The British government's response to 9/11 was to launch Operation Veritas, an attempt to deny al-Qaeda its Afghan base. Two months later Pickup was in the leading aircraft which landed unannounced at the former Soviet airbase in Bagram, which was being strongly contested by thousands of government fighters and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, led by Uzbek warlords.
Although vastly outnumbered, Pickup and his 100 men held on for a day and a night. This infuriated both contending armies, who were insulted by a fourth British invasion in two centuries; it also exasperated the American army's large Delta Force, which had planned to arrive first.
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