by Mark Urban
Also by Mark Urban
SOVIET LAND POWER
WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
BIG BOYS’ RULES: THE SAS AND THE SECRET
STRUGGLE AGAINST THE IRA
UK EYES ALPHA: INSIDE BRITISH INTELLIGENCE
THE MAN WHO BROKE NAPOLEON’S CODES:
THE STORY OF GEORGE SCOVELL
RIFLES: SIX YEARS WITH WELLINGTON’S
LEGENDARY SHARPSHOOTERS
GENERALS: TEN BRITISH COMMANDERS
WHO SHAPED THE WORLD
FUSILIERS: HOW THE BRITISH ARMY LOST
AMERICA BUT LEARNED TO FIGHT
Copyright
LITTLE, BROWN
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Little, Brown
Copyright © 2010 Mark Urban
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
eISBN: 978 0 748 12002 4
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
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Contents
Copyright
Preface
Preamble: The Secret War
1 Mission Paradoxical
2 Into the Blood
3 The Soldier-Monk
4 Building Networks
5 Target AQI
6 The Jamiat
7 Beyond Black
8 The Kember Outcome
9 Operation LARCHWOOD 4
10 Endgame For Zarqawi
11 The Battle for Baghdad
12 The Awakening
13 Choosing Victory
14 The Coming Storm with Iran
15 America’s Surge
16 The Khazali Mission
17 Al-Qaeda’s Surge
18 The Tide Turns
19 The V Word
Baghdad
Basra
Operation ABALONE, Ramadi, 31 October 2003
Operation LARCHWOOD 4, Yusufiyah, 16 April 2006
Arab Jabour Operation, 21 November 2007
Preface
Late in 2005, I was waiting for an RAF plane home from Iraq when a large group of passengers arrived in the tent at Basra airport. There were about sixty men, divided evenly between an older heavier-set mob and younger, more sprightly-looking types. They were respectively members of the SAS and the Special Forces Support Group.
In their appearance these special forces seemed to be completely ‘out and proud’. For one thing, they were all wearing civilian clothes, whereas all other passengers for the Tristar home were following the rules about uniform. For another, many had chunky labels on their daysacks with things like ‘Jim, A Squadron, Hereford’ written on them.
During our wait for the flight I was joined in the struggle to get hot water out of a faulty boiling vessel by one of the squadron members, who had a few weeks earlier been held prisoner in the Jamiat police station several miles away in the centre of Basra. I had seen his undisguised face on TV pictures as they were pulled down into the BBC, and we briefly shared our frustration at the brew famine.
Since my encounter with A Squadron, members of UK special forces have adopted a different camouflage pattern from the rest of the British Army – but the same as is often used by top-tier US special ops soldiers. In short, then, the SAS or SBS, by using these outfits or civilian clothes in certain military situations, for example in camp or when travelling on forces’ flights, revel in their reputation as their country’s military elite and, you might say, why shouldn’t they?
The odd thing about this brazen attitude is that it sits uneasily with the culture of secrecy which many of those involved in the world of intelligence and special operations would like to impose. Members of Britain’s special forces are expected to abide by a lifelong duty of confidentiality in much the same way as those who work for MI6 or GCHQ. But there are two obstacles to this being achieved: in the first place, many of those on the inside allow the ego that comes with their ‘special’ status or superb physical fitness to evolve into a desire for publicity. One only has to look at the many SAS books or newspaper articles relying on well placed leaks to see this.
A second reason for the high public profile of the SAS in particular is the lethality of their business. This is not a matter of discreet agent recruitment or coming up with a clever computer algorithm, as the intelligence professionals’ world is. Special forces soldiering, particularly in the conflicts since the 9/11 attacks, is a high-intensity, deadly business involving face-to-face confrontation with some of the world’s most ruthless terrorists. It is unsurprising, then, that the public interest in what these soldiers do is very high. Combine public interest with the desire of many in the military to talk, and you have fertile ground for a book like the one that follows.
My desire to write it came about on another Iraq trip – one to Baghdad in September 2008. As coincidence had it, I ran into a succession of former intelligence and military types who had read Big Boys’ Rules, my earlier book on covert operations in Northern Ireland, were keen to shake the author’s hand and egged me on to write something similar about Iraq. Mark McCauley, the cameraman working with me on that trip (and during quite a few scrapes in Iraq and Afghanistan), added his weight to the argument, noting that my various trips to Iraq had given me the level of knowledge and access necessary to carry out such a sensitive project. So I began my own reconnaissance – to see whether it would be possible to write such a book.
