During the '09-'10 deployment, 1-14 Cav and myself had an interesting relationship with the different special operations units that operated in and around our area of operations. It was occasionally amicable and occasionally it was strained, and the relationship often depended on the personalities of the SOF members and how friendly I was feeling.
There were two types of SOF units that we worked with. The first was the standard spec ops guys you think of when you think Army special operations, the green beret type guys. FOB Caldwell and COP Cobra each had a special forces team. The Caldwell team operated in the Nidah Tribal Region, Balad Ruz, and Mandali...our southern portion essentially. The Cobra team operated in our northern portion, As Sadiya, Jalula, and Qara Tapa for the most part.
The second SOF unit was made up of Rangers and who had the mission of targeting key Sunni insurgent leadership, primarily Ayyub al-Masri and his little gang of merry pirates. "Task Force" as they were known would pop in every couple of weeks with only a few hours warning (if you were lucky) and snag someone in their sleep. That someone or someones had possible links to some insurgent big shot but who rarely seemed to have any role in the insurgent cells operating in 1-14's corner of Iraq. It was this unit, Task Force who would give me a few of the biggest headaches.
My first experience with Task Force was just after my arrival to Caldwell. TF had flown into Jalula to conduct a mission but accidently startled some of the local security forces who promptly began firing on the TF guys. The local security (the Julula Emergency Reaction Force) had a touchy relationship with US forces and had asked to be notified of any US operations in and around Jalula so they would not "accidently" fire on them. Because the TF operation was super double probation secret, no one had notified the Jalula ERF so naturally they assumed the guys dropping out of helicopters with modern military equipment were insurgents (it was night so maybe the ERF was just confused). TF opened up on the ERF with snipers and an AC-130 gunship...managing to wound only 3 ERF members. TF completed the mission and the Jalula ERF, police, and government officials banned US forces from entering Jalula because of the incident.
A week and a few meetings later and US forces were allowed back into Jalula with the promise of informing the Iraqi Army and ERF of any operation that would be occuring in the city. This actually did work out as the Iraqis understood the nature of these missions and as longs as they got an hour or so heads up everything was fine.
A few months after 1-14 took over for 5-1 Cav there was another incident involving Task Force. TF was conducted a mission in As Sadiyah, a town just south of COP Cobra. We had been warned ahead of time as had the Iraqi Army. However, problems began almost as soon as the team hit the ground. As TF approached the target house on foot they began taking fire from one of the roof tops...not the target house. One soldier was wounded and the interpreter began shouting that they were US forces...which only caused the gunfire to increase. An MH-6 "Little Bird" was called in to fire missiles at the house. The target house was eventually raided but the target was gone. The missiles from the Little Bird started a fire that burned several more structures.
The mayor of As Sadiyah was pissed, as were the people of that neighborhood who were primarily Kurds. But when you fire on US forces, hell is going to come down on you. The official story from the Iraqis was that the US had fired first, on bodyguards protecting the home of some government official. The video TF had of the incident showed otherwise.
A few days after the incident the TF commander flew in with some of his intel analysts and showed us the video and we briefed them on our picture of the enemy situation in our area. TF believed that the bodyguards were actually part of an early warning for their target, which made sense to us. I had virtually no info on their target and they promised to do a better job of sharing information...which never happened.
The face to face meeting worked out enough that whenever a new team came in (they were on much shorter deployment schedules than we were) we would have a sit down and give them our perspective on our situation. This open dialogue allowed for some gained trust on both sides and enabled 1-14 to participate on a couple of missions with TF...but no information sharing like I mentioned.
The first dual mission was shortly after the As Sadiyah fiasco and targeted the same individual. If I recall correctly it was another successful capture.
The second mission involving 1-14 generally just annoyed the crap out of me. TF received intel that al-Masri would be in Jalula and so flew in a team to capture him. This meant that for about 2 days we had to play host to a group of Rangers who had the opinion that everything that wasn't nailed down they could take. The first morning I walked into my office to find it full of Rangers milling about. When I tried to get by one of them to get to my computer the Ranger asked me what I was doing there. I of course explained to him that this was my S2 office and that I had work to do. Sitting down I looked at my NCO who sat across from me and he just gave me an exacerbated look.
We had several rolls of toilet paper in the office since the bathroom regularly ran out at inconvenient times and you could never be sure when it would be restocked. After a few hours the toilet paper was gone and when I asked about it I was told the Task Force guys "borrowed it". So much for that. By the end of the day all our snacks were gone too. Eventually I found one of the leaders for the team and tried to get some intel from him on their mission after explaining who I was. This got me nowhere so I resigned myself to going about my daily routine and telling myself that if they did capture al-Masri I could at least say I was there, if not directly involved.
Al-Masri was not captured in Jalula of course. He would be killed in April outside of Tikrit.
Task Force missions came and went, mostly without any further drama. The final dual TF/1-14 mission would come after a suicide carbombing targeting 1-14 in June. After the attack my section and I pieced together who was involved and eventually were able to determine one of the key players in not only the attack but possibly the "godfather" of AQI in our area. Division just happened to have a warrant on the guy but we were hesitant to conduct a mission to capture him because we would have to conduct the mission with both Iraqi Army and Peshmerga and word would most likely reach our target...so we called TF. They were receptive to the mission and a couple nights after gaining the warrant we captured our target.
I'm still bitter about the toilet paper though.
This post became longer than I expected so tomorrow (or the next day, or maybe the day after that) I'll discuss my relationship with our green beret partners.
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