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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Today in Manhunting History -- January 30, 2005: The Iraqi Election

After Abu Musab al-Zarqawi  formally affiliated himself with al-Qa'ida in December 2004, he tried to undermine the event the Bush administration hoped would mark a turning point in the Coalition’s flailing counterinsurgency effort. In an internet audiotape posted a week before Iraq’s first free election in half-a-century, Zarqawi warned: “We have declared an all-out war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology.” Given his demonstrated ability to slaughter large numbers of Iraqis gathered in public places, his threat to fill the streets with blood – were taken seriously. Yet Zarqawi proved no more effective at preventing the elections than Sandino had been in Nicaragua 75 years earlier. Despite AQI’s threats and more than 100 armed attacks on polling stations on January 30, 2005, more than 8.4 million Iraqis voted to select a 275-member assembly and transitional government, with only 44 deaths on election day.

RARE PERSONAL INTERJECTION!!!  In January 2005, I worked on the Iraq desk in OSD-Policy, and spent the night of January 29-30 (8PM to 8AM) in the State Department's "Situation Room" as an observer/crisis responder .  Even those of us who were (perhaps naively) optimistic about the course of the war expected massive casualties that day, and were prepared to issue talking points as to why the (anticipated) hundreds, potentially thousands of casualties would not derail Iraqi democracy.  But an amazing thing happened as voting progressed throughout the night (roughly corresponding to 4AM-4PM Iraq time): the expected reports from the field of polling stations being bombed or Iraqi voters being gunned down in the street in mass atrocities never arrived.  Instead, the television screens were filled with images of multiple generations of Iraqi families walking miles to vote, or of purple-fingered tribal members dancing in joy.  Obviously, Iraq's troubles were far from over in January 2005, and much of the idealism of that day was lost amidst the increasing violence of the next two years.  But it is easy to forget the surprising success of that day, and the incredible courage of the Iraqi people. 

Today in Manhunting History -- November 16, 2004: The Fall of Fallujah

During the April 2004 Marine offensive, the CIA determined the torture studio in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi murdered Nicholas Berg was located in Fallujah’s Jolan District. Major General James Mattis proposed joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols in Jolan to pursue Zarqawi, but the ineffectual commander of the “Fallujah Brigade” declined. In June, U.S. aircraft began dropping pamphlets over Fallujah urging residents to turn in Zarqawi, who had a $10 million bounty on his head. But this effort also produced no tangible results.

U.S. forces began kinetic action against Zarqawi’s network in Fallujah through the only means available to them, killing 18 Iraqis in an airstrike against a suspected safe house on June 19. On July 1 the reward for Zarqawi’s capture was raised to $25 million, the same amount as for Osama bin Laden. In August, U.S. forces began conducting almost nightly airstrikes against targets in Fallujah believed to be affiliated with the terrorist. Although Zarqawi himself was never touched, his organization suffered significant losses, including the deaths of Abu Anas al-Shami, his spiritual advisor, and Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, a Palestinian advisor described as his right-hand man.

On October 14, the Iraqi Interim Government raised the stakes when Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi warned insurgents: “If Zarqawi and his group are not handed over to us, we are ready for major operations in Fallujah.” When the leaders of Fallujah’s insurgents refused, U.S. forces launched a massive offensive to retake the city. For over a week, U.S. forces engaged in intense house-to-house fighting against heavily fortified positions defended by approximately 3,000 insurgents, destroying much of the city in the process. Major combat in Fallujah effectively ended with the destruction of Zarqawi’s command center on November 16. Although U.S. commanders determined that Zarqawi had fled the city before the offensive, Zarqawi later released an audiotape condemning Sunni clerics for abandoning him in Fallujah. While the offensive deprived Zarqawi of a key base of operations, his influence and prominence, as well as the levels of violence in Iraq, only increased.

Today in Manhunting History -- July 1, 2004: Zarqawi's Bounty

U.S. commanders began to focus intently on hunting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after the March 2004 massacre of an estimated 185 Shi’a pilgrims celebrating the Ashura festival in Karbala and Baghdad. During the abortive offensive on Fallujah the next month, Task Force 121 operators (who four months earlier had pulled the fugitive Saddam Hussein from his spiderhole) approached Marine commanders for help to insert “certain devices” in a house near city hall that would aid the search for the Jordanian. The mission was scrubbed, however, for fear that inserting such a small force into the middle of hostile territory in an urban battlefield would lead to a reprise of Mogadishu.

