Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Mideast Stars and Stripes
October 15, 2008
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
TARMIYAH, Iraq — Company A, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment is catching insurgent leaders at such a dizzying rate that it’s difficult just to keep track of who is the most wanted person they’re targeting.
They captured the brigade’s No. 1 target Tuesday, and captured the No. 2 man (who was No. 3 just the day before) on a raid early Wednesday in Daood Hassan. They’ve captured so many insurgents at this point that unqualified people are taking over the cells.
"They’re inexperienced and their attacks are not effective," said Sgt. Phong Le, the team leader for a Tactical Humint (human intelligence) Team with the company. "They’re pretty much on their knees now."
Rumors around Company A’s home in Tarmiyah, Iraq, north of Baghdad, say the insurgents have banded together in a "Retaliation Brigade" to take vengeance on the coalition forces. But so far that appears to just be talk.
Here is how the company has targeted Tarmiyah’s insurgent networks:
Humint: While the military has a dizzying array of electronic wizardry to track down insurgents, most of the company’s information comes from human sources, Le said. This can sometimes be complicated. Soldiers must vet sources and build trust with them because not all are good.
But human sources allow the soldiers to build up a case and uncover new information on insurgent cells instead of just tracking down the location of already known insurgents, Le said.
Make the right friends: Building sources required the soldiers to befriend city leaders, even those with a questionable past. The battalion commander worked to get the city’s head sheik released from prison. The man was accused of financing terrorist networks, but the Americans thought he could be a valuable asset in the fight for Tarmiyah. The sheik has since proved his loyalty; he’s lost two sons to insurgent attacks and had a third seriously injured.
This trust didn’t develop just by drinking tea with these men, though. Company A involves them in the fight against insurgent groups, said Capt. Christopher Loftis, the company commander. In return, they provide the company with valuable tips. After the Daood Hassan raid, for example, the soldiers were unsure whether they had the right man. A sheik confirmed that they did after they drove to his home and showed him the suspect’s picture on a digital camera.
"There’s a high level of trust both ways — what we’ll share with them and what they’ll share with us," Loftis said.
Cultural awareness: The company also took steps to show the Iraqis that they are sensitive to their culture .
Loftis borrowed a female armorer from the brigade support battalion specifically to search Iraqi women, something an all-male infantry unit can’t do. Yet her job goes beyond searching women. After Wednesday’s raid, she took off her helmet and sat down on a plastic lawn chair with the women while her fellow soldiers went through the home. Loftis said a female’s presence relaxes women.
Loftis, who joined the Special Forces before he became an officer, also has an advantage on the culture battlefield: He speaks fluent Arabic. He can hear what Tarmiyah residents think without the filter of an interpreter. Hearing the feelings behind their words gives him better insight into their dispositions. For example, Iraqis use two different words for coalition forces–— one good and one bad.
New company structure: The demands of manning a handful of small bases forced Loftis to rework his entire company structure.
He beefed up his line platoons so they could better manage the work, eliminating soldiers from the tactical operations center, or TOC. The TOC is typically the brain of a company’s operation, but the unit’s Strykers allowed Loftis to take his on the go and run the operation outside the wire. His vehicle has four radios compared to just two in the company headquarters. It has maps that show the location of all his soldiers. Video from unmanned aerial vehicles feeds directly to a screen inside.
"As we’re moving onto an objective, I can see myself drive onto it," he said. "For me, I need to be part of (the mission)."
Versatile soldiers: Meanwhile, the intelligence battle forced many infantrymen into roles well beyond their normal jobs. Companies do not normally have their own intelligence shops, so Loftis created an Intelligence Support Team to help collect and analyze all the information coming in. The team also travels with Loftis during missions to collect evidence from the homes they raid.
The IST has soldiers who are both Rangers and snipers, said Staff Sgt. Mikey Fernandez, an IST member.
But these same soldiers also perform less sexy work like logging evidence and mapping out insurgent webs. "We can take it from sitting behind a computer to sitting in a hide waiting for someone to make a mistake," Fernandez said.
Walk softly: Most of the raids are what the soldiers call "tactical call-outs." The soldiers surround a house, and an interpreter asks those inside to come out quietly. This allows the soldiers to scan for suicide vests before getting too close to the suspects. It also minimizes damage to the home and trauma for the family involved. Most insurgents are caught with their families and surrender to the Americans peacefully. Once inside the home, the soldiers search for evidence similar to the way police investigators would. After Wednesday’s raid, one soldier diagrammed the home on paper. Another took photos of each room. Others gently searched various nooks and crannies, placing the property back neatly when they were done. There was no damage to the home.
But carry a big stick: Despite the soft touch, Company A pounds away at a group as soon as it threatens Tarmiyah’s fragile peace. After a suicide vest attack killed one of their soldiers in August , the company focused its efforts on destroying the cell. They worked their sources, shook up the community and raided insurgent homes until they’d obliterated the network. With the help of "Sons of Iraq" members and other Tarmiyah sources, they tracked down those responsible in just a couple days. The message was clear: Any insurgent group that pokes its head up is going to get hammered down — quick.
"We’re the big, tough boss in town right now," Le said.
Get the right bad guys: All this has one purpose — catching the enemy, and leaving everyone else alone.
Mass round-ups in the early days of the war did as much harm as good. So Company A collects evidence to confirm that suspects are, in fact, insurgents. The soldiers often seek sworn statements from community members. They try to have warrants so they’ll still have sufficient cause to detain the suspect if they don’t find anything incriminating in his home.
"Everyone in Tarmiyah respects us so much because we roll up the correct bad guys," Le said.
