GRP 173-First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 With Toby Harnden
Global Recon
John Hendricks
4.8 • 592 Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2023
⏱️ 119 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joining me for this week's podcast is a veteran foreign correspondent and author of First Casualty: The Untold Story Of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 Toby Harnden. Harnden is a Royal Navy Veteran from the United Kingdom and has spent years covering wars in conflict zones worldwide. We discussed his journalism career, and he cut his teeth in Northern Ireland, covering the conflict there. He's also spent time in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The initial American response to the 9/11 attacks was a secret eight-man CIA squad called Team Alpha. Team Alpha rode into battle on horseback alongside the Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum. Mike Spann, an ex-Marine and member of Team Alpha, was the first American killed in combat in Afghanistan. We discussed his book in detail, including the role of Delta Force, The British Special Boat Service, and Army Green Berets in routing Al Queda during the early days of the war. Plus many more topics. Tune in.
Main Takeaways
- Early Naval career
- Working with the Norweigan Navy
- Covering the conflict in Northern Ireland
- Imprisoned in Zimbabwe
- Alpha Team
- Mike Spann
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It was just after the horrors of the 9-11 attacks. |
| 0:05.0 | An elite group of CIA operatives called Team Alpha was dropped into Afghanistan. |
| 0:11.0 | CIA officer and linguist David Tyson and CIA paramilitary Mike Span |
| 0:17.0 | had been sent to this fortress to interrogate roughly 400 foreign fighters taken |
| 0:23.9 | captive by U.S. allies. |
| 0:26.4 | Tyson is now talking about that secret mission on camera for the first time. |
| 0:31.3 | Was the thinking that someone might have information about the next 9-11? |
| 0:35.6 | Yes. |
| 0:36.6 | And they all said we gave Bayat to Bin Laden. |
| 0:40.4 | Bayat, and we are Al-Qaeda. Hey, look at me. You know the people that you're here watching with |
| 0:46.3 | terrorists? They killed other mothers. That defiantly silent prisoner turned out to be a young |
| 0:53.2 | California, John Walker Lid, later labeled the American Taliban. |
| 0:59.5 | The prisoners should have been disarmed, but some managed to conceal their weapons, waiting to strike. |
| 1:06.7 | One of the guards runs towards me, and in Farsi says, Farad, flee. |
| 1:12.6 | And then I hear Mike's voice. |
| 1:14.6 | I go to Mike and Mike's shot, and there's men on top of him. |
| 1:17.6 | I try and take Mike's rifle. |
| 1:19.6 | And I shoot four of them. And I take Mike's rifle. |
| 1:22.6 | You shoot four of them? |
| 1:24.6 | Yes. And with Mike's rifle, I turn around and begin shooting. |
| 1:27.6 | The guys were now in charge. |
| 1:29.8 | It's not a linguist anymore. |
... |
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