It was clear to me that the scope for this would have to be far wider than just the SAS, as indeed my earlier work Big Boys’ Rules had been. The special forces sometimes see themselves as the scalpel wielded by other hands, the senior commanders and intelligence types needed to gain the information vital for success. Indeed, without this direction ‘the Regiment’ can seem, as one Northern Ireland policeman once rudely put it, like ‘plumbers who think they are brain surgeons’. As will become clear in this narrative, this was also true in Iraq, where the flow of accurate intelligence and evolution of a strategy to target certain elements of the insurgency were the essential preconditions for success. So while many may see this as an ‘SAS book’, I would argue it is something far wider and indeed more significant than that.
As I began my research, two things soon struck me. The first was that many people were willing to talk, in part because they believed great things had been achieved secretly by Britain around Baghdad. The second was that Britain’s campaign in Iraq was already in its closing phase when my research was getting under way in earnest. This would allow certain final judgements to be reached and reduce the sensitivity of the contents to a level where many would be prepared to see it published, since continuing operations would not be endangered.
The story that emerged was a quite remarkable one of high risks and extreme violence. In this sense, Iraq presented a completely different arena from Northern Ireland where considerations such as the legality of the use of force ranked much higher. The truly disturbing (to those of a liberal mind, in any case) thing about the special operations campaign in Iraq is that it suggests a large terrorist organisation can be overwhelmed under certain circumstances by military force. The story of how
far this was done is of course the main narrative of this book.
From the outset I decided to take certain steps to allow me to tell the story while protecting the lives of those – including insurgents as well as soldiers – who had been involved in these extraordinary events in Iraq. For those below a certain rank or status whose names had not come into the public domain, I would use pseudonyms denoted in the text by italics, such as Major Smith. I later added a few more senior officers who were still serving at the time of writing to this list, using pseudonyms in relation to the period of their special forces commands. Non-italicised names are of course real ones. I would also be very careful not to describe the limitations of intelligence or other capabilities used in this struggle, since many are still in use elsewhere.
When my research was already largely complete it became clear to me that there was also a body of opinion that was far less happy than those who had supported me in my work. In one sense this was a surprise, because I had come to assume that there was an official acceptance that it was not in the public interest to prevent my book’s publication. Quite a few sources indeed told me that they had checked before speaking to me and had been given the go-ahead. However, it is always a mistake to assume that in matters of special forces and intelligence Britain practises joined-up government. As the tone of official letters became harsher it became clear that one hand did not know what the other had done. I could see that the kind of objections from officialdom that had accompanied my earlier books about Northern Ireland and on the intelligence services (UK Eyes Alpha) was likely to be repeated with Task Force Black.
I never had a problem with the idea of the Ministry of Defence reading my manuscript before publication because while I had been careful not to give away what I considered sensitive, I did not want to make inadvertent mistakes that might endanger lives. This indeed was why I agreed to make many changes, despite the fact that I considered many of those requested to be essentially pointless. However the reaction to my text in certain quarters – essentially of making demands for hundreds of changes, backed by the threat of legal action – did surprise me because it soon prejudiced the kind of reasonable discussion that I had hoped to enjoy. Horns were locked, lawyers engaged and the whole thing became an unpleasant confrontation.
Of course, I realise that many people will not only sympathise with Whitehall for trying to make changes to sections of the book, but will argue that it is the type of work that should never be written. I don’t accept that, obviously. Whether the story of covert operations is essentially a critical or searching one, as my work about Northern Ireland was, or a somewhat more positive one, as this is, these histories must be told. They are about extraordinary deeds performed and lives taken or altered for ever by people who act in the country’s name. The truth will out. It is simply a case of how soon, and how full a telling the narrative will receive. Many of those who cooperated with me were not only keen that these facts come to light but that I, as an unofficial person, should tell the tale.
In the end, it became possible to tell the story (for the most part) after a difficult and expensive (to the taxpayer) process. I would like to thank those who were essential to this process and of course the wider one of preparing this book: Ursula Mackenzie, Tim Whiting, Zoe Gullen and Siobhan Hughes at Little, Brown; David Hooper and his legal team at RPC; my ever-supportive agent Jonathan Lloyd; and of course my wife Hilary and my children for seeing me through once more. My Newsnight editor Peter Rippon was endlessly understanding in allowing me time off to write the book. Publishers, lawyers, family and indeed the BBC all gave me magnificent support. I suppose thanks are also due to the team on Operation ABERRATE, whom I may have considered occasionally misguided but were motivated by honourable considerations.
Preamble: The Secret War
High over southern Baghdad an aerial dance was taking place. Flying at the top of the stack, a lumbering Hercules command aircraft banking in a figure-of-eight pattern was coordinating the planes with the assault force on the ground. Then, circling a couple of kilometres off to the west, was a group of Puma helicopters that had just dropped off the SAS and their supporting Paras. Closest to the ground, Lynxes were orbiting the target, each with a sniper peering out through an open side door.
