Task Force 145 and the Hunt For Zarqawi
Special Operations forces are hot on the heels of Zarqawi (hat tip: Counterterrorism Blog).Task Force 145, a group which has undergone several name changes since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is composed of Army Ranger, Navy SEAL, Delta Force, and British SAS commandos. TF 145 is organized into four sections, each of which has the capability to launch raids and call in airstrikes autonomously.
As AQ in Iraq has become less and less popular among the Sunnis, intelligence has improved. Thus TF 145 operates with a "furious operational tempo" and has experienced a good measure of success:
- 161 Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders killed or captured since January 2006
- 31 foreign fighters killed in Iraq since April 2006
- "upwards of 200 Zarqawi leaders senior enough to have contact with the man himself" captured or killed during the first eight months of 2005
- several extremely close brushes with Zarqawi
To elaborate on the last bullet point:
But Zarqawi’s command style and his determination to take the same risks as
his fighters have almost led to his capture on several occasions, with
perhaps
his closest brush with JSOC coming Feb. 20, 2005.
Using
intelligence derived
in part by an Arab-American soldier in TF 145, the task
force obtained a time
frame for when Zarqawi was due to travel down a
stretch of highway along the
Tigris River.
This allowed a task force of
Rangers and Delta operators to set
up an elaborate ambush. But according to
special operations sources familiar
with the event, Zarqawi was late.
The
U.S. troops were preparing to leave
when his vehicle came into view. He and
his driver blew through a Delta
roadblock before nearing a Ranger
checkpoint. The Ranger M240B machine-gunner
had Zarqawi in his sights and
requested permission to fire, but the lieutenant
in charge of the checkpoint
did not give the OK because he did not have
“positive ID” of the vehicle’s
occupants, a TF 145 source said.
To the
intense frustration of other
Rangers on the scene, Zarqawi’s vehicle hurtled
past, with the Jordanian
staring wildly at the Rangers, while wearing a Black
Hawk vest and gripping
a U.S. assault rifle, the TF 145 source said. Delta
operators took up a
high-speed pursuit, while a Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle
tracked the
action from above.
But the Delta men fell victim to bad timing.
When he
realized he had a tail, Zarqawi’s driver took the vehicle — with Zarqawi
inside — off the main highway and onto a secondary road. With the TF 145
operators perhaps 30 seconds behind, Zarqawi jumped out and ran for it,
leaving
his driver, laptop, and $100,000 in Euros to be captured by the
Americans.
As
staffers in an operations center tried to vector the
chasing Americans toward
him using the UAV’s pictures, the Shadow’s camera
chose that moment to “reset,”
switching from a tight focus on Zarqawi’s
vehicle to a wide-angle view of the
town. By the time the staffers
frantically zoomed the camera back in, Zarqawi
had vanished.
It was an
extraordinarily frustrating experience for the
members of TF 145; they knew
how close they had come, and how infrequently such
opportunities
arise.
Zarqawi also seemed to realize the peril he was
in.
“He was
sh---ing his pants. ... he was screaming at the driver,” the
special
operations source said. “He knew he was caught.”
In addition, two raids launched in Yusufiyah have come very close to Zarqawi. In addition to killing and capturing AQ personnel, the raid led to this little tidbit: video evidence that Zarqawi doesn't know how to operate a machine gun (even as he's trying to show off). Should we call this Iraq's Funniest Home Videos?
posted by JM @ 5:33 PM
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