conducted largely uneventful reconnaissance under the code-name Operation Determine, none of which resulted in enemy contact. They traveled in Land Rover Desert Patrol Vehicles and modified all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). Both squadrons returned to their barracks in the UK after two weeks. Objective Rhino and Gecko On the night of October 19, simultaneous with the Special Forces entering the country, 200 Rangers from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, parachuted onto Objective Rhino—a landing strip south of Kandahar. The landing strip had been built as part of an Emirati hunting camp. Before the Rangers dropped, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and AC-130 gunships bombed and strafed the site, meeting the resistance of only one Taliban fighter. The Rangers provided security while a forward arming and refuelling point (FARP) was established using fuel bladders from MC-130s, to refuel aircraft flying to the next objective. The mission was filmed by combat cameramen and a P-3C Orion observation plane flying overhead. No US casualties were suffered in the operation itself (two Rangers received minor injuries in the jump), but two Rangers assigned to a CSAR element supporting the mission were killed when their MH-60L helicopter crashed at a temporary staging site in Dalbandin, Pakistan, due to a brownout. Simultaneously, a squadron of Delta Force operatives supported by Rangers from Task Force Sword conducted an operation—designated Objective Gecko—outside Kandahar at Mullah Omar's residential compound. Four MH-47E helicopters took off from the USS Kitty Hawk (which was serving as a SOF base) in the Indian Ocean carrying 91 soldiers. The assault teams were drawn from Delta, while teams from the Rangers secured the perimeter and occupied blocking positions. Before the soldiers were inserted, the target area was softened by preparatory fire from AC-130s and MH-60L Direct Action Penetrators. The assaulters met no resistance and there was no sign of the Taliban leader, so they searched the target location for intelligence, while their helicopters refueled at the newly established FARP in Rhino. The next day, the Pentagon showed the video footage from Objective Rhino at a press conference and distributed it to news organizations. Intelligence prior to the missions had indicated that neither objective had any Taliban forces on it. According to former Delta Force officer Peter Blaber, the JSOC commander Dell Dailey "believed that if we raided empty targets in Afghanistan and filmed the raids for the world to see... we would have some kind of morale-breaking