The mission involved about 2,000 coalition troops, including more than 900 Americans, 200 U.S.

Army 10th Mountain Division, led the major effort to clean out remaining al-Qaeda fighters and their Taliban al­ lies in the Shah-i-Khot Valley.

Hagenbeck 2Īs of 2 March 2002, Operation Anaconda was the largest combat operation in Afghanistan of the War on Terrorism that began after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. We’ve killed several hundred of them, but they just keep coming. They just kept sending them into our meat grinder.

Operation Anaconda, Shah-i-Khot Valley, Afghanistan, 2-10 March 2002 1 Reprint from Military Review March-April 2002 Adam Geibel © 2002