Operation Viking Hammer (SOF getting it done!)

US News & World Report ^ | Linda Robinson

[FBRhawk]

Masters of Chaos, by U.S. News Senior Writer Linda Robinson, published by PublicAffairs Books, tells the stories of the men who fight the nation's murky wars in the world's far corners. In Iraq, the Pentagon's special operations forces were critical to the capture of most of the top leaders of Saddam Hussein's regime, and they led two of three major battlefronts in the war to liberate Iraq. In one of them, in northern Iraq, Army Special Forces soldiers faced down 13 Iraqi divisions and attacked a camp believed to be harboring al Qaeda terrorists and other foreign jihadists, as well as a shadowy figure named Abu Musab Zarqawi. That battle, Operation Viking Hammer, turned out to be one of the most intense conflicts Special Forces have fought since Vietnam. Excerpts:

[FBRhawk]

A nice example of SOF operations in Northern Iraq.

[jriemer]

Click Patch For Music

[2banana]

Back at Sargat, the next day, the team members made a startling discovery--almost half the dead bodies there 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 they had expected. On the bodies the soldiers found foreign identity cards, visas, and passports from a wide variety of Middle Eastern and north African countries: Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia, Morocco, and Iran. They also found stubs and receipts of plane tickets for travel around the Middle East. It sure looked like an international terrorist training camp to them.

No link with Iraq and islamic terrorists here...

[BayouCoyote]

BUMP!

[Stopislamnow]

Seen this?

[Zavien Doombringer]

[Gritty]

BTTT

[GarySpFc]

Man O man do I ever regret missing the action with my buds, but at age 62 all I can do is send my prayers. Under nearly constant fire, he, the communications sergeant, and one of the medics hauled the .50-caliber machine gun from the pickup up the mountain to maneuver on the Ansar positions. I don't miss lugging a .50 caliber anywhere. You need mules for that. Gary de oppresso liber

[Poohbah]

"Viking Hammer"

Hmm. Any FReepers in that crew, perchance?

[Old Sarge]