The expanded Alpha Team was dressed in snow camo they had borrowed from a German NATO unit stationed with them in Kandahar. The white masks at least kept parts of their cheeks from freezing as goggles prevented wind-whipped tears from icing over.
Captain “Sonny” Sanchez led Team One and kept a quarter-mile pace ahead of the CW2 and Team Two. Two scouts with M4A1s took point in the front of the formation, spread eight feet apart and separated from the middle core by thirty feet. Manson and his best sniper pulled up the rear with Manson’s M203 grenade launcher on his 9-inch barrel ever at the ready. Camp walked ahead of Veggie, the medic carrying the MEDEVAC 4 combat tactical stretcher, and behind Omid who was closest behind the scouts since he knew the mountains and the footpaths.
Brick’s Team Two stayed a quarter-mile back down the trail as they moved up, over, and through the Hindu Kush and into Pakistan. The spread formation in snow camo was the best way to mitigate any possible ambush, though Billy Finn was eager to peel off a few rounds if the situation warranted.
Operation Detachment Alpha was hoping the Taliban fighters would be sleeping in their warm little caves at 0300 hours and, for at least another three hours, until Alpha took their only sleep break before the final push into Datta Khel Village.
Omid’s ears were only a few feet from Camp’s mouth.
“Iran is too unpredictable right now.”
“Not Iran, the Hojjatieh and the Twelvers,” Omid said.
“You keep yakking about both. Who are they?”
“You’re American so I suppose you want the 30-second drive-thru window version?” Omid said sarcastically.
“We’ve got three hours until rest and first light so how about just the Cliff Notes?”
Omid smiled and fell back next to Camp, so they could talk and walk softly as their boots crunched on the snow covered trail. Clouds were gathering in the sky as stars reflected off the snow and the rock outcroppings of the Hindu Kush. The wind was still and death seemed to lurk around every cutback on the footpath.
"The Hojjatieh Society was a clandestine group of traditional Shia followers that began in 1953. They felt the Bahá’í Faith that was growing in Persia was a heresy and the only immediate threat to Islam. With the permission of the Ayatollah, a mullah from Tehran named Halabi created the Hojjatieh. In the beginning, Halabi and his 12,000 followers in the Hojjatieh Society were loyal to the Shah of Iran since they both hated the Communists. But Halabi thought the Shah was too friendly and open with the Bahá’í so they supported Khomeini during the overthrow and the subsequent Iranian Revolution in 1979. Khomeini forced the Hojjatieh to dissolve in 1983. He wanted to consolidate all Islamic power. Halabi took his movement underground where it grew until his death in 1998.”
“Was Halabi martyred?”
“Quite the opposite. He lived to be 98 years old. In our culture the older you are the wiser you are. Every word that mullah Halabi spoke was like a word directly from the prophets. He opposed Sunnism. He opposed Khomeini’s form of velayat-e faqih, or Islamic government by Sharia Law. In fact, he wanted no form of official government at all. Some say the Hojjatieh was nothing more than an underground messianic sect; that they wanted to quicken the apocalypse so they could hurry the return of the Mahdi, the prophesized future redeemer of Islam. But others claim that Halabi was content to wait for the Mahdi’s return in peace.”
“What happened when he died?”
“As with any movement there are always other leaders who try to rise up when a power vacuum emerges. Ayatollah Yazdi was the most notable. Camp, this Yazdi is the center of the crazy power in Iran. He is a hardliner who heads the ultraconservative faction. Yazdi is a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body who chooses the Supreme Leader.”
“Crazy?”
“Yazdi is the spiritual leader in the city of Qom. He is opposed to democratic reforms. He opposed the people’s uprising and the reform movement after the presidential elections in 2009. And he believes that Iran has become too liberal, and too open, since the Revolution in 1979.”
“Too liberal? Doesn’t sound any crazier than the rest of the bastards in power over there.”
“And he’s a Twelver.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Twelvers are the largest branch of Shia, the second denomination of Islam and the followers of Ali. Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, and Lebanon have very large Shia populations. The rest of the Muslim countries are mostly Sunni. Sunnis make up nearly eighty percent of the world of Islam. But there are more than 200 million of us.”
“Two hundred million Muslims?”
“No, two hundred million Shia, maybe more. There are 1.6 billion Muslims. Twelver Shiites believe that the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, but only from his daughter Fatima and his son-in-law Ali, offer the best ways of knowledge about the Holy Koran, the most accurate protectors of Muhammad’s traditions, and are the most worthy of emulation.”
“At the risk of being called a ‘drive thru’ American intellectual, I’m still not tracking the whole twelve thing, Omid. The 9/11 hijackers were Sunni. Bin Laden was Sunni. Al Qaeda and the Wahhabis are Sunni. Now I’m supposed to be afraid of Shiites and the Twelvers?”
“Do you want fries with this education?”
Camp and Omid laughed a bit too loud as one of the scouts turned back and glared. Camp could hardly speak as the two squads of Alpha Team passed through the 12,000 foot peaks between Dabgay, Kazen Kalay and Zakarkhel passing over an invisible Afghanistan border and into the lawless region of Pakistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of North Waziristan. Omid spoke without constraint, as though walking casually in Tehran.
“An Imam is a worship leader, a spiritual leader at a mosque. In Islam, there are twelve Imams who are considered the political and religious successors to Muhammad.”
“Like Jesus and the twelve apostles.”
“Similar. Allah guides the Imams, and the Imams guide the people. According to Twelvers, there is always an Imam of the Age. Ali was the first Imam in the line from Muhammad, and in the Twelvers’ view, the rightful successor to the Prophet of Islam. Each Imam thereafter was a male descendant of Fatima and Ali. The twelfth and final Imam was Muhammad al-Mahdi. He was born in 869, and anointed as the Twelfth Imam when he was only five years old. Then came the occultation.”
“The what?”
“Occultation… it means a hiding. For more than 1,200 years Allah has hidden the Mahdi from our sight. He never died. The Mahdi — the Twelfth Imam — is the ultimate savior of humanity, and he will return with Isa, the Islamic name for Jesus Christ, and together they will rule the world.”
“Christians and Muslims side by side? Including Jesus?” Camp asked.
“Not exactly. Jesus will convert to Islam when he returns.”
“That’s convenient if not improbable. So the Mahdi has been hiding in a cave?”
“Or perhaps living in the open as one of us, waiting for the right moment when Allah reveals him.”
“Okay… that’s a bit out there… a bit hard for my Western mind to grasp… how does all of this add up to nuclear weapons in Iran… and a double-agent wanting to save his people?” Camp said as he struggled for oxygen.
“It is now the Age of the Coming, my friend. It is now our calling to prepare the way for the Twelfth Imam. Certain things must now happen before he can reappear.”
Omid dropped his head and stared at the starlit snow covered path in front of him as they started a steep climb. The footpath grew very narrow.
“What things, Omid?”
“Things your diplomats, White House and the United Nations Security Council don’t seem to understand. You study our policy. You assume we won’t attack other countries, Europe or even the United States. You assume we would never launch bio-weapons or nuclear weapons because the world’s retaliation would destroy Iran. Perhaps you should study the regime’s theology instead of their politics.”