Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif

November 9, 2001 · Northern Afghanistan Theater

November 9, 2001

The first major city to fall in the 2001 campaign, Mazar-i-Sharif was taken by Northern Alliance commander Abdul Rashid Dostum — a former Soviet-backed warlord turned US partner — with a dozen US Special Forces soldiers on horseback calling in precision airstrikes. CIA officer Mike Spann became the first American killed in combat in Afghanistan during the subsequent Qala-i-Jangi prison uprising, where Taliban prisoners seized weapons and fought a brutal three-day battle inside the fort's mud walls.

• ●Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif