Squeeze Play
Iron Fist, a battalion sized operation aimed at "al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists operating in and around Sadah", was announced on October 1. But a slightly older article in the San Francisco Chronicle described some of the events leading up to it. (This account was also referenced by Bill Roggio)
Saturday, October 1, 2005 -- Outside Sada, Iraq -- The mortar rounds hit in the early morning. The first one, a harbinger of the assault to come, whooshed up from the sleepy border town of Sada at around 5:30 a.m. Friday, landing in a burst of sparks several hundred yards short of the sandstone cliffs where U.S. Marines were camped out.
The article went on to describe how insurgents near a "blue mosque" in Sadah fired mortars and rockets at the 1st Mobile Assault Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment as they kept watch over the town from a position on some elevated ground. The Marines kept on sleeping for a while, then when the fire crept closer, jumped into their Humvees and relocated.
As the 3rd Battalion prepared for an assault on insurgents holed up in five Iraqi towns on the border with Syria, the mortar and rocket attack suggested that the Marines are up against a well-armed and determined enemy. ... Lt. Col. Julian Alford, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, stationed outside the western Iraqi town of Qaim, said fighters linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi control Sada and four other towns in this western corner of Anbar province, including Qaim.
The mortar position and a car loaded with ammunition was subsequently destroyed by a Marine helicopter gunship strike which resulted in secondary explosions. This tracks very closely with an account provided by the DOD and widely reported in various newspapers that "Coalition forces, including helicopters from 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, engaged and killed eight armed terrorists in fighting early Oct. 1, officials said." One aerial attack that was not widely reported elsewhere was a fixed wing strike.
An F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter, flying so high that it was invisible from the ground, dropped a 500-pound bomb known as Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, on the house, sending a plume of black smoke in the air. Several seconds later, there was a large cracking sound and the rumble of an explosion.
Assuming the San Francisco Chronicle article is accurate Iron Fist is a fairly broad operation aimed at clearing out "five Iraqi towns on the border with Syria" against an enemy named as "al Qaeda in Iraq". The context of the campaign is discussed by a New York Times article, datelined October 3 at an American base in Rawah (34.36 N 41 00 E), about 2/3 of the way to the Syrian border along the Euphrates from Ramadi.
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Excerpt above, see Link for the complete piece.