio on his back and calling for air support freed up a SEAL radioman to carry other mission-essential gear on his back and help with the door-kicking. Although the air force CCTs and PJs were not as specialized in skills like door-kicking, they were experts in their fields—to a higher level than SEAL or Delta operators. Integrating them into SEAL Team Six and Delta was one of the best moves JSOC ever made. Although not held to as high a tactical standard (standards such as physical fitness remained the same) as SEALs, particularly for close-quarters combat training, they received Team Six’s Green Team training. During my Green Team, although a CCT and a PJ were among the four or five who failed, a CCT and a PJ passed. The CCTs and PJs also rotated over to Delta Force for their training. Then, after some time at home with their air force units, they rotated back and forth between Six and Delta again. In the hangar, the four of us SEALs mostly hung out with CCTs and PJs because we knew them from training together in Dam Neck, Virginia. Like most of Delta, they had high-and-tight haircuts to blend in with the Rangers, but the pale skin on their scalps gave them away.

One of our CCTs was Jeff, a pretty boy who was a woman magnet like Casanova; they even hung around together sometimes. Another CCT was Dan Schilling, a thirty-year-old laid-back Southern Californian. Dan left the Army Reserves to become a CCT. In the middle of the hangar, when we played cards on the fold-up planning table, Dan often gave me a cigar—he liked to smoke Royal Jamaica Maduros.

Tim Wilkinson quit his electrical engineering job for the adventure of becoming a PJ. Scotty served as the PJs’ team leader.

Near the air force planning table in the middle of the hangar, the CCTs and PJs set a blowup doll named Gina the Love Goddess on a chair with a sign around her neck advertising services and prices. She was a birthday gift from Dan Schilling’s wife and Jeff’s girlfriend for one of the air force guys who never got mail and didn’t have a girlfriend. After a congressional visit, Gina disappeared. No sense of humor!

The Rangers outnumbered everyone, but they remained cautious about crossing the imaginary line, like a wall that reached the ceiling, into our area. Maybe we had a mystique that they respected—or a body odor. Whatever the reason, they gave us our space. A lot of the Delta guys seemed to have the attitude, If you aren’t Delta, we don’t want anything to do with you. We probably had some of the same attitude, but there were only four of us. If we’d had all of Red Team, we might have been more arrogant. Being the only four SEALs in Africa, we had to hang out with somebody.

Around the hangar, we wore shorts, T-shirts, and Teva flip-flops. When we wore military uniforms, we didn’t wear names or rank insignia. Military rank held less meaning for us than it did for Rangers and the conventional military. In the Teams, we often followed leaders because of reputations they earned or a certain skill set they possessed. Unlike the conventional military, our enlisted men usually called officers by their first names or nicknames. We didn’t subscribe to the robot-like military mentality of top-down leadership, either. Just because a person outranks someone else in the Teams doesn’t mean he’ll be leading anything—other than on paper. We adapted our weapons and tactics to changing environments and situations.

*   *   *

At 2100, we received mortar fire, now becoming such a regular occurrence that guys in the hangar cheered. Some had a mortar pool going. A person could buy a time slot for a dollar. Whoever chose a slot closest to the actual time the mortar hit won the pool.

No one had leads on Aidid.

SEPTEMBER 13, 1993

The next day, true to form, although he was the senior SEAL, Sourpuss didn’t initiate much of anything and didn’t exert control. He was content to sit around and write his wife letters. Little Big Man checked into using QRF helicopters as sniper platforms. We were also encouraged to go out on patrol with the Rangers when we didn’t have anything else going on.

A Pakistani convoy came in to resupply. Under General Garrison’s orders, Casanova and I rode with Steve (a Delta sniper working a lot with military intelligence), Commander Assad, and Assad’s Pakistani troops. We drove across town to the northwest, near Pakistani Stadium, where the Pakistanis ran a tight compound. Their troops exhibited excellent military bearing and a by-the-book attitude. They kept the area tidy. Nothing like the sloppy Italians who were constantly trying to undermine us.

