Gary Schroen, who led the CIA in Afghanistan, dies at 80

Weeks before troops arrived, he took a small team into the country to prepare for an invasion and begin the hunt for Osama bin Laden .

Gary C. Schroen, a veteran C.I.A. agent who, just weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, led the first team of agents in Afghanistan to prepare for an invasion and begin the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, died at his home in Alexandria, Virginia. , on August 1, a day after a US missile killed one of the last of these men, Ayman al-Zawahri. He was 80 years old.

His wife, Anne McFadden, said the cause was complications from a fall.

Mr. . Schroen spent more than 30 years with the C.I.A., running spy agents and operations across the Middle East. At 59, he was already 11 days into the agency's mandatory three-month retirement transition program when terrorists under Bin Laden's command attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">He spent the next few days simmering, frustrated that the skills and knowledge he had spent decades acquiring were not being used when they were most valuable.

Then, late in the night of September 13, he learned that Cofer Black, the director of the agency's counterterrorism center, wanted to see him the next morning.

"Gary, I want you to take a small team of C.I.A. officers to Afghanistan," Mr. Black told him, in a conversation Mr. Schroen recalled in a book of 2005, "First In: An Insider's Account of How the C.I.A. Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan", and in multiple interviews. They were to contact the Northern Alliance, an organization opposed to the Taliban, and persuade them to cooperate with the Americans.

"You are," M continued. Black, "the most qualified officer to lead this team."

Mr. Schroen selected seven men and gathered the weapons, outdoor gear, and food they would need. The mission was codenamed Jawbreaker. At least one military representative was supposed to join them, but the Pentagon pulled out of the mission at the last minute, declaring it too dangerous.

"He there was no rescue force," Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. case officer who worked frequently with Mr. Schroen, said in a phone interview. "If they got in trouble, he wouldn't. there were no American troops to come and rescue them."

Before Mr. Schroen left for the mission, Mr. Black took him aside.

"I want it to be clear what your real job is," Mr. Schroen recalled Mr. Black telling him. "Once the Taliban is broken , your job is to find bin Laden, kill him, and bring his head back to dry ice."

They arrived in Afghanistan on September 26, carrying laptops, sat phones tellites, instant coffee and $3 million in cash. For the next few weeks, until Army Delta Force detachments began arriving, they were the only Americans operating in the country.

Image Northern Alliance soldiers observe a village controlled by the Taliban in 2001. Mr. Schroen's job in Afghanistan was to persuade the Northern Alliance to help the United States fight the Taliban.Credit...Tyler Hicks/Getty Images, for The New York Times

Mr. Schroen had long-standing personal ties to the Northern Alliance, dating back to his time as a C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan. He handed out free money to show the seriousness of the coming American assault.

Within days he had won the Northern Alliance. By the time more American troops...