Operation Eagle's Summit (Oqab Tsuka in Pashto) was a military operation conducted by ISAF and Afghan National Army troops, with the objective of transporting a 220-tonne turbine to the Kajaki Dam in Helmand Province through territory controlled by Taliban insurgents. Ending in success for the coalition, it involved many British troops, and was said to have been one of the largest logistical operations carried out by the British Army since World War II. The operation took its name from the eagle pictured on the insignia of the 16th Air Assault Brigade.

The Kajaki hydroelectric dam was completed in 1953 with the aid of a loan from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, in order to provide electricity and irrigation to the population of Helmand and Kandahar provinces under the Helmand Valley Authority. It was supposed to house three turbines, but only two were ever installed, and after years of civil war, only one was still in service by 2001. In 2004, the United States started work on restoring the dam's capacity and bringing its output to 53 megawatts. One turbine was repaired in 2005, but the restoration was hampered by the difficulty of delivering new turbines to Kajaki through Taliban-controlled territory, that required a large-scale military operation.

TF Helmand (as lead planner) worked in conjunction with HQ RC(S) and TF Kandahar for four months in preparing the operation. They planned to avoid taking the most direct route, Route 611, which crossed several Taliban strongholds, and that was littered with IEDs placed by the insurgents and land mines left over from the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Instead they planned to take the convoy carrying the turbine through the desert, following an itinerary codenamed "route Harriet", that was mapped by the Pathfinder Platoon weeks before the operation. The British tried to negotiate safe passage for the convoy, in some cases distributing cash sums to local elders, but these deals didn't work out.

The Chinese-made turbine was delivered to Kandahar airport on the night of August 27, and was taken through the first part of the journey by Canadian troops, until it reached a meeting point in the desert, where it was taken over by British forces for the last stretch of the route through Helmand. It was broken down into seven separate loads, each weighing some 30 tonnes, and carried on HET trucks.

After the transfer to British troops, the main convoy, composed of 100 vehicles stretching over four kilometres, included 50 Viking APCs, and Jackal and Mastiff vehicles. The whole Combat Logistic Patrol, as the convoys are called in military terminology, was made up of three elements. The Engineer Group (9 Parachute Squadron RE), the Command Group (CO 13 Air Assault Support Regiment RLC) and the Turbine Element (15 Air Assault Close Support Squadron RLC). Amongst the convoy were eight critical vehicles:

Attack helicopters provided overwatch, while air support came in the shape of US, French and Dutch aircraft. Combat engineers provided support, by building and shoring up the road the convoy was due to travel on.

Heliborne troops from the Parachute Regiment provided security for the convoy, by leapfrogging along its path.

At the same time, a dummy convoy composed of 30 to 40 Danish vehicles advanced along Highway 611, escorted by the 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, in order to deceive the Taliban into ignoring "Harriet".