VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

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01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 319 Viking Hammer (and the Ugly Baby) was falling apart around them. It was suicidal to call in an air strike and then change position. The team would have to fall back first. The team sergeant, the medic, and the communications sergeant grabbed the M2 .50-caliber gun and ammunition canisters and started hauling them to a nearby hut to be able to cover the others’ retreat. As they ran, rounds plopped into the mud around them, making the same smacking sound as that of bullets hitting flesh. They reached the building and quickly placed the three-foot-long gun on its tripod and threaded the belt of finger-sized bullets into the chamber. The team sergeant cocked the gun and turned it on full automatic, emptying one canister after another as his teammates withdrew. The DShK rounds tore away the flimsy wall shielding them. In just a few minutes Grit shot perhaps 700 rounds, until they had to leave too. As they moved the heavy M2 the tripod slipped, and the scorching hot barrel landed on the medic’s hand, searing it. He grabbed the components anyway and ran to rejoin his comrades. The captain had already called for air support. They were fish in a barrel in the narrow pass; only air strikes could rout their attackers. The minutes ticked by—fifteen, twenty minutes passed before jets were diverted from the Green Line. It seemed like an eternity to the men under fire. The planes arrived and dropped a half-dozen 500-pound JDAMs on positions that the team had been able to identify. Then all went silent. There was no question of pursuing the Ansar remnants at this hour. It was after five o’clock and getting dark fast. The Kurds were not equipped for night fighting; they had no nods, laser pointers, or aiming devices on their guns. So the men returned to Sargat for the night. They were exhausted by the day’s intense combat. Adrenaline had spurred everyone through the past twelve hours, but now the men gratefully anticipated sleep. When they reached Sargat a hot meal of chicken and pita awaited them. The team bedded down in what had been the house of the Ansar chief. It was largely empty, which did not surprise the team sergeant. They had seen the convoys leaving for Iran after the air strikes the week before. 319
01.Masters of Chaos Pages 8/17/04 12:00 PM Page 320 320 M asters of C haos At dawn the next day, some of the U.S. soldiers and some Kurds returned to the mountains to resume the pursuit. Together they chased Ansar fighters, took out snipers, or fired mortars in running battles all the way to the border. The captain and the team sergeant stayed in Sargat to collect evidence and prepare a preliminary report. Twenty-four of the Kurdish allies had been wounded or killed, and seventy enemy bodies had been recovered so far. As they searched the enemy corpses, the team members made a startling discovery—almost half the dead bodies were foreigners. The team knew that Ansar al-Islam was a mixture of Kurds and foreigners, but there were many more foreigners in Sargat than expected. On the bodies the soldiers found foreign identity cards, visas, and passports from a wide variety of Middle Eastern countries: Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco, and Iran. They also found stubs and receipts of plane tickets in the clothes. Inside the Ansar houses the team found more passports and tickets. Several of the tickets had been used for travel from Tehran to Doha, Qatar, and back to Tehran. Other documents added to the picture. A book in the Ansar leader’s house was autographed by a Mullah Krekar. The inscription wished the Ansar leader continued success in the jihad. Krekar, who lived in Norway, was considered the spiritual leader of Ansar al-Islam. He had been detained on charges of aiding terrorists, but later was released for lack of evidence. The men found a yellow Post-it note with the handwritten name, phone number, and address of a known leader of the Philippine Muslim group Abu Sayyaf, which had been linked to Al Qaeda. Material found on computer disks suggested some links with the radical Arab groups Hamas and Hezbollah as well as contact with the regime in Baghdad. It was not clear whether Baghdad’s intelligence service had been probing Ansar al-Islam or was engaged in some kind of ongoing relationship, but Kurds who had defected from the group earlier had told the PUK that an Iraqi named Abu Wael had been Baghdad’s liaison to Ansar. A sensitive site exploitation team arrived the morning of March 29
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VIKING HAMMER (AND THE UGLY BABY)

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