Former Delta officer’s book to shed light on Tora Bora

By Sean D. Naylor
Army Times

The Delta Force officer who commanded U.S. ground forces hunting Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in late 2001 will publish a book in October that he promises will explain how the al-Qaida leader managed to slip through the grasp of the United States.

But the author’s plans have put him on a collision course with U.S. Special Operations Command, which he says is threatening to take him to court for revealing classified information.

The author, who spoke on the condition his identity not be revealed, wrote the book under the pseudonym Dalton Fury. At the time of the hunt for bin Laden in the mountainous region of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, Fury was a major commanding a Delta Force troop, and was placed in charge of an additional Delta troop (for a total of about 40 Delta operators) plus assorted other special operations elements at Tora Bora.

It is now generally accepted that bin Laden was present at Tora Bora after fleeing Jalalabad ahead of the allied advance that toppled the Taliban government, but escaped the assault on his mountain stronghold, despite a massive bombing campaign and attacks from allied Afghan militias and U.S. and British special operators. The failure to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora later became a focus for critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war against al-Qaida.

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