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WYS members:
Update sent to Ed Surgan via email on February 8, 2007 from Richard Fenner stationed in Irag.
Had a long time debriefing for what went on last week. I tried to send this before but it didn't go through, bad connection.
As you may know, there was an incident in the city of An Najaf during a scheduled visit to the Iraqi Army unit that we supervise. It involved a fight between a combined force of initially Iraqi Army & Iraqi Police against a Shiite Muslim cult called Jaysh/Janude al Samah (Army/Soldiers of Heaven). This organization was much like the Branch Davidian cult that David Koresh was the head of. The only difference was there was no standoff with an FBI or ATF equivalent; it was a full blown conflict.
I'm going to go into some background for what I am told by many local people about Shia faith. If anyone is a Shiite Muslim expert and has disputes with what I have to say, I'll preface everything with....."So I am told" and go search wikipedia.com for a better corroboration. Shia Muslims believe that in the end times, a leader will rise in Islam to unite all the Muslim people and he will be called "The 12th Imam". Every few years, there is a crackpot somewhere that gets a following of weak minded individuals down on their luck and claims he is "the 12th Imam". There were 2 other cults that sprung in Fallujah and Basra since the Coalition Forces have been in Iraq that were squashed. The current problem of Jaysh al Mahdi or JAM (Mahdi Militia) in southern Iraq that fights for Muqtada al Sadr or MAS and stirs sectarian violence is just a better, stable, and more organized version of this "12th Imam" phenomenon. Mahdi translates to something like "Allah's chosen army". The good intent of JAM is to provide security and force protection to the Shiite cities of southern Iraq and assist in casualty evacuation of Shia Muslims where sectarian battles occur where the IA and IP fail. The bad part of JAM is responsible for the sectarian violence, attacks on coalition forces, and extortion/bribery/family death threats against citizens not loyal to JAM. MAS claims that these are splinter groups and knows his organization has been infiltrated by Iranians and special interest groups. It is what makes our mission difficult. After talking to people in the Iraqi Army that are familiar with JAM and their politics, it appeared that JAM for once was seeing eye to eye with the CF side when it came to fighting the "Army of Heaven" cult. They were infringing upon their party line more or less.
It was my lucky month to lead combat patrols. On the morning of the 28th, before our team traveled to An Najaf, we knew that the Iraqi Army and Police were in contact with an unknown group of enemy. We had a hard time believing it was JAM being that An Najaf is their backyard so we assumed it was Sunni extremists attempting to get into the city. We arrived at the Iraqi compound and were requested by the Iraqi Brigade commander to meet him on the battlefield at his forward command post to assist him with coordination of any coalition assets we could bring to bear. Iraqis cannot call for or control F-16s or Apaches, but I can. From the compound before we could hear F-16s and AH-64s (Apaches) destroying targets with guns, bombs, and rockets 5KM to the NE of our position. By this action, I looked on the fancy computer in my vehicle and saw that US Special Forces linked up with the IA on the battlefield. On the way to the battlefield, we saw one of the Apaches spin out of control and crash about 2KM to the N of where we were driving. We assumed it was shot down and our focus totally changed to downed aircraft recovery operations under hostile conditions.
We found our way across farms and off road to the crashsite within 10-20 minutes. We were first on the scene and there was barely anything left of the Apache. Our vehicle confirmed that the 2 personnel were KIA and attempted to secure the crashsite. They died an instant death. At this time our team came under enemy fire from multiple locations with RPG and AK-47 fire. It felt like the movie "Blackhawk Down". The enemy had a large system of berms, spider holes, and defense positions like they knew they were in for a fight. Luckily we were on the edge of one of their defense positions so we took advantage of that. New teams of Apaches came on the scene and I performed my job by controlling them and directing them to engage on target sets that I could observe. Simultaneously, the team was engaging with large caliber automatic weapons. We did not know how many we killed because they would fall on the backside of the berms, but with our machine guns' direct fire we must have been up against 50-100 enemy personnel. The Apaches shooting missiles through buildings I targeted probably decimated a lot more. We were running low on ammunition when finally the US Special Forces and a Quick Reaction Force of 2 Stryker companies arrived on scene to relieve us in place. They had the proper assets to recover the aircraft and 2 KIA.
The next few days our team went into the village to detain/medically treat all indigenous personnel. The news reports say 200 dead, but I say multiply that by at least 3 from what I saw. We found Saddam style spider holes with people hiding inside. We found the cult leader's family in one of them when supposedly the Strykers had cleared the whole area. Eventually the detainees were rounded up and trucked to the Iraqi compound. My NCO and I took the lead on the interrogations of all the detainees. There were 3 professional interrogation teams sent from Baghdad to assist. There were 407. It was a long arduous process and I learned a lot about interrogations but it was accomplished. I could go on with what these people had to say about getting duped into a raw deal and the fanatical things they believed this man could deliver. He is dead by the way and I have pictures of him dead and alive. The cult will not live on but it won't be the last one. It was sophisticated though. Over a few years they had accumulated government equipment, anti aircraft weapons, and a motor pool of vehicles. People were assigned to companies, platoons, and squads. They were well equipped, compensated, motivated, and clothed by the leader's textile shop in the village/farm.
Of course I'm leaving a lot out because it is still being investigated and there are classified portions of what went on. This was a significant emotional event for a lot of people. During the conflict, one of our team members was shot in the arm and had to be medically evacuated. He is in Germany right now and is fine. Between the 28th of January and the 6th of February there was a lot of destruction, detention, medical care, interrogation, and turnover of GENPOP (general population) civilians of no interest to the IP. All women and children were treated the day after the conflict and were put on buses elsewhere. They were not interrogated at all by CF and not detained any longer than 12 hours.
If anyone would like to contact me or have questions about anything I've written, you can email me at Steelrainsoldier@aol.com or address an envelope to:
Richard Fenner
4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division
Team 810
FOB Echo, Iraq
APO AE 09332
It will take no longer than 2 weeks for delivery
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