Task Force Black

by Mark Urban

  TF-17’s early operations had netted an intelligence treasure trove. Analysts got to work using the same network mapping and phone record techniques that they were employing against the jihadists. But the evidence of official Iranian sponsorship of insurgent groups posed almost as many questions as it answered. Brigadier Mohsen Chirazi, the Quds Force officer arrested in Baghdad in December, had been found in the compound of Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Everyone had long believed that SCIRI and its armed militia, the Badr Brigade, were agents of Iranian influence because the movement had been exiled to Iran during the Saddam era. In fact, much of SCIRI’s middle management had grown up in Iran.

  Analysis of papers and phones tied to Chirazi and the Irbil raid revealed that the Iranians were assisting a much wider variety of insurgent groups than many might have expected. Indeed, the Irbil raid produced evidence of connections with the Ansar al-Sunna, a Sunni jihadist group that happily killed Kurd and Shia alike. Connections similarly were charted between the Iranians and elements within the Mehdi Army, even though its leader Muqtada al-Sadr insisted he was an Iraqi nationalist and bulwark against Iranian influence. Furthermore, Muqtada’s people regularly clashed with the Badr Brigade in the south. Reviewing this material, British intelligence analysts came to the conclusion that Iran would back anyone who undermined the Coalition project in Iraq and produced a weak, compliant neighbour. The captured material could not answer questions such as whether Iran’s President Ahmedinejad or Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had directed the Quds Force to set up these networks.

  The picture uncovered by these raids was so complex that it required new language among the Coalition intelligence analysts. If people within the Mehdi Army were taking Iranian money and weapons to carry out attacks on Coalition forces or elements from the Badr Brigade were doing the same, when the political line of both movements excluded direct confrontation with Coalition troops, how should they be categorised? The analysts initially called them Secret Cells, and later Special Groups, but the idea was that they were Iranian-funded extremists who had a parasitic existence within broader Shia political movements. They were, to coin the phrase applied to Sunni extremists at the time, ‘irreconcilables’. As such, the Special Groups were deemed suitable for the JSOC treatment – if, of course, they did not strike first.

  It was a meeting typical of the security coordination machinery all over Iraq. An American police liaison team had gone to the Provincial Joint Coordination Centre in Kerbala, south of Baghdad. The soldiers came from an airborne artillery battery based at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, near Iskanderiyah. Their mission that day in Kerbala was to discuss security precautions for the forthcoming Ashura celebrations. As one of the main Shia pilgrimage sites, Kerbala could expect hundreds of thousands of visitors and with them the threat of al-Qaeda suicide bombing. The pattern was already too well established for such attacks, designed to sustain the outrage caused by the Samarra bombing and many other sectarian provocations, to be ignored. So the Americans were meeting Iraqi security chiefs to discuss what needed to be done. Places like the Joint Coordination Centre had sprung up all over Iraq and were a hallmark of the Coalition trying to concert a joint approach to security as they turned over authority for policing province by province. Sites like Kerbala were heavily fortified and the American soldiers, once they’d avoided the perils of the drive from the FOB, tended to relax.

  It was around 5.45 p.m. when a convoy of black GMC Suburban SUVs came into the Centre, pulling up by the Americans’ parked Humvees. Movements by such vehicles were so routine in the comings and goings of contractors or the shadier US government types that the Iraqi guards simply waved them in. The impression of normality would only have been enhanced by the fact that the dozen or so men in the vehicles were wearing the new-pattern American combat clothing and carrying M4 assault rifles.

  Acting on excellent information, a couple of the GMCs moved around to the back of the building closer to where the security meeting was taking place. On a signal, men moved from the vehicles to attack the building front and back, initially throwing in stun grenades. They swiftly took two American officers from the meeting, dragging them out to the GMCs while a second group assaulted an upper floor. A grenade killed one and wounded three other Americans meeting in a police office. A third group of gunmen attacked one of the parked Humvees, dragging two US soldiers from it.

