Key VBIED; 5 Suspected VBIED Terrorists Detained in Mosul, Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition Forces disrupted explosives cells in Mosul and Baghdad during two raids Sunday morning, killing a suspected key vehicle-borne improvised explosive device cell leader and detaining five suspected VBIED terrorists.
The raid in Mosul targeted a terrorist who is believed responsible for the production of explosives used in attacks against Coalition Forces in Mosul.
Upon entering the targeted building, Coalition Forces encountered two suspected terrorists. One of the terrorists ignored Coalition Forces instructions and suddenly reached into his jacket. Coalition Forces responded with proper self defense methods in response to the perceived threat. The terrorist subsequently died from his wounds.
The other suspect was detained and is also believed to be responsible for the attacks. Two other suspected terrorists believed to have ties to the Mosul VBIED network were also detained during the raid.
Coalition Forces also detained two suspected terrorists during a raid in Baghdad. Acting on intelligence reports, Coalition Forces searched the residence of a suspected terrorist believed to be actively planning, financing and executing of VBIED operations.
During the raid, ground forces found more than 250 cellular phones and various types of IED initiators. The materials, commonly used in the detonation of explosives and resulting in the deaths of Iraqi civilians and Coalition Forces, were seized from the residence to prevent further use by terrorists. Ground forces also found a vehicle in front of the building which was assessed to be wired for detonation. Ground forces destroyed the vehicle’s engine block, rendering it useless for future attacks.
Coalition Forces are making progress dismantling the terrorist network inside Iraq. The results of today’s raids reduce the terrorist network’s ability to operate, and increases the safety of all Iraqi citizens, Iraqi forces, and Iraq’s Multi-National partners.
Search and seizures around TuzTUZ, Iraq— Iraqi Army soldiers detained 24 individuals on suspicion insurgent activities during a cordon and search February 1-2 in the villages surrounding Tuz, approximately 110 miles north of Baghdad. The two-day operation was conducted by the Iraqi Army’s 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division with Coalition Forces providing tactical over watch and logistical support.
The soldiers confiscated 45 AK-47 rifles, three shotguns, three bolt-action rifles, two 9 mm pistols and improvised explosive device-making materials, grenades and blasting caps.
No casualties were reported during the mission.
Patrol seizes murder suspects in MahmuhdiyahPATROL BASE MAHMUHDIYAH, Iraq – Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers seized an Iraqi man suspected of murder in Mahmudiyah, Iraq Feb 3.
A local witness reported the murder to a patrol from Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment. The man gave a description of the vehicle and the three men allegedly involved. The unit began a search for the vehicle.
They soon found a vehicle matching the description being towed by a repair truck. Inside the vehicle were three men. One possessed a 9mm pistol, a black ski mask and had dried blood on his hands.
The patrol detained the three men and turned them over to the Iraqi Army. The suspects are being held for questioning.
The incident is under investigation.
Iraqi Army, town mayor cut ribbon on school renovation projectAL SALAMIYAH, Iraq – Soldiers from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division partnered with civil affairs teams and Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, in celebrating the completion of an $88,500 renovation project at Salamiyah Primary School on Jan. 31.
Brig. Gen. Noraddeen, commander of 4-2 IA, and Ahmed Esad, mayor of Al Salamiyah, presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Both men took a tour of the renovated school and spoke with students and teachers immediately after the event.
Upgrades to the school include newly-furnished offices, classrooms and a rebuilt entrance to the school.
Iraqi army soldiers and Coalition civil military operations teams continue to travel throughout Iraq, assessing needs where found and bringing resources to bear to assist the everyday people who live outside the large cities.
Catching bad guys no joke for “Joker”BARWANAH, Iraq (Feb. 4, 2007) -- Golf Company Marines from the California-based Battalion Landing Team 2/4, were responsible for the capture of a highly sought after individual in the Barwanah area.
Golf Company, call sign Joker, received word to be on the lookout for a known high valued individual (HVI). It was only minutes after receiving a picture of him that he was caught. The capture was not made during house-to-house fighting or after a long exhausting city-wide search but while he was attempting to enter through the pedestrian entry control point in Northern Barwanah.
According to Capt Clinton L. Robins, company commander for Golf Company, the HVI was responsible for recent mortar attacks against the entry control point, attacks against Fox Company, BLT 2/3, an adjacent unit also operating in the area, and was loosely involved in improvised explosive device attacks against Golf Company in the opening days of operations in Barwanah in early December.
“We believe [he] is the leader of the indirect fire cell here in Barwanah. We haven’t had a mortar attack since he’s been detained in our area of operations at lease in Barwanah,” said Robins, a Mill Creek, Okla., native.
