The panels above the doors on the up-armored Humvee are emblazoned with the words ârolling vengeanceâ and the inscription âR.I.Pâ is stenciled on the rear and sides of the truck next to the names of six soldiers killed in a month of fighting in the western Diyala province. The truck belongs to Capt. Ty Johnson, commander of F Troop, 4th U.S. Cavalry, the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, and it has been at the scene of several violent engagements with a stubborn and well-armed insurgency. Not all the engagements had been on the BRTâs terms. But this fight, the one in Buhritz, would be. For weeks, a man the U.S. military described as a âcriminal gang leaderâ delivered a taunting message, banning the U.S.-led coalition from entering Buhritz, a suburban hamlet on the south side of this provincial seat, boasting that they would be engaged if they dared come in.Those were fighting words for 3rd BCT commander Col. Dana Pittard, whose goal is to make the place safe before the June 30 handover of power to the Iraqi government. Adding fuel to the fire, a pair of area Mosques were known to have been preaching continued violence against coalition forces, defying pleas by sheiks and the governorâs office to stop. âIf they want to work with us, weâll work with them. If they want to preach hate, weâll fight them tooth and nail,â Pittard told the provinceâs deputy governor a few days before the operation, but the violence continued. There are an average of 25 attacks on coalition forces every week in the western Diyala province, but the last straw came June 16 when a civil affairs team meeting with the townâs mayor was ambushed by rocket-propelled grenades.
Rolling in at dawn on June 17 with a dozen tactical vehicles, three Bradley Fighting Vehicles and three times their basic load of ammunition, Johnson and 45 of his soldiers commandeered a two-story house and settled in for a fight they anticipated would begin toward evening. The troop taunted the bad guys by playing the divisionâs Big Red One song, and songs by Metallica and Toby Keith on a giant loudspeaker. Just four hours later â just before 10 a.m. â they got their fight when incoming small arms fire broke the morning calm and sent townspeople scattering for cover.
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Johnson high-tailed it to the rooftop where his scouts were lighting up the landscape from their fighting positions. âWhat do we got men!? What do we got!?â he shouted over the gunfire before he picked up his own weapon and began returning fire. Dozens of enemy fighters, some dressed in all black, darted through yards, alleyways and an adjacent cemetery firing grenades, rockets and mortars, while others drove by and attacked with AK-47 assault rifles. The attack was launched from every direction. Within minutes, the floor on the rooftop looked like a brass carpet of spent shells and the scouts dodged and ducked bullets and other deadly projectiles. Their war cries and adrenaline-laced laughter punctuated the confirmed killing of fighters who proved stealthy, and the destruction of hiding places on the ground brought victory shouts.
About three hours into what became a 12-hour battle, a combat re-supply was staged in front of the house under heavy cover fire. The fighting raged on both sides, and the soldiers manned fighting positions in shifts. One Bradley was crippled by an armor-piercing rocket-propelled grenade and chunks of concrete sprayed the rooftop by incoming fire that narrowly missed several scouts. The town was rocked with the deafening sound of automatic weapons fire and the pounding of 25mm rounds from the Bradleys. The air was thick with smoke and, as temperatures soared to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, half the troopâs soldiers were taken out of the fight and given an intravenous solution to avoid dehydration. During a brief pause in the exchange of fire, a 16-year-old boy, a member of the family that had been hastily evicted early in the morning, stepped over the soldiers and empty ammunition boxes to feed his caged birds.
By Johnsonâs estimate, there were close to 100 enemy fighters, 13 confirmed enemy killed, and close to 100,000 rounds of spent U.S. ammunition from M16s, 240 Bs, Mark 19s, squad automatic weapons and 50 caliber machine guns. The BRT suffered no casualties. The next morning at 6 a.m., when the BRT vacated the house after paying the occupants $200 for their trouble, the streets were empty except for one truck that drove past and at least one bloodied fighter who staggered through looking for aid.
Sources in the governorâs office claim that rebels who fought in Najaf and Fallujah during the insurgency uprising there in April and May are paid to travel to Baqubah to kill Americans and to undermine efforts by coalition forces to establish a new Iraqi government. The BRTâs job is to conduct offensive operations, carry out combat and reconnaissance patrols and fight against a seemingly endless stream of those insurgents, identified as former regime loyalists, religious fanatics, foreign terrorists and men labeled by the military as criminals who just want to fight.
The BRT forms part of the 3rd BCTâs three-pronged approach to getting things in order by June 30. On the other side of that approach is Pittard and his battalion commanders and civil affairs teams who interact daily with local businessmen, governors, tribal leaders and municipal workers such as teachers, engineers and health professionals. The third prong entails information operations â getting the word out to the local population about what the brigade is doing to help foster Iraqi sovereignty and encouraging the people they reach to voluntary divulge the names and whereabouts of insurgents and individuals or groups who pay them to fight. Trying to keep all three going is continually overshadowed by the lack of a stable environment. âWeâre working to integrate Iraqi security forces to establish the conditions for civil-military self-reliance,â said Lt. Col. Keiron Todd, executive officer of 3rd BCT. âWeâre not there yet, but weâre working really hard at it. Weâre getting [the government] more involved, more structured. The challenge becomes the security part.â
By June 30, Todd said the combat patrols will be carried out jointly with Iraqi police and Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers. Intelligence-driven operations will also be a joint effort. But the fledgling enforcers of law and order are still finding their way and barely even have enough equipment or the clout among the population to be totally effective. âAre we at war? Weâre fighting, weâre fighting. We have attacks every day,â said Todd, who was a tank company executive officer in Operation Desert Storm. âItâs different than anything Iâve read about, Itâs different than anything Iâve experienced.â