GOLAN: This is the Future of War (Future War)

by FX Holden

  Knowing what little he did about Syria’s ambitions for the Golan Heights, he felt it was a sound strategy. Provoke a security situation in Druze-held Buq’ata during a nationwide civil emergency. Refuse any help from the IDF and accept the help offered by Syria. Reinforce Buq’ata with battle-hardened troops and the latest in Russian main battle tanks, more than a match for anything Israel could throw against them. And from this position of strength, negotiate for the return of the Golan Heights to Syrian rule.

  With Colonel Zeidan Amar as the Provincial Governor.

  There was only one problem with this elegant plan, and that was the handful of US Marines currently unaccounted for in Buq’ata. He had no concerns about the toothless UN force five miles away, but the one thing he didn’t need was the US conducting a major attack on his position to free their trapped Marines.

  The humiliation of his earlier capture burned in his gut. But that was nothing in the greater scheme of things. He called out to one of his men, his best scout.

  “Abdullah, you have your map?”

  “Yes, here.”

  Zeidan unfolded the map on the hood of a still warm wrecked car. He was relatively familiar with Buq’ata from his childhood, but it had grown. The east road … yes, here. He put a finger down on the map. “Do you see this road? It goes up a small hill and there is a house at the end of the road, in front of this quarry. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make your way up there. Alone. Don’t let yourself be seen. I want you to check that house, our American guests may be hiding there. Take a radio, contact me when you’re there.”

  Fifteen minutes later, his scout called in. Six or seven Marines at least, in defensive positions inside the grounds of the house. And there were civilians in the house. “There’s no easy approach, the place is built like a compound, concrete walls on three sides, big metal shed and a sheer drop at the back. They do not look like they are planning to leave soon, Colonel,” the man said.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Amal dialed in the UNDOF frequency and put the radio handset to her ear. “UNDOF duty operator, this is Corporal Azaria, Unit 351, Palhik Company, for the commander of UNDOF Merom Golan, come in.”

  She listened to the reply and then reached down and hit a button so the sound came out of the unit speaker. “… ahead, Corporal, patching you through to the duty officer at Merom Golan, please wait, UNDOF operations coordination out.”

  Jensen felt a tension rising in his gut. He needed to be clear about what he wanted. What he wanted? He wanted a big white UN armored personnel carrier to come rolling into town to help evacuate any wounded and take him and his squad where they were supposed to be. Merom Golan was just five miles away. How hard could that be?

  “Corporal Azaria, this is Second Lieutenant van Leenan, duty officer UNDOF Merom Golan. How can I assist?”

  “Lieutenant van Leenan, I have a US Marine sergeant here to speak with your commander…”

  The Dutch UN officer interrupted. “Our commanding officer is not available, Corporal, ask the American to…”

  Jensen grabbed the handset. “Lieutenant, this is Gunnery Sergeant James Jensen of the 1st Marines, 3rd Battalion. Myself and my squad were to report to Colonel Willem Cort of UNDOF Merom Golan today, but our transport did not arrive and…”

  “Yes, Sergeant, well, as you can appreciate, with Israel declaring a national emergency, things have been a little busy around here this morning so I’m sorry you missed your ride. We aren’t a bloody taxi service. Where are you? I will see if we can…”

  “Lieutenant! With respect, sir, please listen. We are in Buq’ata. There was a terrorist attack. Multiple civilians have been killed and wounded. We killed two of the terrorists but we believe that local Druze militia are…”

  “What? You did what?”

  “We killed two terrorists, active shooters, in the act of defending the civilian population. We are currently holed up in a house in Buq’ata with Israeli civilians who fear for their safety. We need immediate evacuation…”

  “My God, man! What have you done? We do not intervene in Israeli civil affairs!”

  Jensen lifted the handset away from his ear and stared at it. He looked to Amal for a cue, but her face was blank. He put the handset back against his ear. “… created a diplomatic incident, at best. I want the name of your commanding officer back in the States. Now!”