U.S., Iraqis neutralize enemy, save livesCAMP ADDER — Thirty seconds. Within a short sliver of time, a dozen U.S. soldiers, conducting a routine convoy operation, endured an engagement with the enemy under the Baghdad twilight, quickly and safely quashed the threat with a textbook reaction, and came away with a war story they will be able to take home and tell to their grandkids one day.
Answering to the radio call sign "Earthpig 66," the 12 members of the 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 136th Infantry Regiment convoy logistics patrol team regularly escort supply trucks and other vehicles to and from countless locations throughout Iraq.
During the evening hours of Jan. 7, the team hit the road from Camp Taji for a convoy that would take them about 200 miles in the southeast direction. Only a few hours into an otherwise routine mission, they encountered the first of many obstacles the night had in store for them.
"At approximately 10 p.m., we came up on an (improvised explosive device) in the middle of the road," said Staff Sgt. Steven Davis, convoy commander.
After securing the area they heard a loud explosion to the west of their position, Davis said.
"(Then), we had an Iraqi Army convoy come up that had stopped about 50 meters behind us, roughly," said Davis, a native of Owatonna, Minn. "Our rear gunner could see people running around their vehicles, and he called me up to let me know what was going on."
The gunner, Spc. Alexander Jimenez of Tacoma, Wash., said the Iraqi soldiers were telling him they had at least two of their own soldiers who were dead and an unknown amount of wounded after being hit by an IED and coming under rifle fire. Davis sent his No. 3 vehicle to the rear to assess the scene.
"They had a lot of guys with gunshot and shrapnel wounds," said Sgt. Josh Day, noncommissioned officer in charge of the convoy. "I told them to bring their wounded up to us because we weren't going to run around to the back of their convoy; we needed to secure our own."
Day instructed an Iraqi Army captain to split the injured soldiers into two groups, "which ones were worse or better." He then told his medic, Pfc. Joshua Livingston, they were going to have to call in a few helicopters and execute a small-scale medical evacuation for what they thought was only a few people.
"From there, it just escalated into a mass casualty evacuation - like that," said Day, with a quick snap of his fingers. "They just kept coming. They had wounded that were being carried by other Iraqi army. They were bringing trucks up that had even more wounded in them and a lot more who were dead."
With the increasingly complex situation, the rear Humvee in the convoy was immediately called to provide assistance. The driver, Spc. Steven Rockwell, a second medic in the Earthpig 66 patrol and a native of Cookville, Tenn. began administering medical care and helping with the evacuation.
Less than an hour after the convoy stopped, an EOD team destroyed both the improvised explosive device and an additional explosive device. Establishing a landing zone for the incoming aircraft and continuing the medical evacuation were the next priorities, Day said.
"We had already triaged all the patients who were getting ready to be medically evacuated," said Livingston. "The first two helicopters were on the ground, so we immediately started loading the injured. At that time, I think one of the Iraqi soldiers was yelling that a truck pulled up. He yelled, 'Enemy!' and he notified us that we had an unidentified vehicle in the area."
The vehicle had been creeping up from the side of the road. Shortly after being spotted, someone exited the truck and began running toward the convoy and firing, said Cpl. Aaron Glasscock, a gunner from Opelousas, La.
"I started popping flares in the vicinity of where they had seen the truck," said Glasscock. "We started taking fire, and bullets were impacting all around the truck. I saw one guy, an insurgent, moving about 75 meters in front of me. He was firing and moving up closer to our position. That's when I opened up with my M-240 machine gun. I fired maybe a 40-round burst. As soon as I did that, I noticed a building about 25 meters in front of where I engaged the first enemy," continued Glasscock. "Small-arms fire and muzzle flashes were coming out of the windows, so I immediately turned my weapon and started engaging the building. At about the same time, the Iraqi army guys on the ground saw where our tracer rounds were flying and about 30 or 40 of them started opening fire on the same building."
Glasscock fired a single shot from his M203 grenade launcher, which ended the enemy's engagement after about half a minute, and a cease-fire was called. One Iraqi soldier was slightly wounded during the fire fight.
"In a matter of seconds, the threat was completely neutralized," said Day. "At that point, we started right back up with our medical evacuation sequence. We advised the medevac team that we were not receiving any more fire. The landing zone was clear for them to return."
A total of 12 Iraqi casualties were evacuated to a nearby medical treatment facility, Livingston said. Communication with the Iraqi Army went really smooth throughout the ordeal. Everyone involved was organized and coordinated, he said.
Many of the 2-136th soldiers also lauded their Iraqi counterparts for the quick and decisive way they reacted during the fire fight, despite the fact that several of them were already injured from the previous attack.
