value target, an ACM commander known as Najmudeen, who based his operations out of the Korangal Valley. With the surrender of Najmudeen, ACM activity in the region dropped significantly. Najmudeen's surrender, however, left a power vacuum in the region. 3/3 tracked a number of known ACM groups they determined to be possibly seeking to fill the power void in the region. The battalion began planning a new operation, tentatively called Operation Stars, which was named after the Dallas Stars professional hockey team (3/3's battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Norman Cooling, hailed from Texas, hence most operations were named after Texas sports teams) Stars, like the other operations before it, focused on disrupting ACM activity, although Najmudeen's surrender caused activity to drop, and specific groups proved difficult to pinpoint. In May 2005, the advance party of 3/3's sister battalion, the 2/3, arrived in Regional Command East. Even before deploying to Afghanistan 2/3's, intelligence officer Captain Scott Westerfield and his assistants had been tracking a small cell led by a man named Ahmad Shah, based on intelligence sent back by 3/3's intelligence officer. Shah was from a remote region in Nangarhar Province, which borders the south side of Kunar Province. Shah, they determined, was responsible for approximately 11 incidents against coalition forces and government of Afghanistan entities, including small arms ambushes and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks. By June 2005, 2/3 had relieved-in-place 3/3 and, using the Stars concept, had developed a comprehensive operation which they called Operation Red Wings. Red Wings' goal was disrupting ACM activity, with an emphasis on disrupting Ahmad Shah's activities, which were based near the summit of Sawtalo Sar. Planning stages and intelligence gathering 2/3's battalion staff began planning Operation Red Wings when they arrived in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Andrew MacMannis, 2/3's battalion commander, and his staff wanted to maintain the operational tempo set by 3/3. 2/3's operations officer, Major Thomas Wood, began planning the five-phase Red Wings operation off the Operation Stars model. During this time, 2/3's intelligence officer, Captain Scott Westerfield, focused further on learning about Ahmad Shah. His overall intelligence picture of Shah took a substantial leap when 2nd Lieutenant Regan Turner, a platoon commander with 2/3's "Whiskey Company" – a weapons company augmented to function like an infantry line company, gathered a wealth of human intelligence about Shah during a patrol including his full name: Ahmad Shah Dara-I-nur (Ahmad Shah of the Valley of