October 15, 2008
By James Warden, Stars and Stripes
TARMIYAH, Iraq — Company A, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment is catching insurgent leaders at such a dizzying rate that it’s difficult just to keep track of who is the most wanted person they’re targeting.
They captured the brigade’s No. 1 target Tuesday, and captured the No. 2 man (who was No. 3 just the day before) on a raid early Wednesday in Daood Hassan. They’ve captured so many insurgents at this point that unqualified people are taking over the cells.
"They’re inexperienced and their attacks are not effective," said Sgt. Phong Le, the team leader for a Tactical Humint (human intelligence) Team with the company. "They’re pretty much on their knees now."
Rumors around Company A’s home in Tarmiyah, Iraq, north of Baghdad, say the insurgents have banded together in a "Retaliation Brigade" to take vengeance on the coalition forces. But so far that appears to just be talk.
Here is how the company has targeted Tarmiyah’s insurgent networks:
Humint: While the military has a dizzying array of electronic wizardry to track down insurgents, most of the company’s information comes from human sources, Le said. This can sometimes be complicated. Soldiers must vet sources and build trust with them because not all are good.
But human sources allow the soldiers to build up a case and uncover new information on insurgent cells instead of just tracking down the location of already known insurgents, Le said.
Make the right friends: Building sources required the soldiers to befriend city leaders, even those with a questionable past. The battalion commander worked to get the city’s head sheik released from prison. The man was accused of financing terrorist networks, but the Americans thought he could be a valuable asset in the fight for Tarmiyah. The sheik has since proved his loyalty; he’s lost two sons to insurgent attacks and had a third seriously injured.
This trust didn’t develop just by drinking tea with these men, though. Company A involves them in the fight against insurgent groups, said Capt. Christopher Loftis, the company commander. In return, they provide the company with valuable tips. After the Daood Hassan raid, for example, the soldiers were unsure whether they had the right man. A sheik confirmed that they did after they drove to his home and showed him the suspect’s picture on a digital camera.
"There’s a high level of trust both ways — what we’ll share with them and what they’ll share with us," Loftis said.
Cultural awareness: The company also took steps to show the Iraqis that they are sensitive to their culture .
Loftis borrowed a female armorer from the brigade support battalion specifically to search Iraqi women, something an all-male infantry unit can’t do. Yet her job goes beyond searching women. After Wednesday’s raid, she took off her helmet and sat down on a plastic lawn chair with the women while her fellow soldiers went through the home. Loftis said a female’s presence relaxes women.
Loftis, who joined the Special Forces before he became an officer, also has an advantage on the culture battlefield: He speaks fluent Arabic. He can hear what Tarmiyah residents think without the filter of an interpreter. Hearing the feelings behind their words gives him better insight into their dispositions. For example, Iraqis use two different words for coalition forces–— one good and one bad.
New company structure: The demands of manning a handful of small bases forced Loftis to rework his entire company structure.
He beefed up his line platoons so they could better manage the work, eliminating soldiers from the tactical operations center, or TOC. The TOC is typically the brain of a company’s operation, but the unit’s Strykers allowed Loftis to take his on the go and run the operation outside the wire. His vehicle has four radios compared to just two in the company headquarters. It has maps that show the location of all his soldiers. Video from unmanned aerial vehicles feeds directly to a screen inside.
"As we’re moving onto an objective, I can see myself drive onto it," he said. "For me, I need to be part of (the mission)."
Versatile soldiers: Meanwhile, the intelligence battle forced many infantrymen into roles well beyond their normal jobs. Companies do not normally have their own intelligence shops, so Loftis created an Intelligence Support Team to help collect and analyze all the information coming in. The team also travels with Loftis during missions to collect evidence from the homes they raid.
The IST has soldiers who are both Rangers and snipers, said Staff Sgt. Mikey Fernandez, an IST member.
But these same soldiers also perform less sexy work like logging evidence and mapping out insurgent webs. "We can take it from sitting behind a computer to sitting in a hide waiting for someone to make a mistake," Fernandez said.
Walk softly: Most of the raids are what the soldiers call "tactical call-outs." The soldiers surround a house, and an interpreter asks those inside to come out quietly. This allows the soldiers to scan for suicide vests before getting too close to the suspects. It also minimizes damage to the home and trauma for the family involved. Most insurgents are caught with their families and surrender to the Americans peacefully. Once inside the home, the soldiers search for evidence similar to the way police investigators would. After Wednesday’s raid, one soldier diagrammed the home on paper. Another took photos of each room. Others gently searched various nooks and crannies, placing the property back neatly when they were done. There was no damage to the home.
But carry a big stick: Despite the soft touch, Company A pounds away at a group as soon as it threatens Tarmiyah’s fragile peace. After a suicide vest attack killed one of their soldiers in August , the company focused its efforts on destroying the cell. They worked their sources, shook up the community and raided insurgent homes until they’d obliterated the network. With the help of "Sons of Iraq" members and other Tarmiyah sources, they tracked down those responsible in just a couple days. The message was clear: Any insurgent group that pokes its head up is going to get hammered down — quick.
"We’re the big, tough boss in town right now," Le said.
Get the right bad guys: All this has one purpose — catching the enemy, and leaving everyone else alone.
Mass round-ups in the early days of the war did as much harm as good. So Company A collects evidence to confirm that suspects are, in fact, insurgents. The soldiers often seek sworn statements from community members. They try to have warrants so they’ll still have sufficient cause to detain the suspect if they don’t find anything incriminating in his home.
"Everyone in Tarmiyah respects us so much because we roll up the correct bad guys," Le said.