During the night, Aidid’s militia fired on one of our helicopters, and they used the abandoned Somali National University as their sniper hide. Casanova and I climbed six stories to the top of a tower. From there, we could see the house of Osman Ali Atto—Aidid’s financier and evil genius. Atto allegedly used income from drug trafficking (mostly khat), arms trafficking, looting, and kidnapping to buy more weapons and support for Aidid’s militia. Next to Atto’s house stood his vehicle repair garage, an enormous open-top concrete building where his mechanics worked on cars, bulldozers, and technicals—pickup trucks with .50 caliber machine guns on tripods bolted onto the truck bed. This was the same garage where Aidid had held the rally to pump up his militia while we were in Pasha. If we capture Atto, we cut off the financial support for Aidid’s militia. He who controls the purse strings controls the war.

Nothing significant happened at Atto’s house except that the porch light flickered on and off three times. Probably some kind of signal, but we didn’t see any movement in the house. It was only a matter of time before we captured Atto.

SEPTEMBER 14, 1993

We continued to observe Atto’s garage. People constantly came and went. Three mechanics worked on vehicles. Casanova and I spotted someone who looked like Atto, flashing a big white smile, having a meeting.

We took a picture, then transmitted the data via secure link back to the intel guys so they could make sure the man in the garage really was Atto. We lost him when he left the garage and drove away.

The same day, a Ranger thought he spotted Aidid in a convoy. Delta hit a building to find out they had captured General Ahmed Jilao instead, even though Jilao was much taller, heavier, and lighter-skinned than Aidid—and was a close ally of the United Nations. Aidid had become like Elvis—people saw him where he wasn’t.

At night, the Pakistani compound received fire from the area of nearby trees and buildings. Commander Assad said, “We keep receiving fire from there on a regular basis. Can you help us?”

“We can spot them with our infrared scopes and fire tracers at them, and your machine gunners can open fire on that area.” (The tracers are phosphorous covered rounds that burn with a glow.)

Allah was with those militiamen—they didn’t fire again that evening.

SEPTEMBER 16, 1993

Two days later, three women entered Atto’s house, and two left. One man also entered. Another meeting was held, including one person who appeared to be Atto, grinning with those pearly whites. He seemed in charge, directing people what to do.

Casanova came down from the tower in the Pakistani compound and moved closer to the retaining wall facing Atto’s compound. Casanova noticed that people were entering a house near the garage, rather than directly entering Atto’s house. We called the QRF to launch a mortar strike, but the three mortars landed nowhere near it.

Later, we exfiltrated back to the hangar at the army compound. There we debriefed with a Delta captain.

During the brief, I said, “We don’t mind patrolling with the Rangers, but we’d rather drive ourselves. We know what we’ll do when we come under fire, but we don’t know what they’ll do.”

The captain approved.

“Also, we’d like to do night sniper flights with the QRF: eyes over Mogadishu.”

“OK.”

Casanova and I took a trip to the CIA trailer and shared intelligence about Osman Atto with them.

The first time Casanova and I rode in a QRF helo, we found out their rules of engagement allowed them to keep a magazine in their weapon but no round in the chamber until an enemy fired at them. We always kept a round in our chamber, so all we had to do was flick off the safety switch and shoot. In a war zone, the QRF’s rules of engagement were ludicrous.

One day, Casanova and I boarded a Humvee with the QRF. I said, “Lock and load.”

The soldiers gave me a strange look. “What the?” Gradually, the lightbulbs came on. Each man made sure his weapon was still on safe and loaded a round in the chamber. Casanova and I would take responsibility for any repercussions from the army brass.

The next time some Rangers, Casanova, and I drove up in our Humvees at the QRF compound, the QRF soldiers who had ridden with Casanova and me before hurried to ride with us again because they knew what our first command would be. “Lock and load.”

Later, as more soldiers had an opportunity to ride with us, they’d be standing in line waiting to see which of the Humvees Casanova and I drove up in. We laughed at the sight of them fighting to see who would ride in our vehicle.

At 2400, we boarded a helo with the QRF, both of us sitting on one side of the aircraft. “Lock and load.”

The two QRF snipers sitting on the other side of the bird locked and loaded.

Our flight crew used to wait until being fired upon to return fire, but they had taken small-arms fire and two RPGs the night before. “Shoot anyone you feel threatened by.” If anyone aimed at us or took an aggressive stance, or positioned themselves to take a shot at us, then we could fire at them.