  “Lieutenant, I don’t know how the UN runs its operations, but in the US Marines, if we see terrorists shooting unarmed civilians in broad daylight, yeah, we intervene. Now put me on to your commanding officer, because there is a force of Druze militia about to move on my position any time now and if you are worried about an international incident, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Hold.”

  Jensen put the handset against his shoulder. “What the hell? Who are these guys?”

  Amal looked pained. “They are an observer force, Sergeant. Not even a peacekeeping force, not really. UN troops tend to stay out of armed conflicts: what you did today was … unconventional.”

  “Unconventional? What would they have done?”

  “They would probably have stood and watched, and then rendered assistance to the survivors. If there had been any.”

  “You are shitting me, right?”

  “No. We have been living alongside UNDOF all my life. How is your history?”

  “Weak. Enlighten me.”

  “Syrian civil war, Syrian rebels made constant incursions into the Golan, captured Quneitra, took UN peacekeepers prisoner, UNDOF did nothing. Bosnia. NATO aircraft attacked Serbian troops at Vrbanja Bridge. The Serbs surrounded a nearby UN base and four hundred UN peacekeepers surrendered to numerically inferior Serbian forces without firing a shot. Then there is Srebrenica.”

  “I heard of that. UN troops stood by while Serbs took the local Bosnian men hostage and massacred them.”

  She nodded.

  “Alright, I get the picture.” The radio crackled and he lifted the handset to his ear again. “Gunnery Sergeant James Jensen, come in.”

  “Jensen, this is Colonel Willem Cort, UNDOF outpost Merom Golan. Tell me what you just told my Lieutenant.”

  Jensen told the UN colonel everything that had happened from the moment they had disembarked from their quadrotor up to fleeing the Druze roadblock and regrouping at the IDF corporal’s house.

  “Thank you for a very clear report, Sergeant,” the man at the other end said. “Now let me tell you what is happening outside Buq’ata. Israel has been subject to a suspected large-scale cyber attack. Just about all internet and cellular communications systems are down. The national electricity grid is down. The national banking system is down. A Russian missile cruiser in the Mediterranean claims to have accidentally shot down an Israeli communication satellite but that would not explain the massive cyber and space offensive we believe is currently underway. Your report of civil unrest in Buq’ata is, sadly, not inconsistent with reports we are hearing of other similar incidents throughout the Golan Heights, the Palestinian territories, and on the Lebanese border with Israel. The situation here in the Golan…”

  James Jensen was a native of Indiana, in the US Midwest. He tended to tune out if he heard too many words coming at him, and tended to trust the speaker less and less the more they talked. He took in what seemed relevant to him, then interrupted. “Colonel, with respect, I just want to know, are you going to come and get us and these Israeli civilians out of here, or not?”

  “No, Sergeant, we are not.”

  Jensen couldn’t believe his ears. “Sorry, Colonel, did I misunderstand? Did you deny my request for an evacuation?”

  “You heard right, Sergeant. I do not have the resources, and even if I did, I could not expend them on non-UN forces right now.”

  “Non-UN forces? We are attached to UNDOF, Merom Golan.”

  “Not until you officially report to me, which you have not done. Any actions you took this morning were done without t
he authority or protection of the United Nations, Sergeant.”

  “Oh for the love of …”

  “Careful, Sergeant. Now I am sorry, but this conversation is done.”

  Jensen tried one last time. “Colonel, I am talking to you soldier to soldier,” he said. “We are trapped in the middle of a Druze town, surrounded by Druze militia, following what seemed to be a Druze terrorist attack on civilians in this town. I have nearly a dozen civilians here, some of whom are wounded, all of whom fear for their lives. Your troops are five miles away. I am formally requesting your urgent assistance.”

  There was a moment of silence at the other end of the radio, then the voice of the Dutch colonel came back. “Sergeant, you have my sympathy. You are not attached to UNDOF, but you are a member of the greatest military power in the world, according to your own media machine. I suggest you call your Pentagon. Cort out.”

