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| Iraq |
| Smiling Terrorist Captured |
| 2007-08-10 |
| Light moments can be as scarce as a cool breeze in Iraq, especially for soldiers in the 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, who spend their days and nights hunting down terrorists. It's a nasty job that can sometimes cost them their lives. Their day-to-day life rivals scenes out of a Hollywood action movie -- chasing insurgents from house to house, rooftop to rooftop, all while dodging bullets and bombs. During a raid on Aug. 6, soldiers experienced something straight out of an action-packed summer blockbuster, complete with special effects and stunt doubles -- only they were real. But the intense, stressful raid ended with something the troops would have never expected: a smiling terrorist. It all began during a raid in northeast Nahrawan when the soldiers stumbled upon someone at the top of their list: the division's most wanted insurgent. But before they could capture the man -- whose name has not yet been released -- he darted from the house, leaving one valuable item on the roof -- his wallet. In a cat-and-mouse search winding in a maze of nearby homes and rooftops, soldiers finally tracked the now-identified man down in a neighbor's house. Before bringing in bomb-sniffing dogs, soldiers had to evacuate women and children from the home. Pfc. Doug Jones, a member of the brigade's Time Sensitive Target team, was searching the closets in one of the rooms when he saw one of the beds move. "He must have been shivering a little because I saw the bed just barely move," Jones says. "I thought it may have been a kid hiding because he was scared." Jones flipped over the bed and still didn't see anything -- until he caught a glimpse of the man's arm and realized he had been hiding in between the bed and the wall. "I was smiling and I guess that made him smile because he smiled back up at me," Jones says. "I told him to stand up and then get on his knees. He smiled really big then, like he was happier about this than I was." Soldiers apprehended the man and searched the rest of the house, where they found a video depicting insurgents preparing to launch rockets against FOB Hammer, the unit's main operating base. The footage showed men setting up 49 rockets aimed at FOB Hammer, which were launched July 11, killing one soldier and wounding 15 others. The video also showed the set-up and execution of an Aug. 5 rocket attack against FOB Hammer. Eight other men were taken into custody after the raid. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #4 Doh! Dratted Cookie Monster. Post #3 is mine. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-08-10 16:39 |
| #3 It's at points like this where I'm willing to back track and see if annointing these maggots with pork products in fact does produce any beneficial effects. I've always argued against the potential efficacy of such measures but if they actually proved to be of worth, then I'd have no problem with them becoming SOP. Assclowns like this one represent a perfect place to start. |
| Posted by: Eohippus Whalet8571 2007-08-10 16:18 |
| #2 He's smiling because he knows they can't do shit to him. He'll be back on the street in a couple of weeks, after his "interrogators" ask him some very polite questions. They may talk roughly to him, but they can't keep him up past his bedtime or anything extreme like that. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-08-10 15:31 |
| #1 There was actually a brief interview with the capturer on the radio last night! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-08-10 12:47 |