Although the daytime temperatures averaged 89°F, nights cooled off to around 59 degrees. During our flight over Mogadishu, campfires burned in the upper stories of abandoned buildings. I could imagine refugees gathered around them to keep warm.

Two Somalis on the ground pointed their weapons up at us. Casanova aimed his CAR-15 at one of them. He squeezed the trigger—capping the Somali. The buddy took off running between some buildings, and our pilot couldn’t get us near him.

That same night, a Delta operator with a CAR-15 shot a Somali three times in the chest—one of Aidid’s lieutenants.

Unfortunately, Delta also had their second accidental discharge (AD). An operator from one of the best fighting units on the planet accidentally fired his weapon in the hangar. He could’ve killed someone. I remember seeing the look on the operator’s face afterward—he knew what was coming. Garrison and others were irate. Even though the operator had trained most of his career to put his gun in a fight, now he had to pack up his gun and leave. His military record would suffer, too. Whether Delta Force or SEAL Team Six, an AD meant a quick trip back to the States. Although we could endure physical pain and suffering, being ostracized from the group was often the heaviest punishment—as I would personally find out later.

SEPTEMBER 17, 1993

The next day, Casanova and I climbed up to the top of the Pakistani tower and relieved Little Big Man and Sourpuss. They had observed Atto for three hours at his garage.

A CIA asset had to go inside the garage and verify that the person was indeed Atto before we launched the full package—at least a hundred men, including a Humvee blocking force, Little Birds with Delta snipers, and Black Hawks with Rangers and Delta operators. To signal us, our asset would walk to the middle of the garage area, remove his red and yellow cap with his right hand, and walk around. Casanova and I would then call in the full package—an enormous responsibility for two enlisted men.

We found out that Atto would have a meeting in his garage the next day at 0730. Our HUMINT was amazing, telling us exactly when and where a meeting would be taking place for Atto. Unfortunately, we couldn’t acquire that kind of intel for Aidid as we had before.

Delta launched on the radio station to capture Aidid but hit another dry hole.

That evening, Casanova stayed in the tower while I snuck over to the edge of the Pakistani compound and looked over the wall at the adjacent Save the Children house. There was just too much activity going on in the dark of early morning and night. Later, HUMINT sources told us that one of the Somali drivers secretly used the trunks of the cars to transport weapons and ammunition, including mortar rounds. Flying the Save the Children flag on their vehicle, they could drive through almost any roadblock unchecked. I don’t think that the people at the Save the Children compound knew the drivers were using their vehicles in this way, but it answered a lot of questions for us about equipment and ammo transportation.

SEPTEMBER 18, 1993

Casanova and I began surveillance on Atto’s garage from the Pakistani tower at 0600. At 0745 the CIA asset, mustache on his long face, wearing a red and yellow cap, a blue T-shirt, and a macawi made out of blue and white plaid material, appeared at the garage. He would earn $5,000 if he succeeded in fingering Atto. After twenty-five minutes he still hadn’t given the predetermined signal. Then Atto arrived, sporting his Cheshire cat grin. His bodyguards and an old man arrived with him. We radioed it in, but we were required to have the asset’s confirmation before launching the package.

Instead of giving us the signal nonchalantly, the asset acted like he’d seen too many B-movies or we were stupid. He took his hand straight out to the side, reached in an arc to the top of his hat, pulled his hat straight up, reversed the arc, and lowered it to his side. If I’d been one of Atto’s guards, I would’ve shot the idiot in the head right then. I fully expected him to be executed before our eyes, but no one had noticed his exaggerated act.

Casanova and I launched the full package. The QRF went on standby. Little Birds and Black Hawks filled the sky. Soon Delta Force operators fast-roped down inside the garage, Rangers fast-roped around the garage, and Little Birds flew around with snipers giving the assault force protection. Atto’s people scattered like rats. Militia appeared in the neighborhood, shooting up at the helicopters. News reporters showed up, and sniper Dan Busch threw flashbangs to scare them away from walking into a kill zone. It would later be erroneously reported that hand grenades were thrown at the crew. Ungrateful idiots. A hand grenade thrown at that range would’ve killed them all. Dan personally told me later that the Bat Phone rang from the Pentagon, and he had to explain to the higher-ups that he wasn’t throwing fragmentation grenades.

