Word: adamancy
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...Adam says had the Australians been allowed to conduct an early infiltration up to 10 days earlier, it would "have given us a day head-start. That would have allowed us to build a good or better or more comprehensive intelligence picture, and combine that with last-minute reporting which may have led to a more successful operational outcome. With the benefit of hindsight, if we had our time again we would say 'You (the US commanders) are sending your people in broad daylight into a valley surrounded by cave systems and networks that are probably still...
...four days into the operation that the Australian SAS would achieve what the might of the US army - with its satellites, unmanned spy planes, thousands of special forces soldiers and Intel sources - had failed to do. After reading up on earlier mountain battles against the Russians, Adam identified what appeared to be a potential escape route for "White-collar al-Qaeda." On previous occasions other coalition Special Forces teams had attempted to establish secret observation posts in the district, but they had barely lasted a day before being discovered by shepherds or villagers...
...Initially US intelligence thought the SAS had found Bin Laden, says Adam. A jet was called and dropped a 500kg bomb but it exploded over 100 meters away in a creek bed. Follow up air-raids by A-10 warthog aircraft killed a number of suspected Al Qaeda fighters but opinions are still divided about the success of the raid...
...Adam says the bomb missed, resulting in the escape of the high value target, who he suspects was Tur Yuldashev, the head of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and a highly experienced commander. But a recently published book about the operation, written by respected US Army Times journalist Sean Naylor, has suggested the target was Al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's personal physician and al-Qaeda's second in command. The overall commander of the operation, Major General Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, recently told Time he believed the high-value target had been destroyed...
...Regardless of whether the bomb missed and who the target was, Adam says the mission put the SAS at the planning table in hunting Bin Laden and resulted in significant roles in other operations. When Three Squadron rotated in during April, Adam says they achieved extraordinary feats of reconnaissance - at one stage astounding the Americans with detailed pictures of weapons being smuggled across the border in a trailer being towed by a red tractor. Even the hard-to-impress British SAS were stunned by Three Squadron's patrols, says one trooper. "The Poms could only last four days. We managed...