by Damien Lewis
In order to blast a hole that large in the Embassy wall, this IED had to have been a significant one. It was still a “one-man carry”—we categorized IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan by how many it took to carry them—as evidenced by the lone guy who had planted it. A larger device would have needed two people or even a vehicle to deliver it. But we suspected the real target of the bomber was the Embassy’s front gate. The attacker had been spooked by the guards’ vigilance, and stopped short with the device, setting it instead against the wall.
If he had hit the gate it would have been blasted off its hinges. Even as it was, the IED had still punched a massive hole through the perimeter wall. Had the bad guys been mustered in strength to attack, they would have been able to pour through and they’d have been inside the compound within seconds. At that point my guards would have run, and the QRF would very likely have taken to their heels—leaving Rosie, Adam, and Jim to face the enemy. It didn’t bear thinking about.
While working on the U.S. ACE contract in Iraq I’d been hit nine times in IED strikes. IEDs are only ever planted so as to hit a specific target with a specific intention. That had proven the case every single time we were hit in Iraq, and I figured it would prove likewise here in Benghazi.
Route Tampa was the main supply road leading to our base in northern Iraq. It quickly earned the nickname “IED Alley.” One day we’d been on a four-vehicle move, with a gun truck—an armored Ford Excursion 550, with a 7.62mm M240 machine gun mounted in a roof turret—taking up the front and rear positions. In the two central vehicles were the HVTs—State Department officials—plus myself as team leader and various operators from the security team.
We were fourteen security guys in all, and we each carried a Colt Diemaco assault rifle or a squad automatic weapon (SAW) light machine gun, with one thousand rounds of ammo per person. That was the right size of force and weaponry for such a vehicle move—or for securing a setup like the Benghazi Embassy, for that matter.
We were barreling along Route Tampa when an IED detonated at the roadside, taking out the lead vehicle—the gun truck. It was highly unusual for the bad guys to hit the gun truck. They would always try to smash one of the two central vehicles, for they knew the HVTs rode in those. The triggerman must have hit the detonation button just a fraction early, but still it wasn’t good news: Danny, the turret gunner, had had his head and shoulders exposed to the blast.
The gun truck had been blasted side-on to the road, and it was a wreck. We had no idea how many casualties we’d taken, plus we were forty miles from the nearest friendly base. The second vehicle—mine—pulled alongside the stricken truck, so we could open our doors and cross-deck the injured from theirs into ours. At the same time I radioed in our location and status to operational headquarters. As team leader it was my responsibility to get us out of this one without losing anyone, and in particular the clients.
Because we had high-level U.S. government officials on board we knew we’d get priority in terms of air cover. We were told air support was on its way, although we had no idea what assets were coming. Amazingly, Danny wasn’t seriously injured, and the four guys inside the armored wagon were pretty much okay. But before we could get them moved across into our vehicle, stage two of the attack was sprung. A murderous barrage of fire started hammering into us from positions set to either side of the road.
This was now a complex attack, the IED being the trigger. We knew we needed to keep our vehicles together and put down some serious return fire, but we had to do so without making ourselves an easy target. If we pulled in too close, they could put one RPG into the heart of us and cause some serious carnage. Having got the HVTs’ heads down in the armored SUVs, the other gun truck pulled in parallel to us. We’d now formed a firebase from which to repel the attack.
We dismounted the vehicles and got into cover behind the engine blocks, and started returning fire. Danny was back in the turret of the stricken gun truck blasting out the rounds on the M240, and the other turret gunner roared into action. Against us we had dozens of shooters who were in good cover in the farmland to either side of the road. They were hosing us down with AK-47s and PKM light machine guns, and we were exposed here out on the road.
At the same time as getting the rounds down I scanned for an inbound vehicle. If they were smart they’d have planned a third stage to the ambush: some kind of truck laden with explosives—a VBIED, or vehicle-borne IED. If they could slam one of those into our position, they could really make us fry. The only way to stop a speeding truck is to hit it a good three hundred yards out from your position—hence the need to keep one eye scanning the highway.
