The 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha 595 (ODA 595) team, along with two Air Force combat controllers, were the second group of Task Force Dagger to enter Afghanistan. In the first operation of its kind, they were flown from a former Soviet airbase, now named the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, in Uzbekistan more than across the Hindu Kush mountains in zero-visibility conditions by a SOAR MH-47E Chinook helicopter. They were dropped onto a farmer's field at 0200 on October 19, 2001, about south of Mazar-i-Sharif in the Dari-a-Souf Valley, south of Mazar-e-Sharif. The team arrived only 39 days after the Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center for what they thought would be a year-long stay. They linked up with the Northern Alliance led by General Dostum.