9781422277133

SPECIAL FORCES: STORIES Rescue from an ISIS Prison!

Delta Force in Iraq During the War on Terror

SPECIAL FORCES: STORIES

Captured! Bringing in 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Going After Sparky! Pararescue Jumpers Bring Vietnam War Pilot Home Rescue from an ISIS Prison! Delta Force in Iraq During the War on Terror Saving Private Lynch! A Rescue Story from Operation Iraqi Freedom Storming the Somali Pirates! Navy SEALs Save Hostages Take Out Bin Laden! Navy SEALs Hit the Most Wanted Man A Terrorist Goes Down! Delta Forces in Syria Take Out an ISIS Leader World War II Prison Breakout! Army Rangers Make Their Mark

Rescue from an ISIS Prison! Delta Force in Iraq During the War on Terror

By Diane Bailey

Mason Crest

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com © 2019 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4077-9

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-4080-9 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7713-3 First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Bill Madrid Production: Sandy Gordon

www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover photograph by US Army. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the publisher.

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C ontents

Introduction: Mission Briefing…….…….…….…….…….…….……. 6 1. Mission Report: A Fighting Force …….…….……. 10 2. Enemy Contact …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……. 16 3. Mission Report: Living in Fear …….…….…….……28 4. Mission Report: Gear Up … .…….…….…….…….……40 5. Heating Up …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……44 6. Mission Accomplished …….…….…….…….…….…….…….……52 Text-Dependent Questions …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….60 Research Projects …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….… 61 Find Out More …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….62 Series Glossary of Key Terms …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…63 Index… .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….64 Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic mo- ments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains ter- minology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field. Key Icons to Look For

I t was a couple of hours past midnight on the morning of October 22, 2015, when thirty US soldiers from the army’s highly trained Delta Force turned out for their mission. They wore the patchy, sand-colored uniforms of desert camouflage, and peered through night-vision goggles that turned the dark- ness into an eerie green landscape. Semiautomatic rifles were slung over their shoulders and first-aid kits were packed in their backpacks. Between them they had years of battlefield training and experience. They knew they were about to get a fight, and they were ready for it. Joining them near the city of Hawija, in northern Iraq, were nearly fifty Kurdish soldiers—known as peshmerga —who were similarly equipped. The peshmerga were from the Kurdistan region, an independent area of about 30,000 square miles (78,000 sq km) located along the northeastern border of Iraq. The US and peshmerga soldiers were close allies, fighting alongside one another in the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS, one of the world’s most extreme, powerful, and dangerous terrorist groups. The temperature hovered in the low 70s as the whine of engines and the hypnotic thunking of helicopter blades cut through the early-morning quiet. Crewed and ready, the helicopters waited to take the soldiers to an ISIS- controlled prison about 4.5 miles (7 km) north of Hawija. M ission B riefing

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Hidden in the shadows, Delta Force operators are the “go-to” team when the US needs a special job done.

The soldiers’ mission that morning was clear, but it was far from easy. Intelligence reports had come in and painted a grim picture: the Kurdish sol- diers had received information that deep within the compound, about twenty of their fellow peshmerga were being held as prisoners. Worse, the prisoners were not going to be alive much longer. They were scheduled to be executed soon after the sun rose. Were the reports true? No one could know for sure. But there was an omi- nous sign: aerial surveillance showed that outside the prison, long trenches had been recently dug. They were empty, for now. But both the Kurdish and American soldiers knew all too well what they were. Graves. Their job now was to keep them from being filled.

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A Risky Plan The peshmerga are an elite force of soldiers. Their name translates to “those who face death.” Even so, the peshmerga knew that ISIS’ strength and ruth- less methods made them a formidable enemy.

Hawija

Baghdad

The prison targeted by the Delta Force was located north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in Hawija.

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ISIS militants had occupied Hawija, a city of about 100,000 people, for more than a year, and their pres- ence was well known to everyone who lived there. After forcing their way into the city in 2014, they main- tained control by building a wall of sand 10 feet high and planting minefields of handmade IEDs (impro- vised explosive devices) that would be lethal to any trespassers.

