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The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger
“As the [al-Qaida terrorists] charged one wall, three Green Berets leaned over the parapets, oblivious to the enemy small-arms fire that was cracking by their heads and shoulders.
“ ‘Focus, squeeze, focus, squeeze,’ they recited quietly. . . . Each time . . . the lifeless body [of an al-Qaida terrorist] would snap back through the desert air and drop onto the sandy courtyard.”
The war in Afghanistan was the most secret conflict since the CIA’s covert war in Laos; thousands of journalists covered it, yet, ironically, little is known about how it was waged or what really happened—until now.
The Hunt for bin Laden plunges the reader into America’s War on Terror, from the first top-secret meetings of TASK FORCE DAGGER in Tampa on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, through the liberation of Kabul sixty-two days later and the tragedies of OPERATION ANACONDA. The book takes the reader into the heat of battle—as seen through the eyes of the Green Berets on the ground. This is the story of how only a few hundred men, operating from a secret Special Forces base, changed the course of history in Central Asia and destroyed a hundred-thousand-man terrorist army in less than ninety days.
Action-packed and controversial, The Hunt for bin Laden is teeming with revelations and inside the truth about John Walker Lindh and Mike Spann; the failure of the “conventional” generals; the courage of the Northern Alliance; the wounding and murder of journalists; and the flaws and frustrations of the hunt for bin Laden himself.
In mid-December 2001, Robin Moore arrived in Afghanistan, where he joined his old friends, whom he had celebrated thirty-five years earlier in his book The Green Berets and who were now calling in airstrikes and fighting alongside the armies of the Northern Alliance against the terrorist al-Qaida and Taliban. In less than three winter months, about a hundred Green Berets accounted for the deaths of perhaps as many as forty thousand terrorists and the winning of a war in Afghanistan—where the Soviets had found fighting a war all but impossible.
“ ‘Focus, squeeze, focus, squeeze,’ they recited quietly. . . . Each time . . . the lifeless body [of an al-Qaida terrorist] would snap back through the desert air and drop onto the sandy courtyard.”
The war in Afghanistan was the most secret conflict since the CIA’s covert war in Laos; thousands of journalists covered it, yet, ironically, little is known about how it was waged or what really happened—until now.
The Hunt for bin Laden plunges the reader into America’s War on Terror, from the first top-secret meetings of TASK FORCE DAGGER in Tampa on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, through the liberation of Kabul sixty-two days later and the tragedies of OPERATION ANACONDA. The book takes the reader into the heat of battle—as seen through the eyes of the Green Berets on the ground. This is the story of how only a few hundred men, operating from a secret Special Forces base, changed the course of history in Central Asia and destroyed a hundred-thousand-man terrorist army in less than ninety days.
Action-packed and controversial, The Hunt for bin Laden is teeming with revelations and inside the truth about John Walker Lindh and Mike Spann; the failure of the “conventional” generals; the courage of the Northern Alliance; the wounding and murder of journalists; and the flaws and frustrations of the hunt for bin Laden himself.
In mid-December 2001, Robin Moore arrived in Afghanistan, where he joined his old friends, whom he had celebrated thirty-five years earlier in his book The Green Berets and who were now calling in airstrikes and fighting alongside the armies of the Northern Alliance against the terrorist al-Qaida and Taliban. In less than three winter months, about a hundred Green Berets accounted for the deaths of perhaps as many as forty thousand terrorists and the winning of a war in Afghanistan—where the Soviets had found fighting a war all but impossible.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 4, 2003
11 people are currently reading
236 people want to read
About the author
Robin Moore
93 books41 followersRobert Lowell "Robin" Moore, Jr. was an writer best known for his books The Green Berets: The Amazing Story of the U.S. Army's Elite Special Forces Unit,The French Connection: A True Account of Cops Narcotics and International Conspiracy and, with Xaviera Hollander and Yvonne Dunleavy, The Happy Hooker: My Own Story.
Moore also co-wrote the lyrics with Barry Sadler for the Ballad of the Green Berets, which was one of the major hit songs of 1966.
At the time of his death, Moore was residing in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (home to Fort Campbell and the 5th Special Forces Group) where he was working on his memoirs as well as three other books.
During World War II he served as a nose gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions in the European Theater of Operations. Moore graduated from Harvard College in 1949.
