Today in Manhunting History -- February 20, 2005: Zarqawi's High-Speed Chase

Shortly after al-Qa'ida in Iraq's failed attempt to disrupt the first free Iraqi elections in January 2005, the Joint Special Operations Task Force learned that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would be travelling on a particular stretch of road alongside the Tigris between Fallujah and Ramadi on 20 February. Delta operators and Rangers set up an ambush and waited, but Zarqawi was late. Believing they had received another false lead, the operators began packing up when a vehicle blew through Delta’s roadblock and came bearing down on the checkpoint manned by the Rangers. The Ranger M240B machine-gunner had the SUV in his sights and requested permission to fire. But the lieutenant in charge hesitated, refusing clearance because he lacked positive identification of the vehicle’s occupants. The vehicle roared past the checkpoint with Zarqawi staring wildly out the window, clutching an American assault rifle.

The Delta operators quickly took off in hot pursuit while a Shadow unmanned aerial vehicle tracked the high-speed chase from above. Zarqawi was “shitting his pants,” one operator later recalled. “He was screaming at the driver. He knew he was caught.” With the Task Force operators about 30 seconds behind, Zarqawi’s driver pulled off the main highway and onto a secondary road. The Shadow’s camera showed the vehicle slowing down. An occupant jumped out and disappeared into a nearby field as the SUV sped off.  

Inside the command center, a split second decision had to be made: should the Shadow follow the vehicle or the runner? The officer in charge, likely reasoning that the truck could move faster than the man on foot, kept the UAV on the moving vehicle.

Unfortunately, Zarqawi was the runner. When the Delta operators caught the truck, they captured his driver, another terrorist, $100,000 in Euros, and his laptop. The hard drive contained everything from tactical information to Zarqawi’s photographs of himself, which he stored in the banally titled file “My Pictures.” But Zarqawi disappeared into the shadows once again.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the murderous leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, was in U.S. gunsights and nearly captured on this day in 2005.

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