may use for potential cover and concealment.
When an MK-19 is fired, the 40mm High Explosive (HE) projectiles look a great deal like baseballs, moving at about the same velocity as a pop fly to center field. The Green Berets of 3rd Group arced those 40mm rounds right into the nests of the terrorists, and within thirty minutes, the first ridgeline was seized and the PUK militiamen stormed the hilltop in victory.
It was too soon to celebrate, however. This was only the beginning, and the first ridgeline was only the initial outlying enemy position. Now came the dangerous part: they would first have to move down the road toward the tiny village of Dekon, where part of the Ansar al-Islam was headquartered. After that first lookout post was destroyed, there was no doubt that the enemy camp was gearing up for a desperate last stand.
Once Dekon was seized, they had to take a road north to the second objective, a village called Gulp. To get to Gulp, the attackers would have to continue climbing into the mountains, and navigate a switchback in the road that looked on the maps like a textbook âambush alley.â If they made it that far, there would still be the final approach to the third village, named Varogat.
Varogat itself would be even more hazardous, as it sat in a bowl-shaped depression surrounded on three sides by steep, high ground that would obviously be used for defensible positions by the Ansar. As it happened, it would turn into the enemyâs âAlamo,â as one Special Operator described it.
The assault on Gulp itself, along narrow footpaths, became harrowing as the combined force swept into the village and across the objective. The enemies had retreated onto the high ground again, where their weapons were trained down upon the advancing force. If the rain of fire had been a downpour before, it was now an absolute deluge.
The Green Berets and the PUK guerrillas were pinned: they could do nothing but lie there and hope that the support teams behind them could suppress the torrent of enemy fire that blasted all around them. It was 0715 hours.
Luckily, an Air Force Combat Controller attached to one of the ODAs was able to locate a Navy F/A-18 Hornet streaking by in the distance. On command, the pilot loosed two five-hundred-pound bombs on the hilltops, and the fire let up a bit from the enemy emplacements. Not good enough for the Green Beretsâthe now sporadic fire had to be entirely stopped. Not one of the Americans had been hit yet, but the erratic fire was deadly serious, nonetheless.
The adept Navy pilot ignored the SOP of maintaining thirty-five-thousand-foot ceiling, and dropped in fast and low for a Vietnam-style gun run on the last remaining enemy pockets on the high ground northeast of Gulp. His 25mm auto cannons ripped through the terrorists with a pinpoint precision that amazed the Peshmerga assault force. The battle was effectively over, forty-five minutes after it had begun.
The Pesh took the high ground, and the village of Gulp was swept through and cleared. The remaining stragglers from the Ansar dropped their weapons and feigned surrenderâbut the Green Berets knew their schemes from their Afghan experience only a year earlier. From a safe and armed distance, they instructed those who remained to drop to their knees and begin disrobing.
The few outwitted terrorists who were left detonated their hidden suicide vests, evaporating in a puff of smoke and a rooster tail of wet dirt, leaving behind nothing but a small pothole in the mud of the village. These fanatics would not be taken alive: they were a different breed of men than the virtual cowards of Saddamâs army, and it sent a chill through the Kurdish line.
The Ansar defenders who had not been captured or killed in the gun run disappeared over the crest of the hill, toward the Iranian border, and toward the third and final objective, Varogat. Varogat was more or less saddled across the border between the two nations.
When an MK-19 is fired, the 40mm High Explosive (HE) projectiles look a great deal like baseballs, moving at about the same velocity as a pop fly to center field. The Green Berets of 3rd Group arced those 40mm rounds right into the nests of the terrorists, and within thirty minutes, the first ridgeline was seized and the PUK militiamen stormed the hilltop in victory.
It was too soon to celebrate, however. This was only the beginning, and the first ridgeline was only the initial outlying enemy position. Now came the dangerous part: they would first have to move down the road toward the tiny village of Dekon, where part of the Ansar al-Islam was headquartered. After that first lookout post was destroyed, there was no doubt that the enemy camp was gearing up for a desperate last stand.
Once Dekon was seized, they had to take a road north to the second objective, a village called Gulp. To get to Gulp, the attackers would have to continue climbing into the mountains, and navigate a switchback in the road that looked on the maps like a textbook âambush alley.â If they made it that far, there would still be the final approach to the third village, named Varogat.
Varogat itself would be even more hazardous, as it sat in a bowl-shaped depression surrounded on three sides by steep, high ground that would obviously be used for defensible positions by the Ansar. As it happened, it would turn into the enemyâs âAlamo,â as one Special Operator described it.
The assault on Gulp itself, along narrow footpaths, became harrowing as the combined force swept into the village and across the objective. The enemies had retreated onto the high ground again, where their weapons were trained down upon the advancing force. If the rain of fire had been a downpour before, it was now an absolute deluge.
The Green Berets and the PUK guerrillas were pinned: they could do nothing but lie there and hope that the support teams behind them could suppress the torrent of enemy fire that blasted all around them. It was 0715 hours.
Luckily, an Air Force Combat Controller attached to one of the ODAs was able to locate a Navy F/A-18 Hornet streaking by in the distance. On command, the pilot loosed two five-hundred-pound bombs on the hilltops, and the fire let up a bit from the enemy emplacements. Not good enough for the Green Beretsâthe now sporadic fire had to be entirely stopped. Not one of the Americans had been hit yet, but the erratic fire was deadly serious, nonetheless.
The adept Navy pilot ignored the SOP of maintaining thirty-five-thousand-foot ceiling, and dropped in fast and low for a Vietnam-style gun run on the last remaining enemy pockets on the high ground northeast of Gulp. His 25mm auto cannons ripped through the terrorists with a pinpoint precision that amazed the Peshmerga assault force. The battle was effectively over, forty-five minutes after it had begun.
The Pesh took the high ground, and the village of Gulp was swept through and cleared. The remaining stragglers from the Ansar dropped their weapons and feigned surrenderâbut the Green Berets knew their schemes from their Afghan experience only a year earlier. From a safe and armed distance, they instructed those who remained to drop to their knees and begin disrobing.
The few outwitted terrorists who were left detonated their hidden suicide vests, evaporating in a puff of smoke and a rooster tail of wet dirt, leaving behind nothing but a small pothole in the mud of the village. These fanatics would not be taken alive: they were a different breed of men than the virtual cowards of Saddamâs army, and it sent a chill through the Kurdish line.
The Ansar defenders who had not been captured or killed in the gun run disappeared over the crest of the hill, toward the Iranian border, and toward the third and final objective, Varogat. Varogat was more or less saddled across the border between the two nations.
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