Thanks to connections with fellow Harvard graduate, Robert F. Kennedy, Moore was allowed access to the U.S. Army Special Forces. It was General William P. Yarborough who insisted that Moore go through special forces training in order to better understand "what makes Special Forces soldiers 'special'." He trained for nearly a year, first at "jump school" before completing the [[Special Forces Qualification Course]] or "Q Course", becoming the first civilian to participate in such an intensive program. Afterward, Moore was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group on deployment to South Vietnam. His experiences in South East Asia formed the basis for ''The Green Berets.
Biography Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Moore
Moore also co-wrote the lyrics with Barry Sadler for the Ballad of the Green Berets, which was one of the major hit songs of 1966.
At the time of his death, Moore was residing in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (home to Fort Campbell and the 5th Special Forces Group) where he was working on his memoirs as well as three other books.
During World War II he served as a nose gunner in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions in the European Theater of Operations. Moore graduated from Harvard College in 1949.
Thanks to connections with fellow Harvard graduate, Robert F. Kennedy, Moore was allowed access to the U.S. Army Special Forces. It was General William P. Yarborough who insisted that Moore go through special forces training in order to better understand "what makes Special Forces soldiers 'special'." He trained for nearly a year, first at "jump school" before completing the [[Special Forces Qualification Course]] or "Q Course", becoming the first civilian to participate in such an intensive program. Afterward, Moore was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group on deployment to South Vietnam. His experiences in South East Asia formed the basis for ''The Green Berets.
Biography Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Moore
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
June 5, 2011
Do not buy this book.
It claims to be an account of the Special Forces that organized the Northern Alliance and brought the fight to the Taliban in the dark days after September 11. Instead, it is a highly fictionalized account that was denounced by its author (Moore) due to much tampering and misinformation inserted by a ghostwriter/informant. The book itself is completely laughable and absurd, full of he-man chest-thumping macho bullshit. This fraud is a true disservice to the "quiet professionals" that it claims to document.
It is astounding that anyone was fooled.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan... for the full story.
It claims to be an account of the Special Forces that organized the Northern Alliance and brought the fight to the Taliban in the dark days after September 11. Instead, it is a highly fictionalized account that was denounced by its author (Moore) due to much tampering and misinformation inserted by a ghostwriter/informant. The book itself is completely laughable and absurd, full of he-man chest-thumping macho bullshit. This fraud is a true disservice to the "quiet professionals" that it claims to document.
It is astounding that anyone was fooled.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan... for the full story.
November 2, 2012
Do not buy. This is a horrible book.
Read
January 29, 2018One of the worst books I have read in any genre.
First off, the title is a cheap trick to score easy sales in a market that was eager for the first books of the emerging war in Afghanistan. The book mentions bin Laden only peripherally, and it's not at all about the manhunt for him, so right there the book is false. In fact, check later editions of this and you'll notice the title itself has been changed in an effort to steer away from the hardcover's lousy reputation.
This is ostensibly about US Army special forces 'A' teams sent into Afghanistan in late 2001 to eradicate the Taliban, who were providing aid and comfort to al Qaeda.
It's a topic with terrific potential, but instead of giving us a ground-level history of the beginning of the campaign, we get the chest-beating machismo of military pulp fiction. Nothing here comes close to journalism or history--this is cheap propaganda from the old school, right out of the comic books.
And the writing?--well, this is quite possibly the worst-written book I've ever read. The perspective is so stilted, I came to question everything the book claims--I could not trust the veracity of a single after-action report. And don't even think about sources, because this is the kind of braggadocio overheard in bars or reimagined from the nightly news.
I haven't read any of Robin Moore's other books, such as The Green Berets or The French Connection, so I can't compare this writing with those. There have been substantial allegations that Moore was taken advantage of by his main source, who largely ghostwrote the book in Moore's name. Apparently Moore himself disowned the book on those grounds. If that is indeed the case--and I don't doubt it--then Moore isn't entirely to blame for this steaming pile of shit. I suppose that's a bit of a relief.
Avoid this book like the Ebola virus--and also skip the subsequent book allegedly about the hunt for Saddam Hussein, too. If you're going to read Robin Moore, at least stick to the early books in Moore's own hand. This book--like its hack ghostwriter--is a complete fraud. Zero stars.
First off, the title is a cheap trick to score easy sales in a market that was eager for the first books of the emerging war in Afghanistan. The book mentions bin Laden only peripherally, and it's not at all about the manhunt for him, so right there the book is false. In fact, check later editions of this and you'll notice the title itself has been changed in an effort to steer away from the hardcover's lousy reputation.
This is ostensibly about US Army special forces 'A' teams sent into Afghanistan in late 2001 to eradicate the Taliban, who were providing aid and comfort to al Qaeda.