Luckily, the enemy’s fire discipline wasn’t up to much. They were hitting us with typical “spray and pray” tactics. There were a massive amount of rounds going down and a lot of noise and smoke, but much of it was wide of the target. Even so, we were five long minutes into the firefight by now, and even with a thousand rounds per man our ammo supplies were fast dwindling.
We got fifteen minutes into the fight and I was sure we’d killed some of the bad guys, but there was no sign of them backing off. More to the point, we were running out of ammo. It was then that we heard the most welcome sound of all—the thud-thud-thud of incoming Apache helicopter gunships. We knew the Apache pilots well. We used to drink coffee with them and have a laugh back at the base canteen in Mosul. There were none better than those guys.
Danny and his fellow turret gunner had lasers, with which they could paint the enemy positions. The Apache crews homed in on the hot point of those lasers—where they struck the ground—and opened fire with their 30mm cannons. Brrrzzzzzzzzzzzt! With the pair of gunships hammering the enemy positions the fire dropped off almost to nothing.
Finally we managed to transfer the last of the guys from the stricken gun truck into the other vehicles. We torched the gun truck by throwing a white phosphorus incendiary grenade inside it, then got the hell out of there, leaving the Apaches to finish off the enemy.
That time, we all survived the IED strike and follow-up attack. But we’d been lucky. We were fourteen crack operators with some serious firepower to hand. Even so, via a well-planned IED strike the bad guys had had us pinned down and running short of ammo. It was only the superlative air cover that had got us out of there. And the key point with relation to the Benghazi IED strike was this: no one ever wasted an IED. No one ever planted one without proper planning, a specific target, and a bigger-picture strategy.
The big-picture plan on Route Tampa had been simple: hit our convoy, disable a vehicle, prevent our escape, and tear us to pieces in the follow-up ambush. Their intention had been to kill us all. They hadn’t managed it that time, but during another period we lost five men in the space of three days. Such well-planned, multistage attacks could prove extremely debilitating and deadly.
Likewise, no one had planted the IED at the Benghazi Embassy simply to blow up some concrete blocks. After all, the wall could be easily repaired, as indeed it was. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out what the IED must have been for. It was to test the Embassy’s defenses, and to see how easy it would be for a follow-up force to gain access to the compound.
But in a sense it wasn’t my problem anymore, nor that of Rosie or the other RSOs. I got myself out of Benghazi on leave, and Rosie, Jim, and Adam were likewise gone—Rosie reassigned to Nigeria, and Jim and Adam rotating back to the United States.
For now, at least, the IED and its aftermath were someone else’s worry.
CHAPTER TEN
I arrived back in Benghazi on July 24, 2012, but I hardly felt as if I’d been away. Bob was desperate to get out of there and I could understand why. While there had been no further attacks on the Embassy itself, the security situation in the city appeared to have gone into free fall.
In the worst attack yet, the British ambassador’s convoy had been ambushed as it drove through the city streets. It had been raked with fire, one RPG punching through the rear windshield of a vehicl
e and passing out the front window, but miraculously without detonating. The RPG had been unleashed at such close range that it hadn’t had time to arm itself properly—hence it hadn’t exploded. Had it detonated, everyone in that vehicle very likely would have been killed.
As it was, the RPG round had torn apart one of the security operator’s shoulders. He was a fellow Welshman who worked on the British Embassy’s close protection team and was a good friend of mine. I’d been emailed the photos of the wreck of the RPG-struck vehicle: no doubt about it, the guys had had a miraculous escape. So while I’d been away from Benghazi physically, news like that had kept dragging me back again, at least in my head.
The six guys riding security on that convoy were battle-hardened operators who loved a fight. But by the time they’d debussed from the vehicles and got their weapons in the aim, the bad guys had melted away into the crowd, the attack had been so slick. This acted as a powerful wake-up call, at least to the British. Two days after the attack they shut down their mission and pulled out of Benghazi.
