Boris: fair point. What I should have said was green army (in which I include Royal Marines) in need of CAS. The PRT at Masar-e Sharif never truly needed CAS after the initial stages, so no/little requirement for fast air support.
Had they been sent to Helmand or Kandahar instead of Masar in 2001 then they would have been crying out for fast jets for CAS, as they were when they did in 2006.