If everything went to plan, their target would be picked off, cuffed and on his way to the interrogation facility within hours. If it turned into a drama, the air commander could call in anything from helicopters to F-16s. The outcome could vary from a swift night-time stroke that even the target’s neighbours would be unaware of to the total obliteration of his farm.
The whole scene, at two o’clock on a summer’s morning in 2007, was viewed through the green and black contrasts of night-vision goggles by pilots straining every sinew, scanning the horizon of this unmanaged airspace, desperate to avoid a mid-air collision. Suddenly, a banking Lynx flashed in front but just below them, causing the pilots to tense momentarily. It was the ultimate flying challenge for these aviators, one of whom described it as ‘a fucking awesome adrenaline frenzy – ten to fifteen air assets all stacked up on each other in the same air space, all doing a job. You would not believe the amount of time, energy and love that went into lifting one man.’
Down below, in the dusty farm compound that was his home on the edge of the Iraqi capital, that target was still unaware of what was about to happen. He was asleep, and so used to the sound of Coalition helicopters wheeling over the city by night that he did not stir. On the table next to his bed his mobile phone was still switched on. One of the brothers might call.
Across a plantation of date palms a few hundred yards from the farm, assault teams of British special forces soldiers stepped off their Pumas into the darkness. All of the men had state-of-the-art night-vision goggles and an assault rig carrying body armour, grenades and magazines, as well as plastic ties for their prisoner. Written on each man’s forearm were the grid references of their target, as well as details of call-signs and timings.
Walking towards the objective was the Team Leader. He had been studying the target for weeks, learning who he was, where he operated and his place in the al-Qaeda setup. He had also gathered information on the community around the farm – if things went wrong, they did not want to get caught in a hornets’ nest. ‘You have to be driving ops with timely and accurate intelligence,’ says one Team Leader. ‘If it’s flawed, people die on both sides.’
The target that night had been identified by intelligence as the administrator for a car-bombing cell. He put the vehicles, explosives and martyrs together to execute the attack. His people had already mounted several attacks on American troops and the market in the suburb of Doura a few miles to the north. Dozens of people had been blown apart in these bombings.
As the soldiers reached the farm they moved into position. The entry team had approached the chosen entrance. Up above the airborne commander was receiving reports from a surveillance aircraft. ‘You are thinking about the individual you are after,’ recalls the Team Leader. ‘You are listening to the intelligence coming through from the aircraft above you. At a certain point you say “OK we’re ready”.’ The door was blown and within seconds the SAS were in.
The mission that night was part of a secret war in which the SAS were effectively placed under the control of a classified American command working for General Stanley McChrystal. The gaunt American general would later emerge as a central figure in the Afghanistan conflict but at this time he was regarded with awe by a select band – the brotherhood of special operators he led in Iraq. McChrystal’s people waged a campaign in which the old rules of counterterrorism were torn up and a devastating new style of operations emerged.
It was not easy for the British to adopt this new thinking. Many of them thought they knew better. But the sprawling suburbs of Baghdad or the alleyways of old Basra had little in common with Belfast or the Balkans, where the SAS had perfected its techniques. This was not a European battlefield, but something altogether more
alien; a crazy jumble of baking heat, strange smells, and extreme violence. America’s invasion of Iraq had drawn in thousands of jihadists, people who expressed their zeal for the cause in the willingness to cut off heads or drive cars full of explosives into crowded markets. Faced with a mounting disaster, the Americans were ready to kill these extremists by the thousand, harnessing all of their formidable technology and knowhow to the task. For the British, at times, the argument between those who wanted to follow McChrystal’s plan and those who opposed it threatened to tear the UK special forces community apart. In the end, the British task force found its way through the political minefield. Although it never numbered more than 150 people, it managed to play a key role in the battle for Baghdad and the suppression of al-Qaeda in Iraq. What follows is the story of how that happened.
1
MISSION PARADOXICAL
Early in April 2003 an RAF Chinook flew through the darkness towards Baghdad. It had set out from a remote airstrip in western Iraq and was heading for the city’s airport. The pilots, highly trained special forces aircrew, scanned the land below through night-vision goggles, trying hard to keep low while racing over a desert so featureless that those who misjudged their height could easily fly into the ground.
BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) was the objective for one of the US armoured brigades that had sped up from Kuwait. But although the armour had reached it, the place was far from secure. Mortar rounds dropped in as the capital of Iraq tottered between decades of authoritarian rule and its uncertain future. The US 3rd Division’s race to the capital had been part of the overt military campaign. It came up from the south, accompanied by dozens of embedded reporters. The RAF Chinook, on the other hand, was arriving from a different point of the compass and had been part of an effort that was rarely talked about publicly.