  Little more than ten minutes later the attackers, with their four captives bound, drove out of the compound. The Iraqi police were soon in pursuit, heading east across the Euphrates. The gunmen eventually took the decision to abandon their prisoners and vehicles in order to make good their own escape. Before they did so all four Americans were shot in the head.

  The Kerbala attack came as a body blow to the Americans. Five soldiers had been killed. Its audacity and sophistication ranked far above anything the average Iraqi insurgent network was capable of. The US Army initially put out a story that the four men had been ambushed on patrol. But the real version – that they had been abducted and murdered, with suspected Iranian involvement – was soon being broadcast. A few days after the incident, the Washington Post was given a detailed briefing on the new CII mission, presenting the revelation to its readers with the shock headline ‘US Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq’.

  The Post article carried the unmistakable hallmark of an authoritative public warning to Iran. Less well-sourced articles appeared too, alleging the Kerbala operation was an attempt to kidnap counterhostages for the ‘Irbil five’, that a mock-up of the Joint Coordination Centre inside Iran had been used to train operatives for the raid and that two senior police officers in Kerbala were under investigation for tipping off the attackers about the meeting with the Americans.

  In the aftermath of the Kerbala attack TF-17 were infused with an even stronger sense of purpose. But al-Qaeda and its jihadist allies demanded attention too. On 22 January multiple attacks killed 130 people in Baghdad. Early in February a huge truck bomb claimed 135 lives in the Sadriya district of the city. Intelligence analysts worried that the fighters driven out of Ramadi late the previous year had simply headed for Baghdad or the belts around the city, towns such as Yusufiyah or Baquba from which many of these attacks were launched.

  The commander of Delta, Colonel Grist, still had the TF-16 mission of hunting down AQI and its associated groups. A new colonel, in charge of the ‘white’ or overt Special Force Group HQ posted to Iraq, ran TF-17. ‘It was an uncomfortable relationship,’ says one who watched them face off at Balad. ‘You got this competition for resources, scarce things like aircraft or detainee facilities.’ Grist could hardly be expected to hand over his people or indeed the JOC at Balad itself to the CII team whenever they needed it.

  Lieutenant-General McChrystal wasn’t comfortable with this arrangement either, and soon had the special forces colonel in charge of TF-17 replaced by someone from the inner team, a lieutenant-colonel from Delta Force. Although this rearrangement of command roles was achieved without too much ill will, the original arrangement lived on in one important aspect. The Tier 2 special ops units posted around the country, particularly the US Army Green Berets mentoring Iraqi elite units, became actively involved in the campaign against Iranian-backed Special Groups, whereas they had only occasionally supported TF-16’s fight against al-Qaeda. In this respect the widening of JSOC’s target set was at least accompanied by a significant increase in the number of troops available to conduct takedown operations.

  What was Britain’s role in this? To many in London, particularly on the political side, Bush’s tough public rhetoric seemed like irrational hubris – why pick a fight with a major regional power or indeed Iraq’s Shia majority when Sunni militants were still so dangerous? The counter-Iran strategy also seemed like a deliberate slight towards the great and good of the US Iraq Study Group who had recommended the previous December that the administration reach out to Iran in the search
for solutions.

  In MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, or at Hereford, opinion however had hardened against Iran. The evidence of Iranian involvement, at first regarded sceptically, had become compelling. British soldiers were being killed by Shia special groups at a depressing and, it appeared, rising rate. Some of those who studied the UK intelligence picture at this national level reached the conclusion that Iran saw Britain as the soft underbelly of the Coalition. ‘[It’s] pretty hard to understand it in any other terms,’ one such official told me. ‘It’s pretty clear the Iranians would like to say they’ve forced our withdrawal.’

