Military History: 8 Unbelievable Stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah

Veterans from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines share their incredible stories from the Second Battle of Fallujah.

This time of year marks the anniversary of one of the most storied battles in recent Marine Corps history: the Second Battle of Fallujah. The city became the scene of brutal urban combat when American, Iraqi, and British forces launched an all out assault on Nov. 8, 2004, to seize it from Iraqi insurgent hands.

Some of the Marine Corps’ greatest heroes and most recent legends emerged from the battle.

After being severely injured by enemy gunfire, 1st Sgt. Bradley Kasal rolled over to shield a wounded Marine from a grenade blast, absorbing the brunt of the explosion himself. After heroically leading his squad in an attack against a large enemy force inside of a building, Cpl. Dale Burger was severely injured, but returned to his unit just three days later and again led his men back into combat before being killed in action on Nov. 14.

The Marines of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment — to which both Kasal and Burger belonged — were the operation’s main effort. They were the tip of the spear.

Over the course of battalion’s eight-month deployment, 33 gave their lives and more than 400 were injured, confirmed Col. Willard Buhl, 3/1’s commanding officer at the time. Of that number, 23 were killed and 275 were wounded during 12 days of intense and unrelenting combat as the Marines fought to take Fallujah from enemy hands. Additionally, more than 250 awards for valor were awarded to the unit’s Marines and sailors for their actions during the operation.

The stories that emerged from that battle are the kind that legends are built on. They’re larger than life and in some cases seem unbelievable.

But they’re true.

Task & Purpose spoke with six Marines who served with 3/1 during the battle and asked them to share the most unbelievable things they witnessed during the operation. Here are eight extraordinary moments from one of the most brutal battles of the Iraq War.

Read the Remainder at Task and Purpose

Military History: Israel’s Operation Opera, 1981

Thirty-five years after Operation Opera – the Israeli air attack that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, retired IAF officers and Mossad agents revealed hitherto unknown details of the operation on Friday.

n an expose aired on Channel 10, Col. (Ret.) Ze’ev Raz, who led the June 7, 1981 raid, said that Air Force technicians “recognized that flying to Iraq and back” — some 2,000 miles in all — was slightly beyond the range of our jets, so we used all sorts of tricks to extend it.”

The Israeli Air Force could not rely on US flying tanker planes for mid-flight refueling at the time, and Israeli refueling capabilities, then in the making, would not be operational until 1982, by which point intelligence assessments were that the nuclear reactor would go online.

The strike could not be delayed, and therefore innovative methods for making the fuel last were introduced. All eight F-16As made it safely back; even 35 years later, however, the specifics of how they did so were kept secret.

The operation was initially called “Ammunition Hill,” but when prime minister Menachem Begin realized that opposition leader Shimon Peres had found out about the operation, he ordered its cancellation — and its continuation under a new name.

“We later wrote the exact same operational command, but this time with the name ‘Opera’, chosen randomly by the computer,” retired Maj. Gen. David Ivry, the IAF commander at the time, said in the Friday report.

Ivry said the first signs that the Iraqis were building a nuclear reactor had been spotted in 1976 or 1977.

Gad Shimron, a former Mossad agent, said Israel during those years had inside intelligence on the Iraqis’ efforts to buy equipment abroad and their plans to build a reactor. The initial intelligence goal was to delay the completion of the reactor, and to ascertain whether a completed, online Iraqi reactor would have the technology necessary for the production of plutonium.

Shimron said Mossad gathered large amounts of information on the progress of the Osirak reactor’s construction. “You don’t need to be an intelligence expert to understand that if you have a project in Iraq with several dozen foreign experts, then espionage agencies interested in finding out what is going on will try to recruit [them],” Shimron said. “It goes without saying that there was someone on the inside providing information.”

Ivry said the Mossad’s work delayed completion of the Iraqi reactor by up to two and a half years.

For an Outstanding Book on this Subject, check out Raid on the Sun on Amazon

Read the Remainder at Times of Israel

Profiles in Courage: The Tank Killers of Roughneck 91

I highly recommend the book Roughneck 91: The Amazing True Story of a Special Forces A-Team at War. This happened early on in the War and did not get a lot of coverage, but next to the Marines at Fallujah, this is definitely one of the most amazing stories of the War. -SF

When a group of Green Berets found themselves outnumbered 30 to 1, they held their ground, and then some.

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while the bulk of American forces entered the country from Kuwait, battling their way through cities like Basra and Najaf en route to Baghdad, a smaller contingent entered from the north. Among them was the 3rd Special Forces Group, which, on the 18th day of the war, engaged in the first major offensive by American forces moving from Kurdistan into government-controlled territory of northern Iraq.

Their mission: to sever Highway 2 and prevent the Iraqi army from reaching the oil fields in Kirkuk.

Even after 13 years of combat operations in the Middle East, one would be hard-pressed to find a story that better highlights the effectiveness of the U.S. Army Special Forces as a small and agile elite fighting force. And it all hinges on the heroic actions of two men: Staff Sgt. Jason D. Brown and Staff Sgt. Jeffrey M. Adamec, who’d both donned the Green Beret for the first time less than a year before.

