I sat on the COC’s couch and listened to events unfold. It took Shearburn only a few minutes to get to the school. “Rage 6, this is Rage 1, there is nobody here. The school is empty—break—we did see three black Opels speed away from the area as we got close, over.”
Jack translated for Colonel Mohammed what Shearburn had said. Then the colonel left with his phone, probably to inform the other scouts that Kasim was being moved in three black Opels. After a few minutes, the COC was bombarded by radio traffic from other units. The Marines to the east, soldiers to the north, and our parent battalion all called over the radio to inform us that al Qaeda had kidnapped one of the locals. Other Iraqi tribes, friends of the scouts, were concerned for their welfare. It was the first time that I realized the far-reaching capability of the scouts’ network—a network built by the man whom we had treated so poorly that he wouldn’t return to Julayba: the general.
Colonel Mohammed came back into the room. He had received a call from one of his spies, the same one who had led us to Mullah Qahttan. The man had spotted the three Opels pulling into the Albu Musa mosque. He claimed to have personally seen Kasim being moved into the building.
Getting to the Albu Musa mosque was harder than gaining access to the Kurtabah School. The mosque was almost 2,000 meters away, in the middle of a very hostile neighborhood. The roads leading to it were not clear, and the closest friendly unit was Lieutenant Grubb’s Rage 4, located about 500 meters west of the Gixxer-Nova intersection. Captain Smith requested intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets from the battalion. The request went up to brigade and was partially denied. Anything available was already in use by a higher-priority unit. We would, however, get a section of Apache helicopters in two hours. I thought that by then, Kasim would probably be dead.
We didn’t like it, but none of us were surprised by the brigade’s decision. Understandably, searching for kidnapped locals wasn’t one of the commander’s critical information requirements; he needed his UAVs and helicopters to protect his men.
Denied in his request, Captain Smith pondered moving Grubb’s platoon. He needed to get eyes on the situation. Before he made up his mind, the Marines to the east gave us another call on the radio. The general was in their COC and had described to them the importance of the situation. They informed us that one of their Predator UAVs was entering our area of operations, and they would relay what they saw. Captain Smith thanked them for their generosity.
We sent the UAV to the Albu Musa mosque first. It spotted a few individuals armed with Kalashnikovs but nothing we considered unusual. The three black Opels, which we all expected to see parked next to one another, were not there. Then Rage 6 sent the UAV west into the neutral tribal area and waited for the next transmission. A couple of minutes later, the Marine on the other end gave us a grid to what they were looking at. I quickly plotted it on the map. It was very close to where I believed Abu Ali’s house was. “We got a white sedan and a black sedan parked out front. About ten armed men are finishing off and doing some sort of search on half a dozen bodies in the front yard. The men are getting in the vehicles; you want us to follow them?”
“Yes,” said Captain Smith.
No one in the room spoke. We knew al Qaeda had ended the scouts’ anonymity and was going to exact their revenge. Captain Smith broke the silence and told Colonel Mohammed to go call Abu Ali. Mohammed did as asked and headed outside to get reception. Then Rage 6 got on the company net. He quickly gave Lieutenant Grubb a brief on the situation and ordered him to get to the Gixxer-Nova intersection as soon as possible. We needed to shut down the main transportation routes between the opposing tribes and buy the rest of the scouts time—time for us to inform them of the danger they faced.
The Marines to the east continued to relay what they saw on the UAV feed. The white and black sedans headed straight for the Gixxer-Nova intersection. There wasn’t a chance that Grubb’s dismounted infantrymen would beat them to it. Colonel Mohammed came back into the room. Abu Ali was not answering his phone. Then the colonel left to call the rest of the scouts.
The white sedan barreled into a group of pedestrians at the Gixxer-Nova intersection. According to the Marine watching the UAV feed, it was obviously intentional. The result was one lifeless body on the side of the road. I wondered whether it was a scout or one of their spies. My heart sank; we were powerless to help them.