  Those who shared this analysis could see no problem with attacking Iraqi members of the special groups, although there were clear UK orders that Iranian nationals should not be taken by Task Force Knight. The British government also decided to exclude its forces from certain intelligence-gathering measures being taken to prepare possible strikes against Iran. All of those who I have asked insist, for example, that the SAS did not carry out operations inside Iran. But while the Coalition analysts in Iraq understood better as a result of the Baghdad and Irbil raids how these Iranian-backed groups worked, there were doubts that the British task force in Baghdad could do much about them, even within their own defined area of operations. This became a major priority for Richard Williams, the CO of 22 SAS, who once more deployed Task Group HQ to Iraq early in 2007. The new deployment, codenamed Operation TRACTION 2, was part of a specific drive to target Shia militants, particularly in the south.

  Britain had, by early 2007, devoted a huge amount of intelligence effort to building up a better understanding of the rat lines used between Iran and Iraq. This took the form of building up agent networks who understood the movement of people or goods to and from Iran and of surveillance operations along the border. It also involved some exotic new intelligence techniques. Prior to America’s move to a ‘kill or capture’ policy on Iranian agents, dozens had been arrested and then released. Many of these men were ‘biometrically logged’ and this was done in such a way that their identity could be quickly confirmed when they were arrested.

  By early 2007 British intelligence people felt increasingly confident that they understood infiltration routes from Iran, but the question of how to combat the Quds Force remained a vexed one. The Iranian officers were careful enough not to carry weapons or bombs themselves and used fake IDs. If the Iranian consultants were off limits for political reasons, what about the Iraqi management of the Secret Cells? New targets could certainly be developed for Task Force Knight, but many still harboured doubts about the possible consequences. And while this question was debated by those in charge the wind of change swept through the headquarters of the Multi-National Force. For General Casey had finally run out of road with his political masters. He had departed, and his successor arrived in Baghdad.

  15

  AMERICA’S SURGE

  On 23 January General David Petraeus stepped into the room for his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He moved forward with his distinctive gait, to a chorus of photographers’ shutters. With the announcement of his appointment to succeed George Casey and implement the new Bush Administration strategy, Petraeus had become an intensely newsworthy and controversial figure. Little wonder he quipped that morning that he had received many e-mails with the subject line ‘Congratulations – I think’.

  The challenges facing US forces in Iraq were bewildering. In Washington there was a widespread assumption that Iraq was already a lost cause. Petraeus himself conceded that events had produced the prospect of a ‘failed Iraqi state’. But there was something else in the atmosphere that morning – something toxic closer to home, a taste of the bitter partisanship generated by the President’s war. Critics of the invasion had taken a full-page advert in the New York Times with a picture of the nominee for command in Baghdad and a headline ‘General Betray Us’.

  To many of that growing number of Americans who opposed the Iraq war, General Petraeus seemed to be the man being sent out in a desperate attempt to get the President off the hook. In addition, the way in which the White House had formulated its new policy – politely greeting but ignoring the broad-based Iraq Study Group report and opting instead for the ‘Choosing Victory’ blueprint of a right-wing thinktank – had angered some on Capitol Hill.

  Petraeus knew that some in that Senate committee were willing the whole endeavour to fail. He pleaded for time. He insisted that the new strategy was different because ‘for a military commander, the term “secure” is a clearly defined doctrinal task, meaning to gain control of an area’. Petraeus said that although the new approach was a comprehensive one, involving many political or economic aspects, it was essential for security to be improved first, particularly in Baghdad. In his prepared remarks, he refrained from accusing Iran by name of involvement in the insurgency, instead referring only to ‘regional meddling’.

  Nobody had seriously thought that the general would not be confirmed in his post. Although there were some inevitable barbs from senators critical of the administration, there were equally many who paid testimony to the man’s long service.

