DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ
Golden Dragons display quick-strike capabilities

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

AMADIYAH, Northern Iraq — When Schofield Barracks soldiers came calling on this town of 20,000 in the middle of the night, it was with a show of firepower its residents will not soon forget.

A Hawai'i-based soldier keeps watch from a rooftop of a compound being searched in Amadiyah, Iraq.

One of six UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters arrives to pick up soldiers from 2nd Platoon, Company C, 1-14 Infantry Regiment before a battalion-sized night raid in Amadiyah in northern Iraq. The Golden Dragons captured four of seven midlevel insurgents targeted in the raid.

First Lt. Frank Deerr, leader of Company C's 2nd Platoon, talks on a radio during a search of a home suspected of anti-coalition activities.

An Iraqi woman protests the temporary detention of her family during a search of her home by Charlie Company. Photos by Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

The 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry Golden Dragons were there to capture seven midlevel targets — and send a message to those who support insurgents.

"The message is: 'We know where you guys are. We're only a few steps behind you, and we're going to close on you. So it's in your best interest if you are involved in this to stop,' " said Lt. Col. Dave Miller, 1-14's commanding officer.

Demonstrating how flexible the 25th Infantry Division (Light) can be in Iraq, the battalion was moved on short order out of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team's regular area of operation and temporarily assigned to the Stryker Brigade in the Mosul area to the northwest.

Already, the battalion has been moved again, packing up and moving out in a day's time to an area in the south.

Miller said the recent mission west of Mosul was a success, resulting in the capture of four of the seven individuals being sought along with the father of the other three, without needing to fire a shot.

Foreign influence, jihadists and ethnic militants are being targeted as the U.S.-led coalition tries to quell insurgency ahead of the June 30 transfer of government.

The village of Amadiyah is predominately Arab, but its residents live in a Turkomen area and speak Turkomen.

"Capturing these guys will definitely put a significant dent in the ability (of terrorists) to organize and carry out acts in this area," Miller said of the four who were picked up.

Questioning often leads to even better intelligence — the same technique that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein, Miller added.

The Golden Dragons had timed perfectly an air assault to the north with blocking and search groups moving up from the south in the village code-named Objective Honolulu.

For Pfc. Dennis Galli, a 20-year-old soldier with Charlie Company, the operation began at 2 a.m. as he waited with his comrades in a field near Tall Afar airfield, about 20 miles south of "Honolulu."

Black Hawks appeared out of the darkness as if in slow motion. The aircraft landed and the men climbed aboard.

The darkened choppers, whose instruments cast a faint green glow, flew low across farm fields, and touched down only long enough for about 10 soldiers to pile out of each.

Galli made a dash across a moonlit grassy field near a boy's preparatory school to search Objective Kahala, a compound of two-story brick and concrete houses.

The man sought there wasn't home, but his two brothers were, and they eventually led soldiers to his location in town.

The Golden Dragons had been told bodyguards might be present. None were there but that didn't diminish the adrenaline surge.

"There's no feeling like it. It's the same rush before a football game," said Galli of the raid as he guarded the outside of the house. "You've got a million things running through your head."

Inside, soldiers searched for contraband as one of the women in the house wailed and wrung her hands.

"Tell them as long as everyone cooperates, everything will be just fine," 1st Lt. Frank Deerr, 24, Charlie Company's second platoon leader, told an interpreter.

A pile of suspect items soon accumulated on the Terrazo tile floor of a large foyer: An AK-47 rifle found hanging in a woman's dress. An old shotgun. Papers in Arabic.

The two brothers, flexcuffed behind their backs and with empty sandbags over their heads — standard treatment for detainees — were turned over to 1-14 soldiers in another part of town. Deerr was led to an older man in a red-checked headdress who turned out to be the father of three of the suspects.

The man told Deerr that one of his sons was at a home a few blocks away. There, soldiers found 20-foot adobe fortresslike walls and a similarly tall iron gate with a metal door. A shotgun blast opened it up.

In rooms off a large interior courtyard, they found a couple of AK-47s, but not the man they were looking for.

The father "kept saying, 'I don't know what my sons do. I'm not responsible for their actions,' " said Deerr, who's from Alexandria, Va.

Miller said a UAV flying overhead spotted several men running from soldiers in the darkness.

"The operator could say, 'They just ran into this house in this yard, and he's on the roof,' " Miller said.

Miller added it was a successful operation in which sizable air and ground elements were coordinated to hit the village.

"That's a bit tricky to get down," he said. "But it worked out very, very well."