The two vehicles full of armed men continued east on Gixxer at a high rate of speed. They turned north onto Bears Road and surprised everyone when they flew past the Albu Musa mosque without stopping. Instead, they drove through the heart of the Albu Musa tribal area. The colonel came back in. Abu Tiba had answered his phone and informed the colonel that Kasim’s headless body had been dumped near the Gixxer-Nova intersection. The information helped explain why the vehicle had not stopped at the mosque. The militants had extracted all they could out of Kasim; now they were hitting the targets he had given them.
The battalion called on the radio. The Apaches were coming early. They would be on-station in ten minutes. I hoped the two rampaging sedans would still be driving around when the attack helicopters showed up. Then we would be able to end their killing spree with a few well-aimed missiles.
There was another transmission via the UAV relay. Like the previous one, it began with a grid to the event. I plotted it at a random house along Bears Road. “The two sedans stopped outside a house. A few armed individuals came out the front door. Then some of the guys in the cars started shooting, while others got out. The individual standing outside the front door threw a grenade at the cars. It’s hard to tell, but it looked like one of the men caught it and threw it back; either way, the grenade exploded on the guy standing outside the front door. Then the men in the sedans searched the house. We could see muzzle flashes coming from the windows while they were inside. They got back in the cars and are now moving north on Bears Road.”
All of us in the room looked at one another. Who was it who had just gotten whacked? None of us thought it was possible for any of the scouts to live in the Albu Musa tribal area. It was too hostile. Maybe the house belonged to one of their spies. But still, why would they come out the front door to meet the enemy? Uncertainty filled the COC. The UAV was out of flight time. Our only source of information flew back to Camp Taqqaddum. We patiently waited for the section of Apaches to show up. They did moments later.
“Rage COC, this is Attack 17; what can I do for you, sir?”
Captain Smith grabbed the handset and gave the helicopter section leader a situation update. He instructed the attack helicopters to look for the white and black sedans along Bears Road, heading north toward the Euphrates. It took a few minutes, but the helicopter eventually found a white sedan heading west along Bears Road, back toward the neutral tribal area. The black sedan was no longer with the vehicle, but the pilot described it in the exact same fashion that the UAV relay had. I didn’t think anyone doubted that it was the same vehicle.
I waited for Captain Smith to give the order. It was the perfect time to destroy the sedan. The portion of Bears Road it was driving on was sparsely populated and mostly farmland. The risk of collateral damage was low. I thought the priority was to prevent the vehicle from getting back to the neutral tribes, where the majority of the scouts lived. Now was the time to strike.
The pilot informed Captain Smith that he had a clear shot at the vehicle. To my dismay, Captain Smith told the helicopter not to fire. I could tell that he was not convinced that the white sedan we were now following was the same one as earlier. Captain Smith was the only man in the room who felt that way. Everyone else wanted the car blown into pieces. The vehicle reentered the neutral villages, placing it in the middle of a populated area. It then pulled onto a few dirt roads and finally into a driveway. The helicopter identified five potentially armed men getting out of the car and heading into a mansion that occupied the land. The two Apaches circled overhead for the next few minutes, and nothing happened. No muzzle flashes,
no signs of violence.
We got a grid location from the helicopters and plotted the mansion on the map. To us, it was just another random house. There was no prior reporting on the location. For the next thirty minutes, Captain Smith directed the Apaches through the Albu Musa tribal area, searching for the white and black sedans. We never found them. I was convinced that the white sedan at the mansion was the one we were looking for.
A few minutes after the Apaches left, Colonel Mohammed burst into the COC yet again. Abu Ali was alive and on the phone. Captain Smith grabbed Jack and went outside to listen to the conversation. I stayed in the COC with the rest of the lieutenants. At first, I was relieved that Abu Ali had escaped the clutches of the militants hunting him. That was before Captain Smith returned with Abu Ali’s details of what had happened that day.
When Kasim had been kidnapped, Abu Ali was one of the first to find out. He knew that al Qaeda would torture Kasim until they got whatever information they needed from him. Instead of running away or hiding, Abu Ali set up a surprise for his enemies in the form of an ambush at his house. Using the dozen fighters who had already crossed the Euphrates to prepare for the oncoming mission, Abu Ali laid in wait. When al Qaeda showed up, he killed them as soon as they exited their cars, the white and black sedans.
