They went in during the darkest hours, after the Muslim holy day had ended but well before the sun had risen on the mottled brown hills around Kandahar.
They numbered perhaps 100, mostly US Army Rangers, whose creed urges them to "move further, faster and fight harder than any other soldier".
They were flown by "Combat Talon" MC-130 planes - low-flying, radar-avoiding aircraft designed for such operations.
The soldiers dropped in by parachute and arrived at two targets close to the Taleban stronghold, where they emerged with weapons bristling and with night-sight goggles revealing the installations they had come to hit.
Small-arms fire was exchanged as the special forces took on the Taleban but opposition on the ground was light. Within no more than a couple of hours, the men of the 75th Ranger Regiment were gone, presumably spirited away by helicopters to camps in Pakistan or the USS Kitty Hawk in the Arabian Sea.
Just two people were hurt in the drops, and the only fatalities were two personnel on a rescue helicopter on standby in Pakistan.
This, at least, was one version that emerged yesterday of the first confirmed strikes against the Taleban and the forces of Osama bin Laden involving US ground troops.
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed video footage taken by the special forces themselves. It showed them preparing, boarding their plane, parachuting, clearing out a target and blowing up an arms base.
"They have never let us down and yesterday was no exception," he said.
But despite the mesmerising visual display, bathed in the strange alien-green light of the video camera's night-vision sight, details of the raids on Kandahar airport and a command centre near the city once used by Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were still scant.
Kandahar is the spiritual and political stronghold of the Taleban and location of many bin Laden training camps, and the Pentagon said that the size of the airborne assault force was intended to send a clear psychological and political message to the enemy.
One suspects it was equally aimed at those parts of the American public hungry to see retaliation for the attacks of September 11.
In Shanghai, President George W. Bush, who was attending the Apec summit, seized on the death of the two search-and-rescue soldiers.
"The thing that's important for me to tell the American people is that these soldiers will not have died in vain. This is a just cause," he said.
"I think the American people now fully understand that we are in an important struggle, a struggle that will take time, and that there will be moments of sacrifice ... We are slowly but surely encircling the terrorists so that we can bring them to justice."
Later, at the Pentagon, General Myers said: "One of our primary objectives was to gain intelligence. We are in the process of evaluating the information we brought out."
The Taleban version of the raid, from the official Bakhtar news agency, said four helicopters landed in Kohi Baba, a camp 32km northwest of Kandahar. The US soldiers found the camp deserted.
"The American air operation in Afghanistan has made no gain and the helicopter operation has failed."
But even the Taleban's story changes. Spokesman Amir Khan Muttaqi said the forces did clash but the US commandos were driven off by the regime's fighters.
"I think we hit one of the helicopters, but I am not sure. The important thing is that they faced defeat. Their plans have failed and, God willing, all their aggressive plans will fail."
A third version of the raids suggested the Rangers' attack on the airport was designed to mask the second, more covert raid on the compound, where it was hoped the special forces troops would find members of the Taleban and al Qaeda leadership.
Ten years on from the Gulf War, video-game-style images have been replaced by pictures taken through night-vision sights.
But the Pentagon shows us only what it wants us to see, and yesterday's operations remain cloaked in darkness.
- INDEPENDENT
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US commandos strike Taleban in the darkness
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