It's a topic with terrific potential, but instead of giving us a ground-level history of the beginning of the campaign, we get the chest-beating machismo of military pulp fiction. Nothing here comes close to journalism or history--this is cheap propaganda from the old school, right out of the comic books.
And the writing?--well, this is quite possibly the worst-written book I've ever read. The perspective is so stilted, I came to question everything the book claims--I could not trust the veracity of a single after-action report. And don't even think about sources, because this is the kind of braggadocio overheard in bars or reimagined from the nightly news.
I haven't read any of Robin Moore's other books, such as The Green Berets or The French Connection, so I can't compare this writing with those. There have been substantial allegations that Moore was taken advantage of by his main source, who largely ghostwrote the book in Moore's name. Apparently Moore himself disowned the book on those grounds. If that is indeed the case--and I don't doubt it--then Moore isn't entirely to blame for this steaming pile of shit. I suppose that's a bit of a relief.
Avoid this book like the Ebola virus--and also skip the subsequent book allegedly about the hunt for Saddam Hussein, too. If you're going to read Robin Moore, at least stick to the early books in Moore's own hand. This book--like its hack ghostwriter--is a complete fraud. Zero stars.
July 31, 2012
Written from a hotel instead of in the field. A more accurate version of events portrayed in this book can be found in Chapter 9 of Licensed to Kill: Privatizing the War on Terror by Robert Young Pelton, which I would recommend instead.
November 27, 2013
I've tried to finish this book for months, and have decided it isn't worth those hours of my life. I'm very interested in the topic, but not in this book. Get rid of the partially true, barely veiled political ranting, and chest-thumping and grunting about the toil of war and you have...some other book. Just terrible.
September 13, 2020
The book was a decent read about the post 9/11 hunt for a master terrorist, as it says on the cover. There have been a lot of questions about its accuracy and the sources the author used. So I'm not sure what to rate it or how to talk about it, since it was supposed to be actual history.
Decent read, but apparently not a reliable account.
Decent read, but apparently not a reliable account.
January 4, 2024
This was really interesting and well written. I am glad I read it this year and not prior to 2011 because I would have been fuming to leave off not knowing if special forces ever found and killed Osama bin Laden. Luckily, I finished this book knowing that they did indeed find him and kill him years later. I did get very frustrated at times with the political bullshit that was going on, which led to bin Laden escaping multiple times. The book was written so well and in such great detail I really felt what the Green Berets' emotions and opinions were on many calls made by higher ups that prevented them from finishing their mission productively. Being in the military myself, some things written in this book just really hit home and I related with small parts expressing their frustration. God Bless America and everyone of its soldiers. It is not my usual genre of reading (I read more to escape reality and not learn real life things haha), but I really liked it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2018
Found this quite difficult to read to be honest.
It reads more like a journal or a diary rather than a story or an account.
The chapters don't seem to get started before they've finished and there are no "characters" throughout.
All in all disappointing.
It reads more like a journal or a diary rather than a story or an account.
The chapters don't seem to get started before they've finished and there are no "characters" throughout.
All in all disappointing.
January 1, 2022
My favorite military book. A fantastic and complex story told with clarity and fluidity. The romance of special ops, the gridlock of bureaucracy, the unity of a single enemy, the clarity of hindsight, and the terrible pain that the servicemen and battles lost are all true.
August 30, 2025
One of the greatest books, I have ever read! If you're an America, you will laugh, you will cry, you will bust with pride and patriotism! The one thing you won't do, is put it down! I'd pay 100.00 a copy, I love it so much!
January 19, 2021
A superficial overview of the campaign, with questionable veracity and some annoying editorializing.
March 20, 2024
Great read! Clearly explains how rhetoric Afghanistan war began, and shows the humanity of the war and of the soldiers
April 16, 2025
Didn't finish as I happened to see reviews and found it was a fabrication of actual events.
July 23, 2008
Decent writing. Interesting perspective. Eye Opening facts. But, really, how long can a normal guy like me read about people who are passionate about killing?
I'm not pro war. I'm not anti-war (when waged properly)...but I'm not someone who takes pleasure in war, as the author and the people in this book obviously do. This book did a few things for me: Helped clarify that war is dirty business, Made me realize that every country needs people who have the attitudes and passions that are shown in this writing, and opened my eyes to how special the folks in the Special Forces really are.
I quit this book about half way just because I couldn't read any more about the glorification of violence. However, it doesn't mean I respect the folks in this book any less....if anything, I have a greater respect for the way God uses them in this thing called society.