Peshmerga history

The terrorist group used any reason—or no reason at all—to show its muscle. They murdered their enemies and even innocent people in the most brutal ways. In the days leading up to the October raid, ISIS soldiers had killed several citizens and hung up their bodies around the town—a warning to those who remained. So when the peshmerga got word that ISIS had imprisoned their fellow soldiers and were planning to kill them, they knew that staging a rescue would be difficult and risky. They would need a good plan to breach the prison and they would need help pulling it off. The Kurdistan Regional Government put out a plea for help from the Amer- ican Delta Force troops stationed nearby. For years, the US and Kurdish sol- diers had worked with each other to conduct military operations against ISIS. Everyone knew the risks, but there was no way they were going to knowingly let ISIS murder more people. Together, they were going in.

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1. MISSION REPORT : A FIGHTING FORCE T he “war on terror” became an international concern after al-Qaeda, a terrorist group from Afghanistan and Pakistan, attacked the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. But terrorism itself has a much longer history. Terrorist acts differ in important ways from conventional warfare. In conventional war, opposing sides engage each other in deliberate ways that are generally known to the other side, such as on a battlefield. Terrorists, however, use secret methods that are difficult to oppose. There is little or no advance warning of an attack. They often target civilians to instill fear and try to force their enemies to do certain things. Until the middle of the 20th century, US wars were mainly of the con- ventional kind. That began to change in the 1960s with the Vietnam War, when guerrilla fighters changed the landscape of war. These small groups moved more quickly and secretly than regular soldiers. They ambushed and sabotaged their enemies. To survive in this new environment, US troops needed a way to effectively fight back.

Words To Understand guerrilla irregular or surprise methods of fighting, often by small groups reconnaissance surveying an area to collect strategic information about it

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A former football star, Charles Beck- with started out in the Green Berets before forming Delta Force.

A New Force An American army colonel, Charles Beckwith, suggested forming small groups of highly trained soldiers into direct-action units that could mobilize quickly. They would be trained with special skills needed to take on mis- sions that were particularly risky. At first, Beckwith’s recommendations went nowhere. Officials at the Pentagon, where military decisions were made, weren’t interested in the idea. But as terrorist attacks increased across the globe, Pentagon officials started to appreciate Beckwith’s idea. In 1977, Beckwith formed the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–DELTA. The new force was designed specifically as a counterterrorism unit. It would specialize in reconnaissance missions and hostage rescue. Beckwith spent the next two years getting his force up and running.

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MISSION REPORT : A FIGHTING FORCE

The 1979 capture of the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, was a turning point in the development of Delta.

First Missions On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students took over the US Em- bassy in Tehran. They took 52 US diplomats as hostages, and US President Jimmy Carter denounced it as an act of terrorism. For months, the United States worked to get the hostages freed, but every effort failed. As the situ- ation became more and more tense, Carter finally turned to a military solu- tion. In April 1980, the president authorized Delta Force to plan a mission to enter Iran and free the hostages. Unfortunately, Delta Force’s first mission—called Operation Eagle Claw—was a failure. Not all the helicopters that were supposed to go to the scene arrived. Colonel Beckwith, who was commanding the mission’s ground

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forces, decided to scrap the operation. That was disappointing enough, but then things got even worse. A blinding desert dust storm hit, and in the chaos a helicopter crashed into a plane carrying fuel and soldiers, causing an ex- plosion. Both aircraft were destroyed, and eight soldiers were killed. Operation Eagle Claw was a setback for Delta Force, but it was not an ending. Instead, the military fine-tuned the program, establishing addi- tional teams for missions that required special support by air or water. In

American helicopters in ruins after a disaster during an ill-fated hostage rescue attempt in Iran.

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MISSION REPORT : A FIGHTING FORCE

How do we know this is a model and not a real Delta operator? Real Deltas do not let their photos be taken.

1983, Delta Force was back in action again, helping to free prisoners in the Caribbean island country of Grenada. Then, in 1989, Delta soldiers helped overthrow Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama. By 1991 Delta Force missions had reached the Middle East, a volatile, and often violent, region. Its people were divided by religious and ethnic dif- ferences, and its nations wrestled with economic and geographic conflicts. Meanwhile, the American way of life depended on oil that came from the Middle East, so the United States government was also concerned about what happened there. It was stepping up its military involvement in the area, and Delta Force was a key part of the strategy.

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