Having crawled over the ledge of a retaining wall and out to the lip of our six-story tower, I lay prone—four rounds loaded in my Win Mag with a fifth in the chamber. Casanova covered the left half of Atto’s garage area. I took the right. Through my Leupold 10-power scope, I saw a militiaman 500 yards away firing through an open window at the helos. I shot him in the chest. He fell backward into the building—permanently.

Another militiaman carrying an AK-47 came out a fire escape door on the side of a building 300 yards away from me and aimed his rifle at the Delta operators assaulting the garage. I shot him through his left side, and the round exited his right. He slumped down onto the stairs never knowing what hit him.

About 800 yards away, a guy popped up with an RPG launcher on his shoulder, preparing to fire at the helicopters. It was too time-consuming to keep adjusting my scope for the distance to each target. I dialed in at 1,000 yards—I could mentally calculate the distances under that—but I forgot to physically make the adjustment on the mil dots. Putting the crosshairs on Mr. RPG’s upper sternum, I squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit him right underneath his nose. People picture that when a guy gets shot, he flies backward, but the opposite is often true. The bullet penetrates at such a high velocity that it actually pulls the man forward as it goes through, causing him to fall on his face. This militiaman pulled the trigger of the RPG as he fell forward, firing it straight down into the street below. Boom!

Hovering overhead in the Little Birds, Delta snipers saw me make the shot. Minutes later, one of the choppers buzzed our tower. “Hell, yeah!” the snipers yelled, giving me the thumbs-up. I was glad Casanova and I had been lying prone, because the windblast of the snipers’ chopper came close to blowing us off our six-story tower.

Delta took fifteen prisoners, but the Rangers in the Humvees hadn’t arrived in time to secure the area by cordoning off vehicle and foot traffic. Atto had exchanged shirts with one of his lieutenants and walked out the back of his garage—slipping away.

SEPTEMBER 19, 1993

In the dark hours of morning, I woke up to the QRF pulling a raid on houses 500 yards north of our position. The QRF took small-arms fire and RPGs. Aidid’s militia chose the wrong convoy to fire on that morning. From the tower, with my night vision, I had an excellent view of the enemy. I picked up the radio mike and vectored helo fire to the source of Aidid’s militia. The QRF helo showered down .50 caliber and 40 mm rounds, and QRF ground forces assaulted so heavily that the sky vibrated and the earth shook. The few enemy who survived couldn’t get out of there fast enough, running for their lives past Casanova’s and my position.

We had used the tower effectively, but Aidid’s people put two and two together. A Somali woman stopped and looked up at us. Then she gave Casanova and me the throat-cutting sign. We decided our sniper hide in the Pakistani tower had been compromised and received permission to close it for a few days.

We left the Pakistani compound at 1700 and arrived in the hangar at around 1730. Half a dozen Delta snipers met us at the front door, high-fiving me. “Wasdin, you rock!” One of them looked at the other Delta snipers. “If I ever have someone shooting at me, I want Wasdin making those thousand-yard headshots!”

Later, Casanova and I lasered the actual distance of the head shot: 846 yards, making it the longest killing shot of my career. It also improved our relations with Delta. I never told them I was aiming for the guy’s chest.

SEPTEMBER 20, 1993

At 0230, Casanova and I took a QRF flight until 0545. During the flight, we spotted a man erecting a mobile transmitter. We thought we’d found the location of Aidid’s Radio Mogadishu, where he transmitted operation orders, how to fire mortars, and propaganda. The UN and Americans want to take over Somalia, burn the Koran, and take your firstborn children. Even when Aidid’s militia got its butt kicked, Radio Mogadishu broadcasted cries of victory, keeping his own people motivated and encouraging other Somalis to join his winning team. Casanova and I couldn’t shoot a man for raising a transmitter, but we marked the location as the possible location of Aidid’s station.

The QRF aircrew asked if we could fly with them all week. They’d been shot at enough that they wanted SEAL snipers.