I wasn’t surprised the Brits had pulled out. Having worked on Foreign and Commonwealth Office contracts, I knew how the system worked. The FCO’s Overseas Security Manager would have reviewed the security situation on the ground, the likelihood of a repeat attack, manpower, and how critical the mission was, and concluded that the only option was to withdraw. Yet they had double the number of close protection operators—the equivalent of RSOs—as the American Mission had.
I’d watched the events unfold from afar, fully expecting the Americans to follow suit. But not a thing of it: the Mission had carried on, business as usual. It didn’t make any sense, and to me it was doubly worrying. My friends working on the British security team would have come to our aid had the U.S. Mission got hit. Now even that promise of backup was gone, yet still the Americans had chosen to stay.
I just didn’t get it.
Attacks had skyrocketed across the city. The Tunisian Consulate in Benghazi was stormed by “protesters.” A consul vehicle was carjacked and the driver savagely beaten. The Red Cross building was hit in RPG strikes—and surely by anyone’s reckoning the Red Cross are the good guys. As with the British Mission, the Red Cross pulled out of Benghazi. A United Nations convoy was hit in a grenade attack, and it was only the armor of the vehicles that saved those inside. A Spanish-American dual national was kidnapped. The Egyptian Embassy was bombed.
The city was like a pressure cooker, and as far as I could see, the U.S. Embassy was a target going begging.
While the security situation had been imploding, Bob had noticed an upsurge in black-flag vehicles on the streets. The Shariah Brigade gun trucks seemed both more numerous, and to be crammed full of more of your archetypal Al Qaeda fighters—non-Libyans dressed in flowing black robes and headgear. Bob had seen them cruising around the Garden City neighborhood at night, when he was alone as usual in the villa.
As a result he’d moved into downtown Benghazi’s Tibesti Hotel, where he figured there were lower odds of him getting targeted. The Tibesti seemed to be the main hangout for those foreigners left in Benghazi. Bob had managed to get a room overlooking the European Commission’s office, one of the few foreign missions still operating in the city. The EC had their own guard force, and Bob figured that offered us an extra layer of security.
The Tibesti also had its own security people, but they looked about as five-star as the hotel itself: it claimed to be a five-star establishment, but you wouldn’t have given it one star had it been situated in Europe or the States.
Upon my arrival back in Benghazi, Bob showed me around the hotel. I could see immediately why he hated the place. It was full of oil workers, construction contractors, plus a smattering of aid types and the media—but no one was there by choice, that was for sure. Like us, they’d been forced into the Tibesti by the supposed security it offered. Other than that, the hotel was dirty and dingy, the staff were rude, and the service was nonexistent.
That first evening Bob and I tried to grab a meal together, but the food was stone cold and the chef hung out at the buffet smoking and flicking ash. Over inedible food Bob did his best to warn me of what was coming at the Embassy. Apparently, Rosie’s replacement as head RSO was intent on having our guard force searched by the QRF whenever they came to work. It was the same old same-old. I told Bob it wasn’t happening, but boy did I have a sinking feeling.
There was more bad news. After the IED strike on the Embassy, Tom had decided he wanted out completely. We’d kept him on as our driver, but he had a wife and young kids to provide for and he figured the risk of working at the U.S. Mission had just gone to unacceptable levels. Bob had had no option but to let him go.
The one upside was that he’d managed to recruit a fine replacement. Via Stuart—my private-security buddy who’d warned me about carrying the thirty thousand dollars through Tripoli airport—Bob had got in touch with Massoud, an ex–Libyan Army guy based in Benghazi. While Massoud’s faction of the military had fought against Gaddafi in the revolution, he wasn’t from one of the militias, which was the crucial point as far as we were concerned.
