the Enlightened ones); his birthplace, the Kuz Kunar District of Nangarhar Province; his primary alias: Ismael; his chief allegiance: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was based out of the Shamshato Refugee Camp near Peshawar, Pakistan; his group's size: fifty to one hundred fighters; and his goals: to impede the upcoming elections and attempt to aid a resurgent Taliban in the region. Although Shah was a relatively unknown entity in the region, he apparently held regional aspirations and possibly had the assistance of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. 2nd Lieutenant Turner also gathered a number of photographs of Shah. Further intelligence, including human intelligence and signals intelligence, indicated that Shah based his operations out of some small structures outside of the village of Chichal, high on the slopes of Sawtalo Sar mountain in the upper Korangal Valley, approximately to the west of Kunar's provincial capital Asadabad. Using imagery intelligence taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle on June 17, 2005, Westerfield identified likely structures used for housing his team, IED making, and overwatch of the area below for IED strikes. The intelligence staff identified four named areas of interest containing specific structures which Shah might be using. Westerfield and his staff determined that Shah and his men had been responsible for approximately 11 incidents against American, Coalition, and Afghan government entities, including IED strikes and small arms ambushes. They determined that Shah and his men would be occupying the area of Chichal in late June, a time of low lunar illumination. The operation would require a helicopter insertion of forces to cordon the area and search for Shah and his men. They sought to conduct this operation at night, after positive identification of Shah by a Marine Corps scout sniper team, which would walk into the area under cover of darkness some nights before. As with 3/3 before them, 2/3 sought to use Special Operations Forces assets for Red Wings but, unlike 3/3, they sought only the use of Special Operations Aviation assets, specifically, MH-47 Special Operations Aircraft of the 160th SOAR, not any ground forces. Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force – Afghanistan refused this request, stating that in order for Red Wings to be supported with Special Operations aviation the battalion would have to task the opening phases of the operation to Special Operations ground forces. During the opening phases, the Marines of 2/3 would act in a supporting role. After the initial phases were