  Jensen handed the radio handset back to Amal, who jammed it into a pocket in the carry pack.

  “Sarge! I got movement on the access road south. Infantry fighting vehicle and a squad of infantry, moving up!” Bell called out.

  Jensen heard voices, but they weren’t breaking through his disbelief. Less than 24 hours ago, he and his squad had been standing on a hilltop in Kobani in Syria, getting ready to say good riddance to the stinking sewer of a bunker that had been their salvation through six months of siege. He’d blown a kiss at Combat Outpost Meyer as they’d flown away, so happy at the thought he’d never have to go through that particular brand of shit again. Now he was crouched on a rooftop in what might still be Syria, or Israel, depending on who you asked, and he and his squad were under siege once more. Except they didn’t have a nice deep bunker to weather the storm in, they were in a domestic dwelling. He didn’t have an army of Kurdish Peshmerga he could call on for assistance, he had an IDF corporal still bleeding from her wounds. The UN had turned its back on them.

  They were ten degrees of screwed.

  Finally a voice penetrated his gloom. He realized he had frozen. “Jensen. What do you want us to do?” Amal was asking him.

  He looked up. Bell was staring at him, imploringly. “Gunny?”

  Right now, Jensen would have killed for the basic comms kit every normal Marine squad carried. Helmet-mounted radio comms so he could speak to everyone and coordinate. What a damn luxury that would be. But he’d inherited the leftovers of an outpost no one wanted to be the last to say goodbye to, which meant both the unluckiest personnel and the last of their materiel.

  They would have to do.

  He stood and raised his voice. “Buckland, Stevens, Johnson!”

  “Sergeant!”

  “Incoming, west. Watch for infiltration on the flanks.”

  “Sergeant!”

  “Wallace, Lopez!”

  “Gunny!” The two privates were either side of an iron gate in the concrete wall, which was the logical place for an enemy to try to breach the compound.

  “Heads down, stay out of sight.” He checked their positions again. “Stay cool, everyone. Weapons off safe but hold fire!”

  The scene outside the villa had a surreal element of stillness about it for several minutes. He could see the Druze troops and their small tank through some pine trees, parked up around the bend in the road. They weren’t making much effort to hide themselves, but they were staying out of easy engagement range.

  He saw the white flag before he saw the man carrying it. A soldier in a green uniform edged into sight, a white flag on a stick stuck out in front of him like the universal signal for ‘parlay’ was a shield that would protect him from American bullets. He stopped as soon as he reached the open ground in front of the compound.

  Behind him, out of sight for now, Jensen heard a voice he recognized. “American Marines! Let me approach.”

  Jensen had been lying on his stomach and rolled over to the access stairs, dropping through and making his way to the ground floor, then out to the wall near the gate. As he approached, Lopez looked over the wall at the man with the flag.

  “Sarge, I think they want to…”

  “I heard, Private, keep your damn head down! A sniper in those trees and you’d be dead now.”

  Lopez crouched lower, looking abashed.

  “I’m listening!” Jensen called through the small gap between the gate and the wall.

  Zeidan Amar took a deep breath and stepped out from behind the man with the flag.

  He needed to resolve this situation quickly, with the minimum of fuss. Get these damn Americans out of here and take control of Buq’ata before the IDF intervened. That damn corporal had probably already radioed for help.

  Americans? What in the hell were US Marines doing in Buq’ata?

  Like everyone else in the world, he had heard the US President’s address on the radio, including his declaration of a no-fly zone over the Golan Heights. Had he mentioned something about US troops? Amar vaguely recalled he had, but the fact had gone right over his head as he’d driven from Mount Hermonit to Buq’ata. He had a million other problems to worry about, chief among them securing the town of nearly 10,000 Druze people and preparing it for its coming status as the capital of an Independent Druze Homeland in the restored Syrian province of Golan.