Later that day at the compound, Condor contacted us. One of his assets reported that Atto would be at his house for a meeting. The four of us were the only operators who had frequently seen Atto and could ID him. Condor wanted a SEAL to go along with him and some Delta operators. We selected Casanova, but the mission was scrubbed. Our QRF flight got canceled, too. Although we’d loaded up the Humvees for an assault on Atto’s house, that was also canceled. Jock up, stand down, jock up—and every time might be the last. The stand-downs bothered me, but not to the point of weakening my motivation to jock up again. Whatever the challenges, I knew I had to pick myself up and keep trying. I grew up with a knot in the pit of my stomach, a perpetual state of worry over when my father would come after me. At BUD/S, Instructor Stoneclam told us, “I can make anybody tough, but it takes someone special for me to make mentally tough.” Although SEALs are known for their small numbers and efficiency, the military as a whole is huge and cumbersome—requiring us to be patient. My Teammates and I shared a similar mindset. We had learned how to control feelings of frustration. I knew I could overcome the challenges of a fluid environment. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Even with the best plan, when the bullets start flying, that plan is going to change.

SEPTEMBER 21, 1993

Our asset Abe reported sighting Osman Atto in Lido near our old safe house, Pasha. In dealing with human intel, we always had to figure out what was real and what was made up for personal gain. I don’t think any of our assets out-and-out lied to us, but they would exaggerate, probably to get more money. Abe didn’t seem to be doing this just for the money. Soft-spoken, he wouldn’t become anxious like the others. He talked calmly and matter-of-factly. We liked working with “honest Abe.”

In the movie Black Hawk Down, someone marks the roof of Atto’s vehicle with what looks like olive green military rubber-based adhesive duct tape (riggers’ tape). That would’ve stuck out like a turd in a punch bowl. What really happened was like something out of a James Bond movie. The CIA’s Office of Technical Services in Langley mounted a homing beacon inside an ivory-handled cane as a gift for Aidid, but the mission was scrubbed. Condor resurrected the cane and gave it to Abe, who passed it to a contact who met regularly with Atto. The contact would give it to Atto as a gift. While the contact with the cane rode in a car to northern Mogadishu, a helicopter in the air followed the beacon. When the car stopped for gas, Atto materialized. An asset called Condor to let him know that Atto was in the car. Condor radioed Delta.

Delta launched. The assault helo landed almost on top of the target vehicle, and a sniper fired into the engine block, stopping it—the first helicopter takedown on a moving vehicle. Atto threw open the car door and fled. The bodyguard fired his AK-47 at the assault team, but a sniper shot the bodyguard in the leg, disabling him. Assaulters jumped out of the helo, rushed the building, and captured Atto.

Other Delta guys formed a perimeter around the building. The Somalis burned tires to signal others for help. A few probed Delta’s perimeter. A crowd formed. AK-47 and RPG rounds were shot at the helos. Delta snipers in one helo and the guns on another helo fired at the enemy, taking ten to twenty of them down, and pushing back the mob.

Inside, Delta took Atto to the top of the building, where a helo landed and picked them up.

Later, back at the compound, Delta asked us, “We’re not sure if it’s Atto or not. Could you guys come over and verify his identification?”

“Hell, yeah.” Casanova and I walked over to the other end of the runway near the CIA building where they were holding Atto captive in a CONEX box. In Black Hawk Down, he was a large man who wore nice clothes, coolly smoked a cigar, and ridiculed his captors. In reality, although he dressed in semiformal shirt and macawi, he sniveled. Short, skinny as a broom handle, and shaking like a leaf, Atto looked at Casanova and me like we were the Grim Reaper coming to dispose of him. I almost felt sorry for Atto. Part of me wanted to give him a hug and say, “It’ll be OK,” and part of me wanted to shoot him in the face.

“Yeah, this is him,” Casanova said.

“I don’t know,” I joked. “Every time we saw him before, he was smiling a big white smile.”

Casanova looked at the interpreter. “Tell him if he doesn’t smile we’re going to beat the crap out of him.”

Before the interpreter could translate, Atto flashed a fake smile.

We hadn’t realized Atto spoke English. Casanova and I high-fived each other. “That’s him!”

Delta whisked him away to a prison on an island off the coast of Somalia. A note found on Atto advised him to meet with reporters to set up a negotiation session with the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). We assume the note was from Aidid—the big fish we still wanted to catch.