Posted on 05/16/2004 10:00:39 PM PDT by Jeff Head
DEATH OF AN UPRISING IN HAMADAN
Second Excerpt From Dragon's Fury - Eagle's Talons
Volume V in the Dragon's Fury Series by JeffHead
Copyright 2004 by Jeff Head, All rights reserved
July 2, 2010, 14:55, Local Time
Large Inner Courtyard
Principle Hamadan Mosque
Hamadan, Greater Islamic Republic
Hamadan was a smaller city that was strategically out of the way and off the beaten path. As Allied forces passed to the North in their pursuit of the GIR Armies that had, until recently, been successfully holding back the Allied onslaught near Tabriz, Hamadan had not been directly attacked. As the allied breakthrough to the east of Qom threatened Tehran from a different axis, and as that same breakthrough threatened the envelopment and destruction of the GIR armies in Tabriz headed by the young General Selim, Selim's forces had been forced to rapidly fall back, with the allied fast on their heels.
As this large allied offensive and GIR fall back proceeded to its north, Hamadan experienced relatively light bombing and shelling of the local garrison by allied peripheral forces as they passed. The same thing was occurring with many cities throughout the former Iraq and Iran.
Now, in several of these bypassed cities, with apparently relatively little allied presence, the local garrisons and those still faithful to Hassan Sayeed's vision were gathering and preparing to fight. The local clerics were whipping them up into a frenzy, despite, and in some cases because of, what had occurred at Mecca in June.
One of those clerics, who had amassed his own personal militia of over twenty thousand well provisioned men, was the Ayatollah Shiek Aman Sadyr. He was relatively young, but fiercely loyal to Hassan Sayeed, and wholly committed to resisting and defeating any infidels coming within his reach. On this day, he was speaking to ten thousand of his own followers, and a large number of local citizens and local militia that had gathered within the walls of the holy mosque in Hamadan to hear him.
“My brothers. The Americans and their running dogs, in their arrogance, have made yet another fatal mistake. Similar to their actions six and seven years ago in Iraq during their so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom, they have bypassed many of the faithful, falsely believing that we will be overly impressed with their technology and the swiftness of their advance, and that we will sit idly by while they continue to attack, oppress and kill our brothers and sisters and defile Allah.
“They have left their automons in the air above us to watch over and contain us. Look above and see them, their incessant buzzing can be heard night and day. They think that these flies will deter us and frighten us into inaction.
“But they could not be more wrong.
“I say to you, those faithful gathered here this day, all of those within the sound of my voice, or who will hear of it later…we are now behind the enemy lines, and we will wage Jihad upon them and their supply lines until the head of their military snake is left toothless in the center of our land. Then, we shall sever that head and stomp it to death! ”
The cheering was wild. The militia and local garrison fired incessantly into the air. They knew local television channels who were filming the event would beam this images of this defiant gathering to the world. They hoped and believed that other faithful would see it and take heart…and rise up behind the allied armies.
…and they could not have been more wrong.
It was true, the allies, and particularly the Americans had left unmanned aerial vehicles in place to watch over the bypassed cities and forces. The American operation through which this was being accomplished was dubbed, Ruthless Sentinel. But, again, as had been the case with the surrounding of and destruction of Mecca, the Americans and their allies had learned well from their experiences in Iraq in 2003 and 2004…and they had developed their plans and procedures accordingly. The UAV's were not just watching over the potential belligerents and providing surveillance. As the operation name implied, they were there to do much more.
The latest Predator IV design had been tested and deployed by the United States only a few months earlier. They were now being mass produced in the new American wartime manufacturing plants by the thousands. They were extremely capable aircraft in terms of performance, endurance, and armament, and could be remotely controlled from either land-based, or airborne command centers hundreds of miles away. Each controller was capable of remotely controlling twelve to fifteen aircraft.
…and there were literally hundreds of aircraft up over the bypassed areas in the former Iran alone.
Now, with this particularly large gathering in Hamadan having been observed and then relayed by the nearest Predator IV to the controllers and their line of command…the buzzing over Hamadan increased dramatically as first dozens, and then scores of the aircraft were quickly diverted to fly high over the city, the mosque and those gathered there.
As the intent of the gathering became clear, and as the militants and regular GIR army troops began responding to Sadyr's rhetoric and firing into the air…orders were issued and it began to rain in Hamadan.
…a rain of death.
Each Predator IV was equipped with a miniature version of the Hail Storm system that had been so successfully deployed by the Americans on special cruise missiles against CAS and GIR armies on several continents to date. In that form, it was a system that had been very instrumental in helping turn the tide of war a year and a half earlier. On the Predator IV, the smaller system was designed to ensure that the tides of war, once turned, remained that way behind the front lines. The Predator IV Hail Storm system comprised several hundred .177 caliber, depleted Uranium pellets that could be quickly and accurately targeted on people, vehicles or installations using the solid state, electronic firing system .
Sixty three of these aircraft now had their attacks coordinated by six different handlers sitting in ground based command centers and on and airborne command aircraft up to two hundred miles away. They targeted their deadly ordinance on the gathering of militants, the regular army garrison, the supporting citizens and upon Sadyr himself, who was speaking from a podium at the front of the crowd at the mosque in Hamadan.
The attack was over in a brief eight second span.