  As he’d surveyed the compound for himself from the safety of the trees, he had toyed with the idea of rushing their position, but for that he needed their Namer infantry fighting vehicle or IFV, with its 30mm autocannon, and it had been slow reaching Buq’ata from the IDF unit in Mas’ade that had been persuaded to defect to the Druze cause. Built on the chassis of a Merkava Mark IV main battle tank, it had shown in combat it could withstand RPG and even Russian Kornet anti-tank guided missiles. It would be able to smash through that metal gate and into the yard with ease.

  He hoped his opponents would see that and come to their senses. His scout had reported more than a squad, less than a platoon of Marines. But also some civilians. Eyewitnesses in the town gave inconsistent information: some said there were ten Marines, some at least twenty. If he’d been operating with his usual resources, he could have put up infrared sensing drones and got a better count. But even standing back in the trees as he was, he could see at least three Marines peering out occasionally from behind the walls. Maybe one on the roof? That would make sense.

  He rubbed his bruised throat. Whatever transpired, that Marine Sergeant was going to rue this day.

  “Give me the flag,” he said to the private he’d sent out front. Taking the flag, he hoisted it over his head and walked forward until he was standing in the open twenty yards from the gate. His scout had been right, it was more of a compound than a normal house. Probably an old farm overtaken as Buq’ata had expanded.

  “Close enough, Colonel!” the Marine Sergeant called out. He stayed in cover, which was annoying. Amar had a rifleman in a good position with orders to take him down if he showed himself. “Talk.”

  “Sergeant, I assume you have contacted your UN superiors at Merom Golan. I am more than happy to allow free passage for UN vehicles to evacuate you, or for your men to walk out to the outpost.” Either option would suit Amar. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a brace of UN blue helmets as hostages for leverage when the IDF inevitably came to call.

  “We have civilians under our protection. Some are wounded.”

  “The seriously wounded have already been evacuated to the hospital at Mas’ade.” That much was true. Dead townsfolk were of no use to him, either Jewish or Druze. “If you have anyone inside who needs medical attention, you should send them out, we will get them to Mas’ade too.”

  “Why should I believe the guy who wounded them in the first place?”

  “Sergeant, you have blundered into the middle of a situation that is beyond your pay grade. UNDOF is an observer force, not a peacekeeping force, certainly not an intervention force. Your presence here is only making a difficult situation worse, for you and your men. I will give you thirty minutes to consider your position. At the very least,
send out the civilians.”

  “Or what?” Jensen asked.

  “Or we will free them by force. I have several hundred men at my disposal. Many Marines will die – possibly civilians too – and it will be on your head. You can still resolve this situation peacefully.”

  After watching the Druze colonel and his man withdraw, Jensen scuttled back into the house and up to the rooftop.

  “You heard that?” Jensen asked Amal.

  “Yes.”

  “What is that armored vehicle?”

  “An IDF Namer IFV. That one has a 30mm autocannon and 40mm grenade launcher.”

  “Patel? We bring anything with us that can dent the hide of that thing?”

  “No, sir. I mean, Buckland had a few M-14 thermite grenades left over from the equipment she was destroying in Kobani, but they aren’t going to burn through Namer armor. That tank rolls in here, we’ll get squashed like bugs.”

  Amal nodded. “We will need to take it out before it gets moving. I may have an idea.”

  “You have a Javelin anti-tank missile launcher downstairs by any chance?”

  “No, something else.”

  As she led the way down from the roof, Jensen remembered she had mentioned having an ordnance store back at her house. She led him through her back door and out into the rear yard where a large metal shed backed onto the quarry. She put her thumb to the print reader on a padlock on the doors. Heaving on a sliding door, she pulled it open.

  Jensen stepped inside, and whistled. “What. The. Hell?”

  “I told you,” Amal said, turning on the lights. “I am a robotics engineer.”

  “Well, this explains why the place is built like a small fortress.”

  “Yes, the DRD insisted on that. Not that it was supposed to withstand a siege, just maybe buy me enough time to destroy any sensitive equipment in my workshop. They built those walls to withstand RPG rounds, but they looked so military, I painted them bright green.”