America's Ghost Warriors and the secret war in Pakistan

US Special troops in Afghanistan don’t wear uniforms, have long beards

 American secret war in Pakistan is exposed, following is the report of an embedded journalist from Jalalabad Afghanistan.

U.S. military officials don’t talk about secret war in Pakistan.

Don’t even ask, I was told, on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan at Bagram and Jalalabad.

Don’t ask about the remotely-controlled American drones armed with missiles that are now hunting across the Pakistani border, searching through the mountain peaks, valleys and dusty villages inside Pakistan for the leaders of a few dozen networks of al-Qaida fighters, Taliban militants, warlords, weapons smugglers and opium traffickers.

And certainly don’t ask about the troops on bases here in Afghanistan who don’t wear uniforms, have long beards (so they can better blend in during covert operations), tattoos and don’t mingle with regular soldiers.

They eat in their own chow halls, plan their own missions and don’t talk much. They don’t talk at all to the media. They’re the men who have been called in to cross into Pakistan when the drones can’t get deep enough to find and kill their targets.

They are elite Special Operations Forces, the most-highly trained and covert of the U.S. military. They are America’s ghost warriors. According to Pakistani villagers who claim to have witnessed their operations, the “Special Ops” work in small teams, fast roping out of helicopters, air assaulting their objective before the enemy can re-group.

Their strengths are rapid violence, stealth, mobility and surprise. The Special Operations Forces don’t receive much attention or credit in the media, but they’re leading America’s secret war inside Pakistan, at least for now.