Consequently, early attempts to apprehend Zarqawi were dependent upon a decidedly unsupportive local population. When the CIA determined the torture studio in which Zarqawi murdered Nicholas Berg was located in Fallujah’s Jolan District, Major General James Mattis proposed joint U.S.-Iraqi patrols in Jolan to pursue Zarqawi. But the ineffectual commander of the “Fallujah Brigade” declined. In June, U.S. aircraft began dropping pamphlets over Fallujah urging residents to turn in Zarqawi, who had a $10 million bounty on his head. But this effort also produced no tangible results.

U.S. forces began kinetic action against Zarqawi’s network in Fallujah through the only means available to them, killing 18 Iraqis in an airstrike against a suspected safe house on June 19.  On July 1 the reward for Zarqawi’s capture was raised to $25 million, the same amount as bin Laden.

Zarqawi's wanted poster before the bounty was raised to $25 million.

Today in Manhunting History -- June 7, 2006: The Death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

A week after Rahman had evaded the U.S. drone attempting to tail him, another Predator picked him up at his mosque late in the afternoon of June 7, getting into the blue sedan. The drone followed him as he made his way northeast out of Baghdad, staying on the highway for about 40 minutes into Diyala province. Near Baqubah, the car turned onto a minor road and pulled up to a white, two-story farmhouse at the edge of a date palm forest in the village of Hibhib. No other buildings were nearby. Rahman opened the passenger door, exited the sedan, and walked inside the house, trailed by his driver. As the Task Force officers watched through the Predator camera, a man wearing a black dishsasha walked from the house to the edge of the paved road. The man looked to his right, then to his left, before walking back inside.

Everybody was certain it was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A 2004 wanted poster of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

 As the Predator tracked Rahman, a Task Force assault team sat in a helicopter on the tarmac at Balad. The moment Zarqawi’s location was revealed they were airborne, en route to Hibhib. Yet the Task Force commander decided not to wait for the shooters to get into position. With no heavy concentration of Coalition troops in the area, it would take time to muster a ground assault comparable to those that snagged Saddam and his sons. Moreover, a large ground force would likely be seen by Zarqawi’s lookouts, who would subsequently warn the Jordanian. Even if a force could cordon off the farmhouse, storming the structure would likely result in a firefight, and the resulting confusion might allow Zarqawi yet another opportunity to slip away. Consequently, the commander decided to call in an airstrike.

Two Air Force F-16Cs who had spent the day conducting aerial reconnaissance for roadside bombs were quickly located. The pilots were told only that the target was “high value.” Although one of the planes was hooked up to a refueling plane, the second jet was ordered to peel off and fly solo for the mission, something “that is not done in the Air Force,” underlining the urgency of the mission.

In Balad, Task Force members waited, watching the farmhouse on a grainy black-and-white video. Suddenly, the screen grew dark, and billows of gray smoke emerged in four directions around the house, “in the shape of a cross.” At 6:12PM the jet dropped the first laser-guided 500-pound bomb, creating a blast so large villagers said the earth shook. About two minutes later, before the smoke had cleared, a second blast produced a smaller, more contained plume of white smoke. Both bombs hit the target, leaving nothing but a pile of rubble and twisted metal in a grove of splintered palm trees. Other than a pair of thin foam mattresses and a small carton of pineapple juice, little else inside the house was intact.

Several local Iraqi men raced to the sound of the explosions and pulled Zarqawi from the rubble, unaware the man they were trying to rescue was the most wanted man in Iraq. As they dragged him from the ruins, an ambulance and Iraqi forces arrived. The Task Force operators arrived at about 6:40PM, fast-roping from Black Hawk helicopters. They took the stretcher which lay Zarqawi upon and placed it on the ground. Because of numerous reports that Zarqawi slept in a suicide belt, they tore off his dishsasha. But despite his declaration that he “would rather blow [him]self up and die as a martyr – and kill a few Americans along the way” than be captured, it turned out the vicious killer was wearing nothing but boxer shorts under his robes.

Zarqawi spat blood and drifted in and out consciousness. When he realized American soldiers were standing over him, he attempted to roll off the stretcher and escape. The operators re-secured him and tried to save his life. Although he had no external injuries except for a few cuts, his breathing was labored and shallow, his lungs collapsed from the concussive blast waves of the airstrike. Finally, at 7:04PM, his breath faded and his pulse gave out, his last sight an American soldier.

