From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

A soldier of Company C, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, fires his M240B
machine gun at insurgents during combat operations in Tall Afar.
At dawn on 10 September U.S. troops began setting up checkpoints
at all major intersections on the outskirts of Tall Afar. The hope was
to keep insurgents disguised as local residents from reinforcing the
enemy in the city. Removed from their homes, the people of the area
were not permitted to return for the next three days so Reed’s battalion
could scour the city for insurgent stragglers and hidden weapons. On
18 September teams from the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion and 133d
Engineer Battalion began surveying and repairing the damage the
fighting had caused.
Following Black Typhoon, Reed dispatched Captain Beaty’s Company
C, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry, to investigate several of the villages
surrounding Tall Afar. Beaty’s men detained forty-nine insurgents, several
of whom were wounded, and confiscated weapons and money. An
enemy response was not long in coming. On 14 September insurgents
in Mosul riding in a speeding automobile sprayed a dismounted patrol
from Troop B, 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry, with automatic-weapons fire
at pointblank range. One American was killed and six others wounded.
Later that evening small-arms fire from a passing car engaged a patrol
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