The Iraqi soldiers were tough said Glasscock. "They had one truck that rolled up with bullet holes in the doors. The guy who was sitting on that side, he got out and he had matching bullet holes all up and down his body. He got out of the truck and stood up. He lifted his shirt to show us he had been hit, but he said he was OK."
Asked how his soldiers handled the attack, 1st Sgt. Joseph Persing, the TC in the scout truck, said it "was kind of a remarkable deal." "It was a basic situation when it first started and it turned into a complex situation, which they handled very well," said Persing, a native of Heron Lake, Minn. "It was something that you only train on a little bit, but when we were put in the actual situation it appeared to me that it was like second nature." Day echoed the remark, saying he was "highly impressed" with the way the other soldiers in his company reacted.
"It was instinct over feelings," said Day. "We had a situation, we had a lot of wounded, we needed security, but we still had our primary mission to complete."
Close to 11:30 p.m., the convoy was back on the road. The remainder of the trip was without incident. Day said the attack hasn't done anything to set his team back or slow them down. He said they are being totally proactive and taking the event as a learning experience.
"We had a traumatic event, but it goes on all over theater," said Day. "Everybody who runs missions outside the wire will eventually have to deal with something similar to what we experienced. We're part of the big plan in this country, so we can't just say, 'Hey, we did our good deed.' We've still got an important piece of the puzzle to finish. We have just got to keep going."
IRAQI TROOPS, MOUNTAIN SOLDIERS FIND LARGEST CACHE IN COMMANDO BRIGADE HISTORYYUSUFIYAH, Iraq - Iraqi Army and Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers uncovered more than 1,100 81mm high-explosive mortar rounds at a cache near the main highway, Route Tampa, leading into the Iraqi capital Feb. 3.
Troops from 3rd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division and Troop B, 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment "Wolverines," 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), made the discovery during Operation Wolverine Alesia near Yusufiyah, Iraq, just 10 miles southwest of the capital. 1,129 Acting on a tip from a local resident, the troops conducted an intentional search of the area which resulted in the largest cache find in 2nd "Commando" Brigade's history.
In all, 1,129 mortar rounds were uncovered. The cache, which was buried in the dirt, was larger than expected. As the Soldiers continued to unearth more mortar rounds, it became evident that this was a major find.
"These mortars rounds are in the configuration to use as improvised explosive devises," said Lt. Col. Mark Suich, the 1-89th's commander and native of Redding, Pa. "The mortar rounds in this state cannot be used for indirect fire; they are fabricated and stored to be used against the coalition and sectarian enemies as IEDs."
Suich said the seizure of so many munitions can only hurt terrorist operations. "We put a significant reduction in the enemy's ability to emplace IEDs in this area today," Suich said. "We are pretty sure that these are affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq."
The area around Yusufiyah has long been identified as an al-Qaeda and former regime safe haven where attacks against Baghdad and coalition and Iraqi security forces originated.
"This is what we refer to as a weapons supermarket-type cache," said Maj. Mark Aitken, the 1-89th executive officer and a naturalized U.S. citizen from Leicester, England. "The terrorists place a large cache of weapons in one place to draw from. They then pre-position what they draw in many other smaller caches around the countryside."
During the operation four individuals were detained by the Iraqi Army for suspicious activity in the vicinity of the cache.
At a second cache site located nearby, Troop C, 1-89th found 20 120mm mortar rounds, 26 81mm mortar rounds, four medium machine guns, 8,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition, three rifle scopes, 60 fragmentation hand grenades, 50 pounds of homemade explosives, 27 boxes of 5.56mm rifle ammunition and 10 rocket-propelled grenade projectiles.
Operation Wolverine Alesia is a joint operation designed to deny terrorist sanctuary along Route Tampa, the military designation for Iraqi Highway One, leading into Baghdad from the south. The operation began Feb. 3 and is ongoing.
The operation is named after a Roman battle led by Julius Caesar against the Gauls in 52 B.C., where the conquering force surrounded the enemy at the fortifications of Alesia in modern-day eastern France and defeated the defenders through siege warfare. The battle of Alesia marked the turning point in the Gallic Wars.
"Today we took over 1,100 IEDs off of the streets of Baghdad," said Maj. Web Wright, spokesman for the Commando Brigade and a native of Annapolis, Md. "Not only did we take these weapons off of the streets, 3-4-6 IA is fully integrated into this operation. Last night, they found three caches and were actively involved in finding these two."
The mortar rounds were destroyed during a controlled detonation by the explosive ordnance disposal detachment at approximately 2:35 p.m. The blast could be heard for more than 20 miles.
The four suspects detained are being held for questioning.
All done!
