THREAD on 22nd anniversary of 9/11 attacks about experiences that day of the Americans who’d fight back against al-Qaeda. Page numbers from HC of my book “First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11” (PB w new Epilogue available) - 1 amazon.com/First-Casualty… 4:45pm (GMT+5) Sep 11, 2001, @CIA officer David Tyson’s Tashkent-London flight took off. He was preoccupied by 9/9 Al-Qaeda assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud (he’d met him in Panjshir). Same moment 6,000 miles & 9 time zones away, Mohammed Atta was boarding a plane (p. 3) - 2

THREAD: Remembering Mike Spann today, the 21st anniversary of his death during Al-Qaeda prisoner uprising at Qala-i Jangi near Mazar-i Sharif. CIA officer, Marine, husband, father. He went down fighting, engaging the enemy at close quarters with his Kalashnikov & Glock 17. 1/14 Mike had inserted into Afghanistan with @CIA’s Team Alpha on Oct 17, 2001, in a Black Hawk from K2 base in Uzbekistan. He is represented by 79th star on @CIA’s Memorial Wall & remembered in the hearts of his family and comrades. There are now 139 stars on the wall. 2/14

THREAD - 20 years ago today 8 men became first Americans behind enemy lines after 9/11 - @CIA’s Team Alpha. Landed in Darya Suf Valley 2 a.m. local after flight in 2 Black Hawks from K2 base. Only 7 returned. Their story is told in my book “First Casualty” by @littlebrown - 1 There had been four days
of delays due to poor weather and debates among Task Force Dagger
staff over different routes to get the CIA into the Darya Suf Valley to
link up with General Abdul Rashid Dostum - “First Casualty” p. 71 - 2

THREAD: One of joys of being an author is choosing chapter titles. I spend lots of time on them - they help shape a book’s character. Often I work them out literally on the back of an envelope (one of these was chosen). Here are the chapter titles in First Casualty, and why - 1 Chap. 1 - ZERO HOUR. Book opens on 9/11, with members of @CIA’s Team Alpha in air, underwater, & on land. On 9/12, an Arabic conversation in Afghanistan that took place on 9/10 was translated by NSA - “tomorrow is zero hour” - 2

THREAD: 20 years ago 9/26, the first Americans to infiltrate Afghanistan after 9/11 flew fm Tashkent via Dushanbe in an @CIA Mi-17 & landed in Panjshir Valley, which was controlled by Northern Alliance. Their codename was JAWBREAKER (First Casualty p. 53). Who were these men? - 1 There were initially seven men in JAWBREAKER (as time went on, the team had a shifting & expanding cast), led by Gary Schroen, an SIS-3 (Lt. Gen. equiv.) case officer, 59 & about to retire. A former Islamabad station chief, he’d worked with mujahideen agst. Soviets in 1980s - 2

THREAD: 20 years ago today. From “First Casualty” p. 56. President George W. Bush articulated U.S. policy toward Afghanistan & the Taliban to two @CIA officers at Camp David: “Fuck diplomacy. We are going to war.” - 1 The two @CIA officers were Cofer Black & @MichaelJMorell, Bush’s PDB briefer. It was a Saturday & Bush had convened his war council. Half a world away, in Quetta. @CIA Islamabad station chief Bob Grenier was meeting with the Taliban’s Mullah Osmani (p. 55) - 2

THREAD: 20 years ago today, George W. Bush accepted @CIA's plan to infiltrate into Afghanistan to purse Al-Qaeda. The plan was outlined by Cofer Black, CTC director. "First Casualty" p. 46: "The Jawbreaker and NALT missions into the Panjshir Valley from 1999 onward... 1 p, 46 contd. “…coupled with the two-year process of trying to get the legal authorities to kill bin Laden, meant that [Cofer] Black had a plan for Afghanistan in place. The CIA had laid it out in its ‘Blue Sky’ document less than a year earlier.” - 2

THREAD: Every author stands on shoulders of those who've gone b4. I'm no exception. I’d like to highlight books I drew on for “First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11." Select Bibliography includes 136 books + 150 more here tobyharnden.com/bibliography-f… - 1 For “First Casualty,” I interviewed every surviving member of Team Alpha, 93 people on record, many others off, & logged 327 hours of interviews. + diaries, emails, documents (some classified). BUT published books + articles were huge resource. As my chaotic shelves attest - 2

THREAD on 20th anniversary of the Sep. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks about the experience that day of the Americans who were to fight back against Al-Qaeda. Page numbers from my book “First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11” - 1 4:45pm (GMT+5) Sep 11, 2001, @CIA officer David Tyson’s Tashkent-London flight took off. He was preoccupied by 9/9 Al-Qaeda assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud (he’d met him in Panjshir). Same moment 6,000 miles & 9 time zones away, Mohammed Atta was boarding a plane (p. 3) - 2

THREAD. My Afghan translator R has been trapped outside #KabulAirport for a week. I have applied for an SIV for him. I am a US citizen. No reply. Pending cases are not being allowed through the gates. Every day R gambles with his life to try to get in 1/10 When R gets close to the gate, he calls me on WhatsApp, hoping a US soldier will talk to me, so I can vouch for him. He carries the application I sent, and photos of us working together, including this one of us beside the memorial to CIA officer Mike Spann. 2/10

Thread about Mazar-i Sharif, where I spent time last November. Mazar was the first major city to be captured by Northern Alliance forces (supported by the US) after 9/11 (Nov 9, 2001) and now appears to have fallen to the Taliban. 1/20 Then, the main anti-Taliban players were the same as 2021 - Atta Mohammmed Noor (Tajik), Abdul Rashid Dostum (Uzbek), and Mohammed Mohaqeq (Hazara). In 2001, they had alongside them CIA operatives, Green Berets, UKSF (SBS) and US air power. Now, they are alone 2/20