Operation Trent

The operation was carried out by members of a regimental task group, made up of a tactical HQ, members of A Squadron (A Sqn) and G Squadron (G Sqn) of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (22 SAS), supported by United States (US) forces, on an al-Qaeda-linked opium plant during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan at the start of Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan (OEF-A). Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US by al-Qaeda, the US and the United Kingdom (UK) began the invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, to dismantle and destroy al-Qaeda and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by removing the Taliban from power. In mid-October 2001, A Sqn and G Sqn of 22 SAS deployed to north west Afghanistan in support of OEF-A under the command of United States Central Command (CENTCOM). They conducted largely uneventful reconnaissance tasks under the codename Operation Determine, none of these tasks resulted in enemy contact; after a fortnight and with missions drying up both squadrons returned to their barracks in the UK. After political intersession with Prime Minister Tony Blair, the SAS were given a direct-action task – the destruction of an al-Qaeda-linked opium processing plant. The facility was located 190 mi (300 km) southwest of Kandahar at the foot of the 5,900 ft (1,800 m) Koh-I-Malik mountain, 12 mi (20 km) north of the Pakistan border, the facility was made up of a system of houses, compounds and caves, with defences consisting of trench lines and several makeshift bunkers-manned by between 80 and 100 foreign fighters mostly from al-Qaeda. Intelligence indicated that some of the terrorists guarding the facility were well armed and trained at one of al-Qaeda's top training camps and that their morale would be high. It was being used as a headquarters and a staging post for al-Qaeda and the Taliban for getting drugs and equipment across the border into Pakistan, it was also an Opium factory.