Posted on 04/29/2006 3:12:19 PM PDT by northmoor
April 28, 2006
Just nine days before al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released his latest video, a special operations raid killed five of his men, captured five others and apparently came within a couple of city blocks of nabbing Zarqawi himself.
Then, the day Zarqawi's video debuted, special ops forces killed 12 more of his troops in a second raid in the same town.
The raids in Yusufiyah, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, were the latest battles in a small, vicious war being waged largely in the shadows of the wider counterinsurgency effort.
It is a war fought by a secretive organization called Task Force 145, made up of some of the most elite U.S. troops, including Delta Force and SEAL Team 6. They have one goal: hunting down Zarqawi, Iraq�s most wanted man, and destroying his al-Qaida in Iraq organization.
Zarqawi's escape in Yusufiyah was not the first time special ops troops have nearly had him. In early 2005, they came so close they could see the Jordanian's panicked face as he fled.
The first of the two Yusufiyah raids began at 2:15 a.m. April 16 when SEAL Team 6 operators and Army Rangers approached a terrorist safe house, a U.S. special operations source said.
A U.S. Central Command news release said coalition forces--the usual shorthand for Task Force 145 elements--were searching for a wanted al-Qaida associate.
When the U.S. troops arrived, the enemy opened fire with small arms. In the fight that followed, the special ops troops killed five terrorists, three of whom wore suicide belts, according to Central Command. Two of the suicide bombers were killed before either could detonate his vest, and the third detonated his body bomb, killing only himself and injuring no one else, the news release said.
A woman in the house also was killed. Three other women and a child were wounded and were medically evacuated to the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad.
U.S. forces detained five other occupants, one of whom was wounded. One of the five was later confirmed as the wanted al-Qaida terrorist for whom the troops were searching, according to Central Command.
The terrorist, whose name is currently being withheld, was involved in the planning and execution of improvised explosive device attacks and allegedly was associated with al-Qaida foreign fighter operations, the command said. The other four suspects are being assessed for knowledge of and involvement in terrorist activity, the news release said.
The Marine Corps Times provides details about the special units hunting Zarqawi:
The job of hunting Zarqawi and rolling up his al-Qaida in Iraq network falls to Task Force 145, which is made up of the most elite U.S. and British special operations forces, and whose headquarters is in Balad.
The U.S. forces are drawn from units under Joint Special Operations Command at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. These include the military's two direct action special mission units, the Army's 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force, and the Navy's SEAL Team 6, sometimes known by its cover name, Naval Special Warfare Development Group; the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and 75th Ranger Regiment; and the Air Force�s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.
After Saddam Hussein's fall, the first order of business for the JSOC forces was capturing or killing the 55 individuals on the deck of cards that depicted the regime's senior officials. Delta's C Squadron was at the heart of the task force that captured Saddam in December 2003.
The emergence of Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group as a major threat to Iraq's stability then gave JSOC a new priority. As the war in Iraq has ground on, and with Zarqawi still on the loose, the JSOC force in Iraq has grown steadily and undergone several name changes. TF 121 and TF 626 were two previous incarnations.
TF 145 is divided into four subordinate task forces in Iraq:
• Task Force West, organized around a SEAL Team 6 squadron with Rangers in support.
• Task Force Central, organized around a Delta squadron with Rangers in support.
• Task Force North, organized around a Ranger battalion combined with a small Delta element.
• Task Force Black, organized around a British Special Air Service saber squadron, with British paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group in support.
This freedom, combined with the amount of intelligence generated on missions, creates a furious operational tempo for the TF 145 elements, which average well over a mission per day.
From 6 at night to 10 the next morning, “We’re going balls to the wall, doing hits all over the place,” the special operations source said.
This is why our SOF units have become so effective within Iraq over the past 12 months and Zarqawi will not be able to operate within our OODA loop for much longer - And while S. Naylor doesn't have the best of reputation (especially within the SEAL community) he was certainly given quite a decent behind the scenes type view here -
Zarqawi is alive because 1. He is a tough / mean SOB and 2. He has been da*m lucky! -
Also it is clear slightly within the article some of the bruised ego's within the "white" SOF community - But that is to be expected and is also over-hyped as well -
The reality is in this phase of the WOT we need more shooters / DA type guys -
Which is why the SEALs have been so prominent - the SEALs have become the premier direct action SOF units in the GWOT - (of course the smaller Delta element is right there as well)
I think the one major area of concern for JSOC was the concern that too many of our DA Units were so dependent on receiving their Intel from OGA's - That has switched to a sizable degree over the past 12 months (thanks to SecDef Rumsfeld) with more of this units developing and then immediately acting gathered Intel (Not to disparage OGAs...they have provided a ton of valuable Intel).
Disagree. The enemy is in the battle and have personal experience of the details. They already know. It is us that do not know what is going on. The detail of what composition of units do not help the enemy.
That was in days past however and much of that has been corrected in Stan -
Zarqawi is alive because 1. He is a tough / mean SOB and 2. He has been da*m lucky! 3. He's probably running things from Syria.
Nah - the guys hunting his sorry as$ seem certain he is in Iraq (probably made runs to Syria back in 03 / 04 - But since mid 05 the routes to Syria have been cut off big time -
\I am speechless. Are you serious?
It does help the enemy. Order of battle info is traditionally classified, and assignments certainly are. We employ entire MI sections to do nothing but ferret out the enemy's order of battle. It is significant. In short, just about everything the enemy does not know helps our side....that's part of the information battle.
We use an enemy OB like a skeleton. Give us the skeleton up front and you'd be amazed at how quickly we can flesh it out.
Agreed - But we've put in practice several OGAs in recent times that are directly Intel oriented and working side by side with our SOF -
OGA gives little thought to the tactical forces actually needing good product in a timely manner.
Well said and very often too true -
More likely he'd be turned loose on a technical charge against the U.S. government by a Clinton-appointed judge.
If you don't mind, I have 2 questions.
First, if Z was fleeing, how did they see his face.
Second, if they were that close, why was he not shot and killed instead of being allowed to flee?
ringey-pingey
A miss is as good as a mile.
God favor them with better intel. God knows they have the guts to do the job.
All true. It might confirm what he already knows... assuming everything in the article is correct. Then again, it might be what we want him to think is true. Information warfare at this level is not always straight forward.
At any rate, his spies are probably already ferreting such info out and more... one possible reason why he is still alive.
Eagle6 needs to watch Col David Hunt on Fox this morning he gave the same information that was in the article.
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Because a talking head ex-general says it on Fox that makes it alright? Unless it is a psyops campaign I can't see how it helps and can envision a hundred ways that it can hurt.
There was a time when the "Times" was a publication we could all rely on. You learned about pay raises, promotions, etc., from the Times quicker then you did through channels. They also ran stories that were true to us, critical or non-critical, you believed them.
That changed a long time ago.
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