To those on the ground, in the middle of the target area, their had been a sudden and dramatic increase in the buzzing sound from overhead. That sound had reached a crescendo as the high velocity projectiles reached the ground and shredded into the gathering.
They never stood a chance.
Those on the peripheral of the gathering, who were standing back from the crowd in any groups of three or less, were spared death, but not the horror. As soon as it dawned upon them what was occurring, they screamed wildly and incoherently, and then ran madly away from the mayhem and carnage in the large court yard.
On television screens throughout the Arab world, where the broadcast was being picked up, and on allied monitors from the aircraft above, one moment the defiant figure of Sadyr was standing at the podium enraging his followers…and the next moment splinters of wood and plastic and unrecognizable pieces of Sadyr were literally flying through all through the air as a veritable wave of projectiles swept over the stand where he and his lieutenants were standing and across the crowd immediately in front of the stand. None were left alive on the stand or amongst the hundreds gathered directly in front of it.
Within eight seconds, the entire gathering had been broken, dashed, and utterly destroyed. Over eight thousand potential Jihadists had suffered their martyrdom without ever being able to attack the allied infidels. Instead, the allies had attacked the first and destroyed them, without losing a single life.
There would be no uprising whatsoever out of Hamadan…and after two or three more examples were made of similar gatherings…there would very, very few uprisings anywhere in the Arab world behind allied lines, or for that matter, as the Predator IV's were deployed around the world, anywhere else behind allied lines.
Let me know what you think as you read them.
Volume V will be out in July. I was shooting for June, but with the death of my father in January and our taking my mother into our home for a few months, that work has understandably slowed down.
It will be well worth the wait though.
Jeff, I'm not sure if you caught it or not but...This was from June of last year.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - India's prime minister began a visit to China's economic powerhouse on Thursday by saying the two countries could combine their complementary strengths in information technology instead of competing.
Atal Behari Vajpayee, making a landmark trip to China, told a business meeting in Shanghai the Beijing Olympic Games (news - web sites) in 2008 offered a chance for Indian and Chinese tech firms to work together -- despite linguistic and cultural barriers.
Vajpayee said the two governments could help set the ground rules for a partnership that might simplify a now roundabout contract execution process.
Companies from developed countries which won software contracts for major events such as the Olympics in the past would in turn subcontract them to Indian firms, he said.
"Indian and Chinese firms could instead join up to provide state-of-the-art solutions at cost-effective prices, thereby also cutting out the middlemen," Vajpayee told a conference.
"It is self-evident that our respective core competence in hardware and software provides a natural ground for an effective alliance in the IT industry," he said.
His comments echoed those of former Premier Zhu Rongji during a visit to India in 2002 when China's economics Czar applied his stamp of approval to a request by software giant Infosys Technologies (Nasdaq:INFY - news) to set up a development center in Shanghai.
More than a year later, that plan remains wrapped in red tape as Indian software firms battle language, culture and regulators to gain a foothold in China.
"Our presence is very limited at the moment," conceded Kiran Karnik, president of India's National Association of Software and Service Companies.
Still, ties between India and China, the world's two most populous nations, have warmed and they pledged this week to move forward with negotiations to settle a lingering border dispute and accelerate trade.
Vajpayee noted China was one of the world's leaders in the manufacture of computer hardware, while India's software industry had become a well-known success story.
Nonetheless, Karnik saw little direct threat for Indian concerns from Chinese competitors.
"I look at the rear-view mirror and I don't see anything, but it does not mean I am being complacent," he said.
I have seen it. They have mutually pledged to together dominate the economic world in the next ten years...starting to sound way too much like the beginnings of the CAS tome.
Well, that was slightly dissapointing. ;-)
I know, I'll have to get around to it. Do they come in book form? I am not a big fanning of reading books online, my eyes hurt, lol. God Bless
Just click on the pictures at the start of this thread and that will take you to the main site...you can navigate to the order pages there to get to either Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BooksaMillion and/or Powells where you can get the books
Well, this is a rough/initial raft and I know that it comes across like we spared them...I believe in the final print it will be worded to indicate that they were simply outside the kill zone.
Please consider a review of what you have read, placed on Amazon and/or here on FR if you are so inclined. Word of mouth is my best friend with the series.
Either way, thanks again. Glad you are enjoying the books.
No problem there. Keep up the good work !
After the DFS, I will take a 3-4 month sabatical (from writing) and then write the non-fiction work:
THE STAND AT KLAMATH FALLS
How rural western farmers took on entrenched environmentalism and agencies of the Federal Government...and won!
Hehehe...you'll have to read all of Volume V to find out what went down there...and you probably won't want to do that without reading the first four volumes.
You big tease :-)
Seriously, knowing you, there's a special fate awaiting Mecca in Volume V. Now, hurry up and get that thing done.
Bump!
Jeff:
I read the excerpt with a bit of trepidation only because I'm just getting started on the series and want to go in sequence.
But if this is a taste of what's in store for my immediate reading future, I'm looking forward to it even more than I already was.
That's over 576,000 disappointed virgins!
Thanks for the excerpt Jeff. Looking forward to the grand finale!
Great stuff, Jeff. The irony is that we have the technology and the means - but apparently not the will. And that does not bode well for Western civ.
And another Dragon BUMP!
Mega-pinging...
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