  Petraeus was a paratrooper by training who had survived serious accidents on the firing range and drop zone. He had led the 101st Airborne Division into Iraq in 2003, taking control of the northern part of the country, including the city of Mosul. During his time there he had launched many programmes to win over the local populace and the city, despite its dangerous multi-ethnic mix, had not produced the flashpoint many had predicted. Things changed once Petraeus left. As a three-star and head of the Transition Command he had been given the job of licking Iraqi security forces into shape. There were those within the army who argued that responsibility for the failures of the Iraqi army, such as during the 2006 Baghdad Security Plan, rested at least in part with Petraeus. He had left Iraq in September 2005 to run Fort Leavenworth, the army’s command and staff college. There he headed the panel of officers that issue the counterinsurgency manual, which contained ideas, for example about securing the population, that had already been proven in Ramadi.

  The general had promised the senators that he would give them regular reports on the progress of the new strategy and in doing so demonstrated a political astuteness many colleagues had already seen. His choice of words was so careful – for example he avoided picking a fight with Iran in his hearing – that he was able to shape his message to any particular audience with great deftness. Once on his way to Iraq, Petraeus stopped in London.

  He had to brief Tony Blair on what he intended to do. He also needed to gauge the depth of Britain’s commitment to remaining in Iraq. Petraeus knew only too well that the war had become a political millstone around Blair’s neck, but needed to get a feel for the bilateral issues including whether the British division in the south would continue to withdraw come what may, and whether Task Force Knight would remain committed to the Baghdad fight. The new commander seemed sanguine about the British drawdown in the south and, alluding to the more secret aspects of what the country was doing, told one person who met him in London that ‘the UK brings considerable assets to this in the intelligence world and other areas’. Petraeus had some personal business too. He wanted to make sure that the British government would extend the tenure of his British deputy, Lieutenant-General Graeme Lamb.

  Lamb and Petraeus had become firm friends during their time as divisional commanders. One officer describes them giggling together during a command presentation late in 2003. Both, apparently, could detect the idiocy in some of the Coalition’s early plans. Knowing early in 2007 that the tenure of the Senior British Military Representative in Iraq was normally six months and that Lamb was already more than halfway through, Petraeus needed to get it extended. He had been in frequent e-mail correspondence with Lamb during the autumn and knew something about the work the British general was doing with the Awakening movement. The new commander wanted continuity in this vital task and the British government a
greed to be flexible.

  During his short stop in London, the aspects in which Petraeus really valued Britain’s contribution thus became clear: he wanted the SAS, he wanted MI6 and he wanted Graeme Lamb. He rated the Iraqi Prime Minister as weak and inexperienced. If Maliki wasn’t up to it, the Coalition needed to drive the reconciliation process.

  The first surge brigade into Baghdad, one belonging to the 82nd Airborne Division, arrived in February. In all, the Pentagon planned to add five extra brigade combat teams, two more US Marine battalions and a variety of other units totalling nearly thirty thousand. Doing this required them to strain every sinew – extending some units from twelve- to fifteen-month tours, shortening time between tours and stopping many soldiers leaving.

  Despite the effort involved, the peak troop strength would only be achieved for a short period between April and September 2007. The surge was not sustainable – not with regular units at least. The ‘Choosing Victory’ paper had envisaged a large mobilisation of National Guard brigades for a second phase, if one was required, but few regarded this prospect with relish. Petraeus had to deliver improvements in Baghdad, mollify critics in Congress and somehow – the most nebulous part of his mission – create a breathing space in which Iraqi politicians might operate more effectively.

  With these huge additional forces involved and such important political stakes, it might be wondered what role Petraeus envisaged for JSOC and Task Force Knight in all this. He told many people during those early weeks, ‘You cannot kill your way out of an insurgency.’ That was precisely the approach some of the door-kickers felt they had been applying. But, above them, McChrystal and others knew both that they were not trying to kill their way out of the insurgency (their tactics involved many captures too) and that under their new commander the special ops takedowns would continue to have a vital role in reducing the suicide bombing threat in Baghdad while thwarting Iranian influence. In fact, with the coming of General Petraeus the message to the secret warriors was to redouble their efforts.