Concrete Hell: Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq

by Concrete Hell- Urban Warfare From Stalingrad to Iraq (epub)

  Though the investigations eventually confirmed the IDF version of events, the fact that the investigations were necessary was a result of the IDF policy of isolating the battlefield from media coverage. Denied the ability to cover the battle, the media reported the only information it had available, which was the sensational and ultimately highly inaccurate accounts of a massacre presented by the Palestinians. Once the story made headlines around the world, the damage was done. International pressure on the Israeli government increased dramatically and the legitimacy of the mission was questioned by many countries, including Israel’s chief ally, the United States. Once the massacre stories were published they became the accepted narrative of the battle for many audiences, despite the findings of subsequent investigations. For the Palestinians the massacre story was generally accepted as true and Jenin became a rallying cry for the Palestinian cause, a source of endless propaganda, and a major recruiting tool for the ranks of militant fighters.

  Battle Tactics in the Casbah

  In the battles of Operation Defensive Shield, the Israeli Defense Forces demonstrated a solid basic capability to conduct operations within the extremely dense urban environment of West Bank cities and refugee camps. Many tried and true urban combat techniques continued to be effective and necessary to success. The battles in the refugee camps also demonstrated new capabilities and threats in the urban environment. Finally, they reflected the continued importance and growing necessity of urban combat.

  The Israeli military had very powerful and professional armored forces, as necessary to fight the conventional threats presented by the Arab countries on its borders. The traditions of armored combat influenced the Israeli tendency to prefer armored forces in the urban environment. The successes of Israeli armor and mechanized forces in 2002 demonstrated that the protection, firepower, and psychological effect of armor in a city remained a great advantage. Using armor also mitigated the number of casualties suffered by the attacking forces, a critical consideration for a small force like the IDF. Unlike the Russian initial deployment in Grozny, however, Israeli tanks operated in close coordination with a screen of protective infantry. Operation Defensive Shield also demonstrated one particularly important disadvantage of armor in a world dominated by global news coverage: the amount of collateral damage, including civilian casualties, that results whenever armor is operated aggressively in a city where a civilian population is still present.

  The extensive use of D9 bulldozers by the Israeli military was a unique characteristic of Israeli urban warfare. The IDF used the dozers to somewhat compensate for the lack of available artillery and airpower. The dozers gave the Israelis the ability to precisely destroy enemy positions which, in a less constrained combat environment, would have routinely been subject to artillery and air attack. The D9s proved, however, to be highly controversial. Many civilian casualties were attributed to the bulldozers and they also destroyed a large number of buildings during the campaign leaving thousands of civilians homeless. The use of the D9 dozers meant that the IDF incurred the animosity of the Palestinian population for many years to come.

  The Israelis also made extensive use of Apache attack helicopters in support of their ground troops. In the IDF, helicopters are operated by the Israeli air force. There were no reports of helicopters being lost to ground fire which implies that the aircraft were employed very carefully, and fired from positions already secured by IDF ground forces. American experiences with helicopters in urban operations – Mogadishu, Somalia (1993), and Panama City, Panama (1989) – indicated the significant vulnerability of helicopters to ground fire when operating over cities. This different experience was likely because the Americans, whose helicopters are part of the army maneuver forces, integrate helicopter operations very closely into ground maneuver operations as both an attack platform and as transport, and thus expose the aircraft to greater risks.

  As in all previous urban operations, intelligence was a key to success. The battle for Jenin demonstrated how difficult it is, for even an excellent intelligence service like that of the IDF, to penetrate into a hostile urban environment and accurately determine important tactical details. Remote sensors in the form of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) greatly increased the tactical situational awareness of IDF commanders and allowed them to shift forces to meet threats. As the battle progressed, intelligence support to the attacking Israeli ground forces improved. This was because the IDF created tactical interrogation units that questioned captured militants and civilians as soon as they came under IDF control. These intelligence units were organized to both send the acquired information up the chain of command, and – importantly – quickly send new and important information directly back to the units in combat.

  A final important aspect of the Israeli success in the urban battle of Operation Defensive Shieldwas the use of special forces. The Israelis employed relatively large numbers of special forces to the urban battles of March and April 2002, particularly the operations in Nablus and Jenin. These included the reconnaissance companies of each brigade which were trained in special forces tactics such as sniping and covert reconnaissance. Thus, the defending Palestinians had to not only contend with brute force conventional threats like the D9 bulldozers and Merkava tanks, but also the equally deadly special forces snipers and raiders.

  The D9 dozer was a new urban weapon employed by the IDF. On the Palestinian side they employed an old weapon, the booby-trapped IED, but they did so in unprecedented numbers. With just a little time to prepare, the militants were able to distribute thousands of devices, and in doing so they significantly slowed the advance of the IDF infantry. IDF engineers, both dozer operators and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) specialists, were critical to maintaining the momentum of the attack. The IDF learned that they did not have enough specialist EOD personnel, and thus after the battle they increased the emphasis on EOD training among their infantry.