But that wasn’t where Abu Ali stopped. He followed up his successful ambush with an aggressive assault. He drove to the Gixxer-Nova intersection and ran over the group of al Qaeda lookouts who had dumped Kasim’s body. Then he went for the leadership of the group. He knew where al Qaeda’s regional commander, Safa Daham Hanush, lived, and the al Qaeda vehicles he and his masked men were now driving would ensure that they enjoyed safe passage through the Albu Musa tribal area. So they drove past the mosque and stopped in front of Safa’s house. Safa even walked out the front door, thinking that his fighters were returning with Abu Ali’s head. Instead, it was Abu Ali who emerged from the vehicle. He killed Safa and his bodyguards. Then he returned to the neutral tribal area.
As Captain Smith spoke, I sat in shock. Single-handedly, Abu Ali had somehow turned an impossible scenario into a victory. Even more shocking was the fact that if the decision had been up to me, I would have ordered the attack helicopters to kill Abu Ali without hesitation. If I had done such a thing, everything that subsequently happened would never have materialized.
That night, at the behest of Captain Smith, Abu Ali came to COP Melia. We all knew the scout’s anonymity was over. Captain Smith wanted to formulate a plan to maintain the initiative, and there were many options. The one we went with, though, was the one presented by Colonel Mohammed and Abu Ali. The next day they would use the tribal Iraqi police to the north of the river, the same men who had helped in the previous Iraqi-only mission, to root out the small number of al Qaeda cells and spies in the neutral areas. Then they would recruit the neutral sheikhs to assist them in attacking the Albu Bali and Albu Musa tribes—an alliance they felt they could easily secure by emphasizing the brutal murder of Kasim.
It was a bold plan, and, collectively, the Marines of Rage Company liked it. There would be no American involvement. Iraqis would execute, supervise, and coordinate the entire mission. Not Iraqi soldiers but, literally, normal Iraqi civilians. Butchers, shepherds, farmers, and man-dress makers were going to wield weapons against one another. I sat down at my laptop and began to chronicle the day’s events. The battalion needed to know what was happening.
That night, while Abu Ali told us his version of exchanging grenade throws with Safa, a hundred tribal fighters crossed the Euphrates just north of the Sijariah crossing. The tribes of Julayba were about to go to war.
1200, March 14, 2007
The sounds of multiple intense firefights engulfed the skyline. The fighting had raged for a full forty-eight hours, and we had no idea who was winning. From the roof of the COP, dozens of tribal fighting positions were easily visible. Each was a collection of men in masks, cloth head wraps, and the standard man-dresses. The scary thing was that they all had RPGs, medium machine guns, and various AK-style weapons. We were unsure of where the weapons and the ammunition to sustain the fighting had come from, but wherever it was, it was a large pile. It had to be; the fighting was continuous.
I put on my combat gear and headed outside to sit in the fresh air and the sunlight. To avoid the large group of Marines smoking on the back side of the COP, I headed out front and sat on the front stairs that led up to the double doors.
A perfectly clear blue sky greeted me as I relaxed on the steps. The days were getting warmer. The temperature was reaching into the seventies, and for the first time I had begun to feel hot on a daily basis. Soaking in the gorgeous weather, I thought about how miserable my existence was. For months, I had spent most of my waking moments hiding in buildings and shunning the light of day. I reminded myself that in a couple of weeks, it would all be over. Soon I would be on a ship sailing back to the States.
My thoughts were interrupted by the rude reality of where I was. The successive thumping of large-caliber shells leaving a mortar tube sounded over the horizon. I hustled into the COP for shelter. The sound was loud enough for me to identify that the mortar tubes were close, within a few hundred meters. It meant they were the enemy’s. The only coalition mortar systems in Julayba had been put away in the COP’s makeshift armory.
