DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ
Hawai'i troops shifted to volatile Mosul area
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
TALL AFAR, Iraq — Nearly a battalion's worth of Schofield Barracks soldiers have been shifted out of the 2nd Brigade's operating area and temporarily assigned to help the Stryker Brigade in the increasingly volatile Mosul area.
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More than 500 soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment are taking part in stepped up anti-terrorism and stabilization efforts in the region that includes Iraq's third-largest city and borders with Syria, Turkey and Iran.
More than 500 Schofield-based soldiers have moved from the Tuz area, north into Tall Afar Air Base, about 50 miles west of Mosul, Iraq. They are reinforcing a Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Lewis, Wash.
"To allow the Stryker Brigade commander to do focused operations with a higher degree of intensity, he's been given (additional) assets for a particular period of time," said Lt. Col. Dave Miller, commander of the 1-14 Golden Dragons.
The additional assets include Black Hawk helicopters, trucks, the extra "boots on the ground" and about 70 vehicles that the Schofield soldiers brought with them.
The Golden Dragons are working to stem terrorism by extremist groups, including Ansar al-Islam and the splinter Ansar al-Sunna, ahead of the June 30 transfer of government.
Insurgents are being targeted in large-scale raids. Schofield soldiers also are providing security on the Syrian border for engineers rebuilding earthen berms serving as a barrier between the two countries.
Miller said 1-14 was able to move from the area around Tuz south of Kirkuk to the Mosul area in short order.
"I think it's a credit to the soldiers and leaders of the battalion that we were able to unplug for this (new assignment) in about 48 hours of activity," he said. "Because we're light infantry, we can move very quickly in the battle space."
Schofield's 2nd Brigade Combat Team is the only Army light infantry active-duty element left in Iraq as part of a drawdown of U.S. forces from 130,000 to about 110,000 troops.
Task Force Olympia assumed responsibility for coalition military operations in and around Mosul and Irbil on Feb. 5, replacing the more than 20,000-soldier 101st Airborne Division with about 8,000 U.S. troops.
About 6,000 of that total are with the Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Lewis, Wash., the first of six such units planned and organized around 19-ton armored troop carriers called "Strykers."
A Stryker brigade with about 300 of the vehicles, which ride on eight wheels instead of tank treads, is expected to be operational in Hawai'i in several years.
The Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade's 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment at Tall Afar Air Base operates in an area that extends 60 miles west to the Syrian border. Since its arrival in January, five of its vehicles have been the hit by rocket-propelled grenades but they caused no fatalities.
"He (the Stryker Brigade commander) can put all of my forces in one area and have a dramatic effect," said Miller, the Hawai'i-based battalion commander.
Initial missions for 1-14 out of Tall Afar, now Forward Operating Base Fulda, were expected to be conducted separately from Stryker vehicle operations.
The base, about 50 miles west of Mosul, is on a vast flat prairie with no villages nearby. Schofield soldiers walk a mile to the dining facility, and there hasn't been a rocket or mortar attack since November.
But the largely Sunni Arab city of Mosul has seen a spike in attacks, particularly against Iraqi security forces and civilians working with the coalition.
Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station Jan. 31 that killed nine.
On March 28 in Mosul, gunmen shot at Iraq's minister of public works, who was unharmed, and in a separate attack, a Briton and a Canadian working as security guards were killed.
"We clearly find ourselves still countering an insurgency in the north," Army Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of Task Force Olympia, said on March 9. "We see this enemy as taking the shape of former regime elements, extremists and — as well as foreign fighters — international terrorists."
Ham said those cells are becoming increasingly desperate and isolated in Mosul, a stronghold for supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and the city where his sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed.
The region is a mix of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. The 1-14 soldiers arrived March 31, and have been readjusting to Iraqis less hospitable than in the Tuz area.
Sgt. 1st Class Len Fallis, 33, with 1-14's Company A, 2nd platoon, said in Daquq, north of Tuz, "it was more friendly, more open."
"We'd do the wave test," the Massachusetts man said. "We'd wave and everyone would wave back."
"They don't pass the wave test (in the Tall Afar area)," said Lt. Carlos Oquendo, 29, with 2nd Platoon. "That's kind of how you feel who's anti-American, who's pro-American. It's definitely different up here."
Oquendo, who's from Ocala, Fla., said he was told when the Stryker Brigade first arrived, kids threw rocks — a sure sign of how their parents feel.
Miller said he was careful about who was left behind to continue to watch over the Tuz area. Those left behind, he said, include his executive officer and liaisons to police and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.
Also, a National Guard unit was brought in and coached on the Tuz area, Miller said.
Miller said the duration of 1-14's stay in the north is less driven by time than effects.
"When we get the desired effect, we'll be reattached to the 2nd (Brigade Combat Team)," he said.