  IDF Security Operations

  Though the IDF was sensitive to civilian casualties, and no massacre occurred in Jenin, it is important to understand the type of military operation that the IDF was tasked to accomplish during Operation Defensive Shield. By going into the urban areas of the West Bank, the IDF was invading the urban centers of a foreign, and generally hostile, population. The West Bank was not part of Israel, and at the time of the operation it was under the political control of the Palestinian Authority. Thus, the operational context was more like the Russian army in Grozny than the British in Northern Ireland or even the French in Algeria. In both the latter cases, the military had the objective of eliminating the urban enemy while at the same time not alienating the urban population, who were citizens of the United Kingdom and France respectively. The IDF’s operational concern with civilian casualties was more out of respect for the law of war and international opinion, than the military and political objectives of the campaign. Thus, they were comfortable emphasizing speed, firepower, and armored forces, and destroying as many buildings as necessary to achieve the military objective, as long as the laws of war were observed. Thus, the IDF perspective of the battle was as a battle against a security threat to Israel. The enemy was a guerrilla force hiding among a sympathetic enemy population in a foreign city.

  For their part, the Palestinian defenders, though hopelessly overmatched by Israeli military power, demonstrated – as the Chechen fighters had – that adroit manipulation of the information spectrum could yield some positive strategic results even when the outcome of the conventional military battle was a foregone conclusion. The Palestinians were aided in this by the Israeli forces, who demonstrated no understanding of the vital importance of engaging the enemy in the information spectrum of war.

  The Palestinian capacity for attacking Israel was significantly diminished by the urban battles of 2002, but not eliminated. The battles were not meant to, and the IDF was not capable of, eliminating the reasons behind the Intifada. Therefore, as soon as the IDF withdrew, and the militants acquired and trained new rec
ruits, the Intifada continued. The Israeli–Palestinian war would not end until 2005. The best that Operation Defensive Shield could accomplish was reducing the Palestinian militants’ capability to conduct terrorist attacks inside Israel. It accomplished that goal and therefore was a successful operation.

  CHAPTER 10

  SYSTEMATIC URBAN WARFARE

  “Ready First” in Ramadi, 2006–07

  When the 1st Brigade Combat Team (1BCT) of the US Army’s 1st Armored Division (AD) received its orders sending it into western Iraq in June 2006, it was one of a long list of army and US Marine combat units assigned to operations in Iraq’s Al-Anbar Province since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. There was no reason to believe at the time that the operations of the “Ready First” Brigade in the provincial capital of Ramadi would be any more decisive or exceptional than the operations of previous units. What happened in the next nine months, however, became the greatest success story of US arms to come out of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Between the summer of 2006 and the spring of 2007, the deadliest city in the most dangerous anti-US province in Iraq was not just pacified, but became the model for successful urban counterinsurgency for the rest of the war in Iraq, as well as for operations in Afghanistan.

  A Hotbed of Anti-Americanism

  The US military came to Al-Anbar province in the last days of the initial invasion of Iraq, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom One (OIF1). Al-Anbar was far from what the US command viewed as the decisive point of the operation, the city of Baghdad, and so it was not critical to the invasion. The only decisive combat action that took place in the province in the initial weeks of the war was the seizure of the Hadithah Dam by the US Army’s 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. It took the Americans several months to realize the unique significance of Al-Anbar Province.

  Al-Anbar Province, with a population of 1.23 million people, was the largest province geographically in Iraq, and was the only province dominated by Sunni Muslims, who comprised 95 percent of the population. Because it was dominated by Sunni Arabs, the province was favored by Saddam Hussein, and was a bastion of Ba’ath party support. It was also home to a large percentage of the Iraqi army’s leadership. Because of its close affiliation with the Ba’ath Party and the army, and also because it was relatively untouched by the initial invasion and thus not exposed to the capabilities of the US military, it became the natural refuge of those fleeing Baghdad and bent on resisting the American occupation of Iraq.

  Al-Anbar Province was the largest in Iraq, at 53,370 square miles, about the size of the American state of North Carolina, and it was located in the southwest corner of Iraq. The vast majority of the southern portion of the province was part of the Syrian Desert, which extended across the province’s borders westward into Syria and south into Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The northern fifth of the province was a strip of land to the north and south of the Euphrates River. This strip includes the major cities of the province, the agricultural areas, the history, and the bulk of the population. The two largest cities of the province, Fallujah and Ramadi, were located in this area.