Shouts of “Incoming!” sounded through the COP. I stood in the foyer and patiently awaited the forthcoming concussions of close explosions. They arrived about thirty seconds later: three of them, each separated by about five seconds. I was surprised by their weakness and realized that the COP was not the target. I went back outside and looked north along Nova. Three pillars of smoke rose from the ground about 500 meters away, just off the road. The insurgents were targeting the Mohammara School, the location chosen by the tribes as the future Julayba Iraqi Police Station. The school was located directly between the two pro-al Qaeda tribes, making it a key launching point for our friendly tribes to assault the others from. Earlier in the day, you could see dozens of scout-led fighters moving about the complex; now there was rising smoke.
A blue bongo truck sped down Nova toward the COP. From a few hundred meters away, I could see that the bed was full of people. It could mean only one thing: casualties. I looked back into the COP. The SOG spotted the same thing from the roof and was already assembling Rage 1’s corpsmen. Some of them were assisting lieutenants Trotter and Shearburn in setting up one of the front rooms as a makeshift aid station.
Captain Smith exited the COP and stood beside me on the stairs. He mentioned that it was convenient timing for the enemy; Colonel Mohammed had left the COP that morning to go to the school and conduct a planning meeting with the rest of the scouts. The scouts’ entire leadership was at the school. A team of Marines and Iraqi soldiers rushed past us and toward the gate. Captain Smith yelled at the hustling Marines to search the vehicles and their occupants before letting them in.
The vehicle arrived at the gate and honked at the Marines and the Iraqi soldiers to get out of the way. Shouting developed between the two groups as the Marines tried to search the truck. I didn’t see the point. Colonel Mohammed was clearly visible. He had taken to wearing his crisply pressed military fatigues in the last few days and was sitting in the front seat. We all knew who he was. Captain Smith, though, was furious when the Marines let him pass without doing a detailed search. I was relieved. Our allies were bleeding out in the back of that vehicle.
With the Marines yielding, the truck accelerated the final 50 meters to the interior concrete wall, only a few strides from where I stood.
I immediately heard the cries and moaning of injured men. Their comrades began to unload them, and the first two were carried toward me. The sight of the aftermath of when flesh meets flying shrapnel was horrific. I got to experience the view from up close when the two men were dropped off at the base of the stairs. The uninjured Iraqis begged me to help them, communicating through hand motions and Arabic I didn’t unders
tand.
At first, I didn’t know what to do. I stared at the abdominal wound of one man and then at the shoulder wound of the other. The injuries required urgent attention, and four sets of eyes were staring at me for help. For some reason, I was still stuck on the fact that the Iraqis were bringing their wounded to our doorstep. For years, these men had fought us. It was a hatred that brewed for over a decade. Now they were pleading with me, an American, in broad daylight for help. I turned around and led the men into the aid station. Within minutes, the room was filled with slightly more than a dozen wounded and a contingent of feverishly working corpsmen and Marines.
Captain Smith maintained his vigilant focus. He was busy kicking out the uninjured Iraqis and had set up a security post to ensure that none of them went past the second set of double doors leading into the foyer. At the time I could not fathom his thought process, but I did know it was necessary. The confusion of a mass casualty event was the perfect time for a suicide bomber to strike. Not to mention that in Julayba’s tribal society, friend and foe shifted with the wind. It made for a very dramatic lifestyle.
In the next few minutes, I watched our corpsman perform nothing short of a miracle. With the most rudimentary equipment and untrained Marines as assistants, they stabilized each of the casualties for transport. In less than thirty minutes, Rage Mobile had left the COP, carrying the wounded Iraqis to Corregidor’s surgical/triage unit. Of the six urgent-surgical casualties, one lost his life. That left five living men whom the Iraqis had delivered to us with the expectation that they would die. The event showcased the incredible competence of our corpsmen. Such proficiency in saving lives cemented our relationship with not only the scouts but also the populace. Five husbands and fathers who weren’t expected to come home did. It also improved the morale of our growing militia. Combat is a much easier enterprise to engage in when you know that modern health care is less than an hour away.
Rage Company Page 37