“Two guys shut down the attack,” Maj. Curtis W. Hubbard, the company commander in charge of the operation, later told The New York Times of Adamec and Brown’s actions. “Two guys turned an organized Iraqi attack into chaos. They halted an entire motorized rifle company.”

Officially, the skirmish was called the battle of Debecka Pass. But among the commandos on the ground on that day, it became known as “the Alamo.” And for good reason: The battle pitted 26 Green Berets and their Kurdish allies against a substantially larger and much better-equipped Iraqi force. A 3rd Group company commander later estimated that the Americans were outnumbered 30 to 1.

Read the Remainder at Task and Purpose

 

Crusader Corner: Killing Terrorist Leaders Is Not the “Magical Solution” to Stopping Terrorism

Another day, another dead terrorist leader. This time, the dead terrorist guy was Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan, and everyone is cheering, because everyone knows that each dead terrorist leader is, well, another dead terrorist leader.

Mullah Mansour’s death is “an important milestone,” President Barack Obama declared on Monday morning. But it’s a milestone on the road to nowhere.

After all, we’ve passed this milestone several dozen times before. Let’s briefly recap:

• In April, U.S. and Kurdish forces killed Salman Abu Shabib al-Jebouri, a “senior” Islamic State leader in Iraq. In March, S. forces killed “top Islamic State commander” Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli in Syria. The United States also killed Islamic State “deputy”Haji Imam and “senior operative” Abu Omar al-Shishani in Syria that same month. In February, U.S. strikes killed Noureddine Chouchane, another “senior” Islamic State operative in Libya.

• In 2015, the United States managed to kill “senior al-Shabab leader” Abdirahman Sandhere in Somalia; militant chiefs Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Khawray Mehsud in Pakistan; Islamic State “No. 2” Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali in Iraq; al Qaeda leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi in Yemen; and Ustad Ahmad Farooq, the deputy emir of al Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent.

• In 2014, U.S. strikes killed terrorist leader Ahmed Abdi Godane in Somalia, followed by al-Shabab intelligence and security chief Tahlil Abdishakur, as well as Nusra Front leader Abu Yousef al-Turki, who was killed by U.S. strikes in Syria, and Omar Farooq, a senior al Qaeda coordinator. The United States also successfully targeted Mufti Sofian and Abu Bakar, both senior commanders in the Afghan Taliban.

• In 2013, the United States killed Said al-Shehri, the second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula (AQAP). The Taliban’s original leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, also bit the dust in 2013, though he reportedly died of a non-drone-related illness, and his death apparently made so little difference to the Taliban that no one even noticed he was dead until 2015.

• In 2012, U.S. strikes killed another “al Qaeda No. 2,” Abu Yahya al-Libi, in Pakistan; senior al Qaeda leader Sakhr al-Taifi in Afghanistan; AQAP leader Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso in Yemen; Taliban ally Badruddin Haqqani in Pakistan; and Jemaah Islamiyah leaderZulkifli bin Hir in the Philippines.

• In 2011, U.S. drones killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed in Somalia; the American cleric and al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen; al Qaeda’s chief of operations in Pakistan, Abu Hafs al-Shahri; and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, reportedly al Qaeda’s second in command after Osama bin Laden’s death; along with Ilyas Kashmiri, said to be a senior Pakistani al Qaeda operative. And, of course, we killed Osama bin Laden himself, al Qaeda’s original No. 1.

I left out a few dozen other senior terrorist leaders, most of whom were also killed by U.S. strikes, but you get the idea.

Read the Remainder at Foreign Policy

Examining Terrorist Tactics: Cowards Tactics and The ISIS Way of War

The Islamic State Is Reportedly Rounding Up Civilians to Use As Human Shields in Fallujah

The Islamic State has reportedly moved civilians to the center of Fallujah, attempting to use residents of the Iraqi city as shields to ward off government recapture, according to humanitarian officials and local leaders.

Fallujah, a mere 40 miles from Baghdad in Anbar province, has remained in the hands of IS since early 2014, after it became the first large city to fall to the militants. On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced an offensive to retake it, saying “the Iraqi flag will soon be flying in the sky of Fallujah.” The decision followed a series of deadly suicide bombings carried out by IS in Baghdad, which claimed the lives of more than a hundred people.

On Monday, government forces and Shiite militias attacked the city, backed by airstrikes from the US-led anti-IS coalition. Abadi said on Sunday that Sunni tribal fighters would take part in the fighting, but it was unclear to what extent they were involved. As shells and air strikes rained down on the city, few civilians were able to leave, and many were moved to central areas by IS militants.

“ISIS has been moving families into the center of the city as shields, and to stop the bombardment from Iraqi and coalition forces, but the bombardment has gone ahead,” said Nasr Muflahi, Iraq country director at the Norwegian Refugee Council, using an acronym for the extremist group.

Read the Remainder at Vice News