[1] The mission was an airfield seizure in support of a Delta Force raid on the nearby home of Mullah Omar; though intelligence suggested that perhaps neither location was occupied.

Though the Rangers had examined the possibility of seizing Objective Rhino the week after September 11, the initial proposal as a target came by Gen. Tommy Franks out of CENTCOM.

Objective Rhino was a 6,400 foot paved runway installed in a dry lake bed, approximately 100 miles southwest of Kandahar, originally built for Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (then the military chief of staff for the United Arab Emirates) as a hunting camp.

[2] After the September 11th attacks, bin Zayed had suggested to Franks that the camp could be used as a staging facility to reduce the number of U.S. forces that would be needed to deploy to Pakistan.

[2] Franks wanted the Rangers to seize the airfield to use as a staging point to deploy a Marine task force in Southern Afghanistan; while JSOC's planners wanted to use the airstrip as a helicopter forward arming and refueling point (FARP) to use to conduct a raid on Objective Gecko, the home of Mullah Omar on the north side of Kandahar city.

In a twist of irony, despite initial reports indicating no presence of enemy forces and expectations of an empty airfield, intelligence personnel suddenly expressed excessive concern at the mission's start.

[7] Days before the raids, two AC-130s overflew Rhino to confirm the mission timeline and desensitize ground observers to the sound of planes overhead; they also engaged targets of opportunity en route but detected no enemy on either objective.

[14] The presence of combat cameramen and a Navy P-3C Orion command and control plane overhead highlighted the importance placed on capturing propaganda footage during the operation.

[10] A senior member of the Joint Staff claimed that the operation had strategic value, terrified Omar, and changed the way he thought about the conflict and his safety resulting in becoming isolated and insular.