  The largest city in the province was the provincial capital, Ramadi. Ramadi was a relatively new city in the region, established by the Ottoman Turks in 1869 to control the Iraqi Dulaim tribe. The city and its major suburbs were relatively large, about 15km (11 miles) east to west and 12km (9 miles) north to south. It had a population of between 400,000 and 450,000 at the time of the battle (it was about four times the size of Fallujah). The bulk of the city’s population remained in the city throughout the fighting. The city was divided into a dense central city area and numerous suburban residential areas. The central city was bounded on the north by the Euphrates River, on the west by the Habbaniyah Canal, on the south by the railway line, and on the east by suburbs. Major suburbs, in addition to those to the east of the city, were also located west and northwest of the Habbaniyah Canal, and north of the Euphrates River. Two main bridges connected the central city with the suburbs: one crossing the Euphrates River to the northern suburbs; and one crossing the Habbaniyah Canal to the western suburbs. In addition, a major highway bridge crossed the Euphrates north of the city and connected the western and northern suburbs. The suburbs themselves were mainly residential areas, and they were divided into distinct districts, each aligned with a particular tribal group.

  Before the US invasion of Iraq the city of Ramadi was a fairly modern Iraqi city. Because of its relatively recent history, Ramadi did not have a casbah as found in traditional old cities of the region. Buildings were predominantly built of concrete and in the central part of the city, they were very modern. The city’s hospital had been built by a Japanese company in 1986 and at seven stories tall was the tallest building in the city. There were several five- and six-story tall buildings in the downtown area. Most of the buildings in the city and in the suburbs were traditional flat-roofed two- and three-story cement buildings. By the time the 1BCT arrived at the city, considerable fighting had occurred in the years since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The central part of the city had been subjected to numerous artillery and air attacks, and improvised explosive device (IED) explosions were a regular occurrence on all of the city’s main streets. For example, the city hospital had been regularly attacked by US Army multiple-launched rocket systems (MLRS). There was significant damage to the city center, many buildings were destroyed, and many more were damaged and uninhabitable. There were few undamaged buildings.

  The roads of Ramadi were paved, but over the years debris, dirt, and garbage had accumulated on top of the paving. When the 1BCT arrived in the city they were covered with inches of grime. In addition, most of the city’s infrastructure no longer existed. There was no power in the city, there was no garbage removal, many areas did not have running water, there was no telephone service (including no cell-phone service), and no operating newspapers. There was also no mayor or city council. The police force of the city consisted of 100 policemen, who never left their stations and often did not report for work. Essentially there was no functioning government.

  The area of operations (AO) assigned to the 1BCT, AO Topeka, was slightly larger than the city and included another 150,000 civilians in addition to the population of Ramadi itself. This rural population was scattered among numerous small villages on the north and south banks of the Euphrates River. The vast majority of the people in and around Ramadi were from the Dulaim tribe confederation. The Dulaim, its subordinate sub-tribes and clans, made up 10–20 percent of the Iraqi army and were particularly prominent in the elite Republican Guard units. There were over a thousand clans within the Dulaim, and the tribes’ membership extended over the international borders into Syria and Jordan. Each tribe within the Dulaim confederation was headed by a sheik. The sheiks were secular leaders, usually selected by the tribal elders through a process that was unstructured, but based on heredity, competence, and democracy. The sheik’s responsibility, in return for the loyalty of the tribe, was to ensure the security and well-being of the tribe, while also administering tribal justice. Seniority among sheiks was based on tribal wealth, measured in actual wealth, political influence, and the size of the tribe. Dozens of sheiks oversaw the tribes living in Ramadi and the surrounding area. Many of the most important sheiks oversaw their tribes from self-imposed exile – for reasons of safety – in places like Jordan.

  Map 10.1 Al-Anbar Province, Iraq, 2006

  In Al-Anbar Province the US forces and the security forces of the new government of Iraq (GOI) faced at least three diferent types of opponents. The frst was Al Qaeda of Iraq (AQI), which was the most dangerous and ideological of the groups. The second were the Sunni nationalists who had been favored under Saddam Hussein and who had lost political power with the invasion. Finally, there was an unorganized criminal element that was bent on profiting from the general violence and lawlessness. The prime objective of coalition forces in 2006 was AQI, and those Sunni nationalist groups and criminal elements that supported AQI.

  A
l Qaeda in Iraq was organized in 2003 as part of the reaction to the US invasion. It was nominally a division of the larger Islamist Al Qaeda organization led by Osama Bin Laden and based in Pakistan. The leader of AQI was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a Jordanian. The size of the organization was unknown, but estimates ranged from 800 to several thousand fighters. Many of the group’s members were foreigners who infiltrated into Iraq from Syria, but it also contained many radical Iraqi Islamists. Its leadership, however, was dominated by non-Iraqis. The goals of AQI were to force the US forces to leave Iraq, defeat the Iraqi security forces, overthrow the Iraqi government, and establish an Iraqi Islamist state. In October 2006, in the midst of the battle for Ramadi, AQI declared the Islamic State of Iraq with Ramadi as its capital. AQI employed a variety of hit-and-run guerrilla tactics against coalition forces, but uniquely favored the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), and the suicide bomber.