Inside one day's fierce battle in Iraq
In Baqubah, an attack of unexpected sophistication.
BAQUBAH, IRAQ –
From the roof of a gutted, four-story building, US Army Cpl. Omar Torres peered through his M-4 rifle's thermal sight onto Canal Street, a pockmarked stretch of road running alongside a muddy waterway that meanders through this volatile city.
It was 2 a.m. on June 24, and stifling hot. Corporal Torres's sniper team was looking for insurgents planting road bombs, a persistent killer in Baqubah, with scores last month alone.
From out of the shadows 500 yards below, two men with rifles slung over their backs approached the road carrying a box. One knelt down, digging in the dirt shoulder. The snipers delicately adjusted their rifle, and fired.
Through his sight, Torres watched the kneeling figure crumble. The second man quickly reached down to continue planting the bomb, only to be felled moments later.
At that early hour, Torres had no idea of the scale of the attack that was coming at dawn.
He couldn't know that these two men were among many who were preparing one of the most sophisticated attacks yet on US troops and Iraqi government forces.
Baqubah is as close to a front line as it gets in Iraq's messy, urban guerrilla war. A fiercely contested city of 292,000, it is a key stronghold and way station for insurgents headed 35 miles southwest to Baghdad and beyond. On the eastern edge of the Sunni Triangle, it lies just 60 miles from the Iranian border. [
Editor's note:
The original version wrongly characterized Baqubah's location.]
On June 24, hundreds of insurgents mounted a complex ambush unlike any the US military here had seen: a particularly lethal alliance between foreign Islamic extremists loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Baqubah's estimated 1,000-strong homegrown insurgency led by disgruntled Iraqi officers, Baathists, and Sunni tribesmen.
US commanders assert the bold attack backfired, leaving scores of insurgents dead and stirring a rift between local fighters and the Zarqawi network, which claimed credit.
Yet the drawn-out battle also shows the potential in troublespots like Baqubah for an unsettling stalemate between US forces unrivaled in firepower and a maturing network of insurgents able to manipulate a passive population, strike, and slip away to fight another day. US commanders acknowledge that as their troops pull back, insurgents in cities such as Fallujah, Ramadi, Samarra, and Baqubah will work to continue the cycle of violence, exploiting the weakness of Iraq's fledgling government and security forces while recruiting and intimidating the people.
"We think the enemy is regenerating," says Col. Dana Pittard, commander of the 1st Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade that oversees Baqubah. In a day of pitched fighting, recounted to the Monitor, US soldiers confronted the worst chaos of urban combat.
By morning's light
The first light was breaking at 5:30 a.m. as 1st Lieut. Max Stroud and his platoon of Bradley Fighting Vehicles rumbled toward Mufrek traffic circle in western Baqubah on a mission to clear road bombs, or IEDs. Like other North Carolina guardsmen of the 30th Brigade, an irreverent bunch of infantry veterans, Lieutenant Stroud considered the sweeps "pretty boring." But just as they paused to turn off their night-vision devices, Stroud saw the first volley of heavy machine-gun fire shoot in front of his Bradley. He ducked into the turret, expecting a brief engagement. Within seconds, though, the crescendo and accuracy of fire told him he and his buddies from "Old Hickory" faced the fight of their lives.
Machine-gun rounds were pinging off the hatches, while rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) slammed into the vehicles. A daisy chain of road bombs blew up around them, obscuring their view.
"We pushed through to get out of the kill zone, then I received an order to stay in contact, so we turned around and went back, shooting at everything we could find," Stroud says.
But the gauntlet of enemy fire worsened; soon the main guns on all three of his Bradleys were ineffective. They fixed one turret with an 8-lb. sledgehammer, and lurched again through the ambush.
Back at their base, Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens, sergeant of Stroud's sister platoon, was awoken at 6 a.m. by a shout from his commander, Capt. Christopher Cash of the 1-120th infantry's Alpha Company. "Third platoon's under attack!" Sgt. Stephens, a Gulf War veteran from Jacksonville, N.C., roused his men.
Within minutes of leaving the gate with five more Bradleys, they began taking sniper and RPG fire "from everywhere," Stephens says. "Button up," Captain Cash radioed. Seconds later, he looked out to make sure the hatches were closed and was fatally shot in the head. Two Bradleys left to evacuate the commander, leaving Stephens's vehicle and two others to fight past Mufrek circle and move east to secure the Twin Bridges leading to the heart of Baqubah and the governor's house.
As they advanced, they took intense fire from enemy positions that lined the route. "You could hear the rounds popping and ricocheting off the turret," says Spec. Jeffery Walton, an infantryman. Suddenly, an armored piercing RPG blasted in. It hit the gunner, Spec. Daniel Desens, knocked out the radios, and ignited high-explosive ammunition. "My eyes were on fire," said Walton, who, with five others, was hit by shrapnel and choking on smoke and gas.
As the smoke cleared, Walton saw his best friend, Specialist Desens, motionless in the turret. Disoriented, the Bradley's driver turned around and headed back into the fight, stopping only when a soldier screamed at him to go the other way. Its gun disabled, the Bradley limped forward. "Just one big target," Stephens said.
After the three Bradleys pulled into low ground between the bridges, Stephens jumped out. Wearing no body armor, he rushed under fire from passing cars to pull the wounded gunner from the turret. The platoon's medic, Spec. Ralph Isabella, a businessman from Slippery Rock, Pa., rushed over and saw Walton and other wounded soldiers walking around dazed.
"Doc! Doc! Dan's hit bad!" Walton shouted. As soon as Specialist Isabella saw the gunner, all noise faded into "battle deafness" as he labored to save his friend. His focus was broken only when bullets kicked up dirt behind him. He turned and saw a man in black rushing at them shooting until the GIs cut him down.
His Bradley now full of wounded, Stephens was leading the convoy through downtown when another RPG exploded inside, ripping his gunner's back with shrapnel and singeing Stephens's eyelashes shut. Pulling his eyelids open, he saw his gunner bleeding on the floor. "Rivera!" Stephens shouted, shaking him. "They're still shooting. You have to fight!" he said, helping him crawl into his seat.
By the time the crippled platoon reached a US base, Desens was dying. "I didn't anticipate them being that organized," says Stephens, who's been nominated for a Silver Star. "They are getting smarter every day."
Page 1 of 2 |
Next page:
Unparalleled precision
|
RSS feed
