VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

More documents

Recommendations

Info

01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 317 Viking Hammer (and the Ugly Baby) These combined efforts paid off after three hours of steady fighting. Ansar al-Islam had fought like demons to hold Sargat, but the survivors among them finally withdrew into the caves and mountains beyond. The captain had asked the Kurds to leave the search of Sargat to the Americans. It was essential to preserve all the evidence. At the outskirts of the town stood the remains of the complex suspected to be the chemical weapons facility. The buildings had been bombed in the previous week’s air strikes, but the fence and fortifications around the complex were still intact. Access obviously had been restricted, even though Ansar members were Sargat’s only inhabitants. The next day, a sensitive site exploitation team would be brought in to search it. Beside the complex stood brick houses, the nicest in town, where the senior leaders of Ansar al-Islam lived. The first order of business was to treat the wounded; the medics of 081 set to work on the worst casualties first. One pesh merga fighter had an eviscerated stomach wound; another Kurd had been shot twice, once in the jaw and once in the thigh; others had shrapnel wounds. The most seriously wounded were evacuated in one of the trucks. The captain surveyed the scene. A pesh merga truck had just arrived from the rear, carrying a hot lunch of goat kebabs. Sheikh Jafr waved the captain over to partake. It struck him as utterly surreal: the Kurds had not been able to get their artillery to the frontline in less than an hour during a life-or-death battle, but a hot catered meal had shown up right at lunchtime, at 1 p.m. He shook his head. It was little short of miraculous that the combined force had not suffered more casualties. The men had been sitting ducks for the shooters as they came through that valley, yet no U.S. soldiers had been wounded. The captain, who had discovered that his back plate was missing from his armored vest, was especially grateful. The moral of the story, he guessed, was to never turn tail. The Kurds brought the one prisoner they’d captured down from the mountains and handed him over to the Americans. The man did not want to be taken alive, and kept repeating over and over, “God is great, God is great.” The papers in his pocket identified him as a Palestinian. 317
01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 318 318 M asters of C haos The soldiers and their Kurdish allies ate and rested briefly in the shelter of a cliff at Sargat’s edge, and then they set off again to pursue those who were fleeing toward the border. Some Kurds were assigned to stay behind to collect the dead and wounded from the mountains around Sargat. The town itself was deserted; the houses would be searched for evidence later. The Kurds took the low road into the gorge behind the town while the ODA climbed into the high ground of the mountain pass. The gorge abruptly narrowed into sheer and rocky walls that were honeycombed with dozens of caves. This place, called Diramar, was supposedly off limits to all but senior Ansar members, and Arabs were rumored to stay in these caves. Intelligence sources had said that a radio transmitter was located higher up in the mountain pass. The soldiers now were within shouting distance of Iran. A hail of gunfire erupted from the caves as the Kurds approached. The pesh merga returned fire, and Grit shot high-explosive grenades from his M203 into the caves, but the holed-up militants continued to fire. Grit then unsuccessfully tried to smoke them out with tear-gas grenades. It was time for something bigger. He pulled out a new cave-busting version of the AT–4 antitank missile called a “small D”—which demolished the cave. The men made their way through the gorge, destroying caves, for the better part of an hour. In the middle of it all a Kurd named Wohab, who Sheikh Jafr had assigned as the captain’s personal security detail, showed up with cookies and soda pop for the captain. Wohab knew that the captain liked sodas and had figured that it was time for an afternoon break. The team climbed higher into the pass in search of fleeing fighters and the radio transmitter. The soldiers moved through a cluster of about ten cinderblock huts. They were very near the border. Machine gun fire suddenly ranged in on the team from the steep mountain walls. The men ran back to the closest hut; the heavy-caliber bullets chipped away at the cinderblock. The team radioed for emergency close-air support but cancelled the call when it became apparent that the men had to move. Chunks of the wall fell away and holes opened up—the building
Page 1 and 2: 01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 1
Page 21: 01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 1

VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?