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JD Johannes spent a month in Karmah, Iraq in 2005. On the last day of last mission, the unit he was embedded with was hit with an IED. He returned to Karmah on March 25th, 2007, embedding with Blackfoot 1-501.
Specialist Jason Stegall knew something was wrong. The white tanker truck stopped on the dusty ribbon of asphalt south of OP Omar, then crept forward past the warning signs and into the serpentine twists of concrete barriers.
A second later Stegall fired a sustained burst from the 7.62mm machine gun mounted in OP Omar's tower number 2.
The next thing he knew he was laying on his back staring at the ceiling.
BAD KARMAH
Six miles east by north east of Fallujah, Al-Karmah and its surrounding villages sprawl across the Euphrates canal country. Dirt roads lined by 8-foot-tall reeds follow the larger canals, feeding countless irrigation ditches that bring crops to life in mesopotamia.
The region is home to some 15 tribal/extended family sets, many share cropping or squatting small tracts of land.
Karmah is a rough town. Every major city in the U.S. has that rough town down road. For Baghdad, Fallujah is the rough town, filled with criminals, toughs and assorted high-jackers. Karmah is Fallujah's rough town down the road.
In mid 2006, the Marines were getting a handle on Karmah. An Iraqi Army Battalion was working in the city and the local police force was operating.
As the Marines pulled out, giving more and more responsibility to the IA, the IA failed to live up to their commitments. The Iraqi Army battalion, as lax as it was, was shipped out to Baghdad.
When the IA left, the police force dissolved and the local criminals, in alliance with Al-Qaida in Iraq, filled the vacuum.
Karmah had become a victim of economics. All resources are scarce and have alternative uses. There are only so many coalition and Iraqi military units and they can be used in other areas or in other ways.
As the situation in Baghdad deteriorated, the battalion was sent from Karmah to the Capital 15 miles east.
The situation in Karmah was dire.
The Islamic extremists imposed Sharia law and instituted Sharia courts.
Residents suspected of supporting the Iraqi government or of opposing AQI were tried, invariably convicted and swiftly punished.
Many former police officers were executed, their severed heads put on display.
Beheading is old hand for the Jihadists in Karmah. In 2004 and 2005, a group called the Green Battalion became well known for their butchery.
By December of 2006, Karmah was rapidly becoming a leading statelet in the Islamic Republic of Jihadistan.
GERONIMO
The 3rd Battalion of the 509th Parachute regiment and Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute regiment did not jump into Karmah on December 26th, 2006, they drove and found hundreds of IEDs greeting them.
A Christmas present from AQI.
"In that first month we were engaging or being engaged almost every day," said LTC Val Keaveny, the commanding officer of 3-509.
The paratroopers in many ways started from scratch and in COIN operations that means gathering and acting on intelligence.
"Our kinetic operations are very targeted and based on intelligence. We gather and then act on intelligence."
For the paratroopers, that means covering an area of operations 10 miles North/South and 18 miles East/West. And they do it on foot from small, company sized outposts. OP Omar, the outpost the furthest north, is manned my Blackfoot 1-501.
In the era of up-armored vehicles and counter IED gadgets, the paratroopers have found the best technique to defeat IEDs is to walk, to cut cross country and keeping eyes on any threat.
Over the course of three months the number of IED emplacements has dropped as has the frequency of small arms engagements.
The daily patrols, designed to separate the insurgents from the residents has worked to varying degrees in developing actionable intelligence.
One piece of intelligence the paratroopers of Blackfoot 1-501 acted on resulted in the shutting down of a hijacking operation and rescuing two IP officers who were about to be executed.
More recently, Blackfoot was able to snatch two Battalion High Value Individuals in a night operation.
But many missions are boring exercises in gathering census data, handing out publications and talking to residents.
Effective intelligence gathering and counter insurgency operations can be very tedius.
But as much progress as has been made by the paratroopers, AQI is still capable of mounting complex attacks.
SHAHEED
A group of paratroopers and one embedded filmmaker were standing on the west porch of OP Omar. The porch isn't much of sun porch, as it is covered with a one foot concrete roof and enclosed by concrete barriers and sand bags.
As the Specialist Stegall fired a sustained cyclic burst into the cab of the tanker truck, the soldiers began to move into the squad bay. Someone said it was a test fire, which paused a few people until the 1,000 pounds of explosives blasted through the camp.
Stegall put over 70 rounds into the cab of the truck before it rolled to a stop 50 yards away from the south wall. The driver was dead, a martyr, shaheed, even before the 1,000 pounds of explosives were triggered.
The overpressure from the blast knocked paratroopers inside the compound to the ground and sent shrapnel flying for hundreds of yards.
Seconds later a hail of AK-47 and RPK fire rained on the fortifications of OP Omar.
"I got back up and was engaging targets to the south and west," Stegall said. "I wasn't thinking. It happened too fast."