Abu Musab Zarqawi after the airstrike that successfully ended the strategic manhunt.

Today in Manhunting History -- May 31: Losing al-Rahman

Since May 20, Task Force 145 had been following Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's spiritual adviser, Abd al-Rahman, waiting for him to get into the blue sedan that indicated he was en route to meeting Iraq's most wanted terrorist.  Finally, after eleven days of waiting and watching, on May 31 a Predator observed Rahman switching cars to a blue sedan.

The sedan weaved through Baghdad traffic, making numerous turns to shake any possible tail. After one sudden turn it disappeared behind a tall building. The Predator’s camera panned up and down the street, but could find no sign of the car. The Predator flew around the building, continuing to pan its camera in all directions, but the blue sedan had simply vanished, and with it possibly the best chance of catching Zarqawi to date.

Little did the Task Force realize they would get another shot a week later . . .

Today in Manhunting History -- May 20, 2006: Following Abd al-Rahman

In the early hours of April 16, 2006, SEAL Team Six and Army Rangers conducted a raid on an "Anger Brigades" safe house in Yusufiyah, a small town 20 miles southwest of Baghdad.  One of the men detained was “Abu Haydr,” a genial 43-year old with a penchant for Harry Potter books, whose girth nearly buckled the white plastic chairs in the interrogation rooms. For three weeks he was questioned twice daily but gave up nothing. Finally, an interrogation ruse tricked the Iraqi into revealing the existence of Abd al-Rahman, a Sunni cleric from a mosque in Baghdad’s Mansur district. “He is Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s personal spiritual advisor,” Abu Haydr said. “If you want Zarqawi, watch al Rahman.” He said that whenever they met, Rahman would change cars a number of times in the middle of his trip. Only when he got into a blue sedan would he be taken directly to Zarqawi.

On May 20, Task Force 145 began watching Rahman's every move, hoping it would lead to Iraq's most wanted man.

Today in Manhunting History -- May 11, 2004: The Murder of Nicholas Berg

Although he had operated an al-Qa'ida sponsored training camp in Afghanistan and killed an American diplomat in Amman, Jordan, Abu Musab al Zarqawi was largely unkown to Americans until Secretary of State Colin Powell invoked him in his February 2003 presentation at the United Nations as the link between al-Qa'ida and Saddam's regime.  On the second day of Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 40 U.S. cruise missiles were fired at a terrorist facility near the northern town of Khurmal in hopes of killing Zarqawi.  Yet by the time the Coalition invaded Iraq, the Jordanian had already fled across the Iranian border.

Zarqawi fell off the U.S. radar screen after Baghdad fell in April 2003.  As Coalition forces focused on hunting Saddam, he was lumped together with other foreign Arab terrorists.  In the summer of 2003 Zarqawi moved back to the Sunni areas of Iraq and, beginning with the bombing of the UN headquarters, masterminded an eight-month wave of suicide attacks across Iraq.  Whereas other insurgents targeted Americans or other Coalition military personnel, Zarqawi's network terrorized Shi'a civilians with attacks in market places, cafes, and other crowded, everyday locations.  This spree of suicide bombings culminated with the murder of an estimated 185 Shi'a worshippers celebrating the religious festival of Ashura in twin bombings in Karbala and Baghdad.




Nicholas Berg moments before his beheading by Abu Musab al Zarawi

 Zarqawi's reputation for barbarism, however, was sealed on May 11, 2004, when a video titled "Sheikh Abu Musab Zarqawi Slaughters an American Infidel" appeared on an Islamist web site.  The video showed a thin, bearded man wearing an organge jumpsuit -- who identified himself as Nicholas Berg of West Chester, Pennsylvania -- bound and seated before a row of five men dressed in black, their faces obscured by scarves and ski masks.  One of the masked men, later identified as Zarqawi, read a proclamation in Arabic.  "For the mothers and wives of American soldiers," the short, stocky man said, "You will receive nothing from us but coffin after coffin slaughtered in this way."  The men then pushed Berg to the floor as Zarqawi produced a long knife from his shirt.  He stepped forward and put the blade to Berg's neck.  As the men yelled "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great!), Berg's bloodcurdling screams filled the air.  Zarqawi began to saw until Berg fell silent, and finally held the American's decapitated head to the camera.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi was now the most wanted man in Iraq.