What distinguished Massoud was his military discipline, his excellent timekeeping, plus the fact that he was a genuinely decent, honorable kind of a guy. As a bonus he was hugely well-connected in Benghazi, having excellent contacts at the airports among his Libyan Army buddies. Massoud truly had his finger on the pulse of this troubled city and he’d proven to be a gold mine of intelligence.
I’d met Massoud briefly when he and Bob had picked me up from the airport. He was around my height, of slim build, with typical dark Libyan good looks. He had to be in his late thirties, was married with two children, and was still serving as a sergeant in the Libyan Army. He seemed to be on some kind of sabbatical from the military, which enabled him to work as our driver. Most important, he was as honest as the day is long, and bulletproof reliable. Right away I liked him, and I let Bob know what a fine choice he’d made in Massoud.
After a dismal evening in the Tibesti’s one restaurant Bob and I retired to our rooms. The best I managed that night in terms of my own personal security was a chair propped under the handle of the door to my hotel room. I knew already that I hated this place, and I didn’t figure I’d be staying here long. As soon as I found a way to get out I was most definitely going to be checking out of the Tibesti.
Bob left early the following morning for the airport—like he couldn’t wait to leave. Massoud picked me up for the drive to the Embassy . . . and I was back on the job again. Of course, the guards were pleased as punch to see me. By contrast, just as soon as Mutasim laid eyes on me he had a look on his face like a dog taking a shit.
As I headed for the TOC I had no illusions as to what was coming. I tried to comfort myself with the thought that the three RSOs only had a few days left to run on their rotation and they’d be gone. I met Justin Connor, the head RSO, in the TOC. He struck me as being a cool customer—the kind of guy who never raises his voice or gets rattled. With him were his fellow RSOs, Peter and Paul. Of the three of them it was Paul whom I warmed to most. He was a giant of a guy from Miami, and he had this easy, laid-back air about him that I liked.
But it didn’t take long for the nonsense to begin. “Okay, so the new policy we’re gonna implement is that every guard shift gets searched by the QRF,” Justin announced. “Just as an added layer of security.”
I tried to stay calm and keep a lid on things. “No problem. One question: who’s searching the QRF?”
Justin looked a little taken aback. “The QRF? What d’you mean, who’s searching the QRF?”
Despite my best efforts, my fuse was going to blow. “I mean exactly what I say: who is searching those useless bastards the QRF?”
Justin hesitated for an instant. Pete and Paul were staring at me mouths agape.
“Well, no one’s searching the QRF,” Justin ventured. “I mean, they’re not getting searched. What’s the problem here?”
That
was it: I blew. “I’ll tell you what I’ve told every RSO before you—the QRF cannot be trusted, and they are not searching my guards. You let them search my guards and the guard force will leave. We’ve taken months getting them up to scratch, and we will not be able to replace them. And while you’re at it, you can get a new security manager. You just don’t get it, do you? The Seventeenth February Militia is no better than any other militia in this city. One day you guys are gonna find out just how much moral fiber those bastards have—and they will be found wanting. And I will stand by those words.” I got to my feet. “Right, I am out of here.”
I had made up my mind already that this was my last rotation at the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi. I could handle the deteriorating security situation. After all, that’s what private security operators like me are paid for—to provide security in challenging circumstances. What I couldn’t handle was that no one at the Embassy seemed to be listening, and I was damned if I was going to allow that to spoil the top team of guards that Rosie and I had built up.
I left the TOC and went to hang out for an hour or so with my guards. It was really good to see them alive and well, and doing what they’d been trained to do. I’d bonded with these guys and I counted many of them—Nasir, Mustaffa, and Zahid, among others—as my friends. These were guys we could rely on, of that I was certain, and more the damn pity that none of them were armed.
I spent an uncomfortable night at the Tibesti, and returned to the Embassy the following morning fully expecting to get the sack. I was waiting for Justin to say: listen, buddy, you’re a troublemaker and we don’t want you around. Instead, and in the true mark of the man, he couldn’t have been more reasonable. He got me into the TOC so he and I could have a chat one-on-one.