Inside the squad by the paratroopers, some in PT shorts and combat boots, others with no shirts under their kevlar vests itched to join the fight, running ammo to the towers and manning the ramparts.
For several minutes the din of gunfire reigned over the city of Karmah.
THE MIRAGE
"I saw the blast wave coming at me. If we had been moving a little quicker, the S-VBIED would have taken us out," said Staff Sgt. Bradley Mort.
A squad from 3rd Platoon concluding a patrol to the east and making their way back to base when the truck exploded.
"We started taking fire and sprinted 100 yards to the Mirage."
The Mirage is a newly constructed house 500 yards east of OP Omar. Two stories tall and surrounded by a seven-foot-wall, the Mirage is prime real estate for insurgents trying to hit Omar from three sides.
The squad made it to the wall, but was being penned in by fire from the south.
DUMP TRUCK
A soft spoken southerner who looks younger than his 28-years, Stegall fell into the rythm conditioned by paratrooper training, giving little thought to the danger he was in and barely noticed a second truck bomb rumbling towards him.
Sight, squeeze, sight, sqeeze. The 240B machine guns firing 7.62mm rounds and the Squad Automatic Weapons firing 5.56mm rounds fired in controlled burst to supress the enemy.
A second truck, this time a dump truck, drove north into the raging fire-fight. Rounds poured into the cab, the driver was already dead as the truck rolled into the crater from the first truck and exploded.
"There was so much gunfire, I didn't hear the second one," Stegall said.
SHARP SHOOTERS
A small circle of calm paratroopers gathered. Their uniforms looked like everyone elses, which is to say mostly incomplete. Kevlar vests over t-shirts or bare skin, some in pants, some in shorts, but what set them apart were the weapons they carried--scoped M-14 carbines or scoped M-4s.
The sit rep was quick amid the gunfire. First squad was penned down. They were to get up on the roof and provide cover fire so the squad could get inside the Mirage.
The documentary filmmaker quickly asked if he could go with them to the roof. Before anyone with authority could answer, with a sensible 'No,' Specialist John Hegland volunteered to take him.
Video of Hegland and Johannes heading to the roof is available here.
Out the back door, up the back steps to the roof, the gunfire continued. Hegland made it clear in no uncertain terms the reality of moving across a rooftop during a coordinated attack.
Moments later they crested the roof and the enemy shifted fire from tower one to the two targets of opportunity.
Specialist Billy Knipper was already in tower 3 on the roof. Another sharpshooter with an M-14, a .308 caliber carbine loaded with specialized ammunition was taking well aimed shots as the enemy showed themselves to the south and east as Hegland and Johannes barreled into the cover of the tower.
The squad made it into the Mirage, extending the base of fire from Omar even further, and allowing angle-back shots on the enemies eastern flank.
On the roof, Knipper and Specialist Lynch scanned for targets as the machine guns continued to chew up enemy positions and then, over the course of a minute, it all stopped.
GHOSTS
No brass, no bodies, just a little blood was all that was left as evidence that AQI had staged a complex attack on OP Omar.
AQI, in its more sophisticated attacks, leaves very little behind--not even the brass from machine guns.
Teams carry bags to catch the links and brass from machine guns. Anther team moves the bodies of dead or wounded for casualty evacuation. Others are assigned to drive cars or bongo trucks for the exfiltration.
Paratrooper squads punched out immediately after the shooting stops often only find traces of blood in buildings used by AQI as firing positions.
Soon after the firing stops, traffic resumes and the market opens again.
The paratroopers joke about secondary threats like spiders and light up a smoke.
EPILOG
AQIZ's attack on Blackfoot, 1-501 was a dismal failure.
The two SVBIED plan is for the first to breach the wall or knock out a tower, allowing the second to enter the OP's compound.
The only thing the SVBIEDs accomplished was creating a crater 25-feet deep and 70-feet in diameter 50 yards from the south wall of OP Omar.
If a coalition assault on an AQIZ base ever failed so miserably, the press and certain members of Congress would be in an uproar. But AQI doesn't hold press conferences and conflates the facts in its press releases.
No American service members were killed. Only one was wounded seriously enough to warrant a medevac--a large piece of shrapnel in his arm.
The fact that AQIZ was able to stage a complex attack on OP Omar should be taken for what it was--an attempt at the spectacular that was a spectacular failure.
In the days after the attack, there was little no enemy contact in OP Omar's district and only limited contact in the Karmah AO.
I will not hazard a guess as to whether another complex attack is in the wings for Omar or any of the other OPs in Karmah, but my anecdotal experience is that once AQIZ gives it all they got in an area and fail, they lose their grip.
I expect as the debates rage in Congress, AQIZ will step up the rate of complex attacks.
The enemy was not able to dislodge the paratroopers of Blackfoot from OP Omar, but Congress may be more successful.
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