Posted on 12/19/2003 9:35:09 PM PST by 11th_VA
We are headed out on patrol with the infantry tonight.
The Bradley fighting vehicle arrives, and its rear door lowers slowly to the street. We scramble up the ramp, take a seat and rumble away.
Our armored vehicle triggers a massive traffic snarl, but no one - not even horn-loving Iraqis - dares honk at a Bradley.
The men of the 1st Battalion, Eighth Infantry Regiment, have been after us all week to come watch them work. They are the trigger-pullers of Third Brigade Combat Team based in Denver's Fort Carson, hard men who do the dirtiest of the dirty work here.
They are the men who kick or blast in doors, storming houses and taking unwilling men to the floor. They search for the weapons and explosives that for months have been used to kill scores of American troops.
Operation Ivy Blizzard has placed this city under siege for two days now, sending an unknown number of resistance fighters fleeing to the desert.
Some 2,000 troops have the city surrounded, and tonight the soldiers of the 1-8 Infantry will go alley-by-alley in an attempt to ferret out any fighters remaining.
Samarra, every soldier here says, is perhaps the most dangerous city in Iraq for American troops. Patrols in recent weeks have come under constant mortar and rocket fire within minutes of entering the city.
The plan now is to quell the attacks through massive raids on pre-selected targets. The 1-8's job is to isolate resistance cells in the northern half of the city, destroy their havens and, if necessary, kill any who fight back.
Stalking the dark alleys
It is nearly 9 p.m. when Lt. Dave Nelson, 24, of Colorado Springs, commander of Alpha Company, gathers his men and goes over the plan for tonight.
They will assemble on the northernmost outskirts of Samarra, virtually in the shadows of the ancient minaret constructed some 1,200 years ago. The drop-off point will be in an alley just west of a giant soccer complex. Squads then will fan out through the adjacent neighborhoods.
Only the sound of barking dogs can be heard as we make our way through pitch-black alleys. A column of some 20 soldiers, weapons at the ready, walk slowly down opposite sides. They have positioned us square in the middle.
The streets and paths of Samarra are filled with water from torrential rain earlier in the day, and the soldiers slog through it, the water coming up over their boots.
At each intersecting alleyway, two soldiers go to one knee and sweep their rifle muzzles across the surrounding area, covering us as we hustle past.
Men flee from back of car
It is 10:45, and we are walking along a wide alleyway when a red sedan suddenly appears, racing our way. Its headlights suddenly go dark. A taxicab, too, soon appears. Its lights also go off.
The soldiers of Alpha Company dash toward both, fingers on their triggers now. The sound of men shouting and brakes squealing fills the night.
A sergeant opens the door and pulls the driver from the red sedan while it is still moving. It rolls crazily into a stone wall.
Behind it, two men leap from the rear seat of the taxi and flee in separate directions. The growl of nearby Bradleys and more shouting can be heard.
"Benzine! Benzine!" the red sedan's driver pleads to the sergeant as he and another soldier wrestle the man to the ground. Gasoline! Gasoline! He was just going to fill up, he screams over and over.
"Shut up!" the soldiers yell.
Just up the alley, the taxi driver is meeting the same fate. The search for the two men who fled turns up nothing.
A 9 p.m. curfew has been in effect in Samarra for weeks, Lt. Nelson later explains. Everyone has been told, both on television and in pamphlets distributed through the neighborhoods.
Anyone found on the streets after 9, the announcement said, will be shot.
"This man is saying he was going for gas, like we're stupid," the lieutenant says. "All the stations are closed."
Explosives light the night
"Our first time through here a couple of weeks ago," whispers Sgt. Christopher Drake, 25, of Cleveland, "we were tossing candy at the kids, you know, trying to show them we're good guys, that we care about them.
"They threw it right back at us," he said. "Minutes later, older folks were firing RPGs at us. It's like the Old West out here."
The Bradley comes to an abrupt halt. The rear door slams to the street outside, and the four soldiers with us race up the street and around a corner. When I arrive, gasping for air, a dozen soldiers sit crouched against a stone wall, their fingers in their ears.
"Down!" a soldier yells.
Ka-bloooom!
A wall of yellowish white fire seems to fill the street. Windows shatter and the solid wood doors fly away in splinters. Then another terrific explosion erupts.
A compact car parked in the courtyard of the house, just behind the doors, has exploded. Flames leap some 20 feet in the air.
Twin C-4 explosions fill the air one block over as the men of 1-8 rush two more houses. Soldiers are running everywhere. The Bradleys rumble in, their tracks spitting mud high in the air.
The men of 2nd platoon race past the burning car, kick open the door and rush inside. Three men lay face down in the front room adorned with only rugs and pillows. Against a wall, three women and three young children sob uncontrollably.
They say nothing as a sergeant writes the address where they were arrested and a series of other numbers on the back of their necks with a marker.
Prisoners taken earlier have identified the three as major weapons dealers in the city, Lt. Dave Nelson would later explain.
Nelson has spent the last few minutes distributing money command has given him to compensate neighbors whose homes have been damaged by the blasts. "It's the right thing to do," he says.
'Hell of a thing we have to do'
Two other raids follow and two more men are taken into custody, handcuffed and written on. No C-4 is used during either.
"We don't always use it," an engineer will later explain.
"Sometimes a boot is just as effective. We mostly use it for effect. It lets people know we mean business."
It is 3:30 a.m. Friday when we are loaded back into the Bradley. A young Iraqi man sits handcuffed on the floor at my feet. We are rolling loudly through the empty streets of Samarra when the driver suddenly puts on the brakes and lowers the rear door.
Second platoon swarms an old man the gunner in the turret had spotted loading a 1970s vintage Toyota station wagon with what looked from a distance like crates.
The old man never looks up, but tells the interpreter he is only loading gasoline cans in order to be first in line at the station when the curfew lifts at 4 a.m. Soldiers search his tiny, ramshackle house. No weapons are found.
Lt. Nelson orders the man who'd ridden at my feet out of the Bradley.
Through the interpreter, he lectures the man about the importance of and the danger of not heeding the curfew. He cuts the man's handcuffs and sends him away.
The lieutenant then looks at the elderly man still standing next to his station wagon and his gas cans.
"This man could have been shot to death tonight, when all he wanted was to be first to get gas." Dave Nelson says. "It's a hell of a thing we have to do out here."
(Contact Bill Johnson of the Rocky Mountain News at http://www.rockymountainnews.com.)
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