I'm not pro war. I'm not anti-war (when waged properly)...but I'm not someone who takes pleasure in war, as the author and the people in this book obviously do. This book did a few things for me: Helped clarify that war is dirty business, Made me realize that every country needs people who have the attitudes and passions that are shown in this writing, and opened my eyes to how special the folks in the Special Forces really are.
I quit this book about half way just because I couldn't read any more about the glorification of violence. However, it doesn't mean I respect the folks in this book any less....if anything, I have a greater respect for the way God uses them in this thing called society.
April 28, 2010
I read this book some time ago in 2003. This is the same author that wrote Green Berets - the book made into a movie which John Wayne starred in. Quite some time between books. Robin Moore is an excellent writer as I have read all of his books. What I recall of the book was quite enlightening and refreshingly honest waqy of looking at our Special Forces attempts to find Bin Laden. The book was written in such a way that the author was convinced we would have found Bin Laden already - we know that not to be case, however not from lack of trying at least at the beggining of the Afghanistan conflict.
Read
April 29, 2016As with so many books I've read, this book was for research, but I'd found the historical narrative so compelling that I could not put it down. Unlike our political leaders at the time who were chicken hawks and war profiteers, the SpecOps men who searched for bin Laden after 9/11 actually showed America what leadership is all about. Robin Moore has told a tale of courage, rationality during a time of indecisiveness, and what it takes to put America first when he produced this book.
December 30, 2008
It's an amazing inside look at the US Special Forces work with the Northern Alliance in their attempt to destroy the Taliban and Al Qaida. The personal stories of the soldiers are very relatable, and seeing how the soldiers had to work in one of the harshest environments in the world spurred by their patriotism and duty to mission is inspiring.
December 7, 2009
More of a hagography of the special forces involvement in the original Afganastan conflict than a detailed accounting of the hunt for Bin Laden. Good 30,000 foot view of the operations against the Talaban, and a good argument for a change in army philosophy to include "nation building" activities in any future operations.
Want to read
April 26, 2012WHY DIDN'T BUSH GO AFTER BIN LADEN?
http://generation-add.blogspot.com/20...
http://generation-add.blogspot.com/20...
May 9, 2008
Although I enjoyed this book a great deal at the time I read it, I did so on the assumption that it was a factual account. I've since learned that Robin Moore has disavowed the book and that it was largely based upon fictional, self-promotional information he had received from Jack Edema.
Read
October 9, 2011I thought at first this book was great, until I started reading Licensed to kill. In Licensed to kill I was informed that task force dagger had a lot fictitious parts to it. If you read task force dagger read licensed to kill as well and you will understand what I am talking about.
March 6, 2008
Tremendous book, great insight and information. Well written, very clear and easy to understand on many levels. Sensational account of the abilities of our special forces in combat.
March 18, 2008
Interesting because it shows the ever-changing politics of Afghanistan.
June 9, 2008
Total crap. Drippy, melodramatic dung.
November 16, 2009
Interesting account of Special Forces, marginaly written
July 30, 2011
Terrific book about Special Forces in Afghanistan tracking down Bin Laden. After reading this book I was so disappointed in our government's lack of a sense of urgency to find Bin Laden.
January 5, 2017
Unlike the various ignorant comments, I found this to be very accurate in its presentation of facts.
March 25, 2018
It's important to note that this book was published in 2003, well before the operation that actually found Bin Laden. Really it is a history of the Green Berets involvement in the US's initial foray into Afghanistan. The triumphant tone it takes is laughable considering the state of Afghanistan today. Clearly rushed to print to get out early in the war.
No clue what is true or not in this book. There's a lot of bravado, blind patriotism and Green Beret worship. There are also some interesting stories, but overall I was ready to be done with this book pretty quickly.
I'd recommend Lone Survivor, No Easy Day (also too full of patriotism, but good reads)or Licensed to Kill for better looks into the fight against Al Qaida.
Apparently the author disavowed this book and it is no longer in print, rightfully so. Got it for free and will be passing it off for free.
No clue what is true or not in this book. There's a lot of bravado, blind patriotism and Green Beret worship. There are also some interesting stories, but overall I was ready to be done with this book pretty quickly.
I'd recommend Lone Survivor, No Easy Day (also too full of patriotism, but good reads)or Licensed to Kill for better looks into the fight against Al Qaida.
Apparently the author disavowed this book and it is no longer in print, rightfully so. Got it for free and will be passing it off for free.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews