From there, they began their combat foot patrol into the thick, knee-deep, muddy fields underneath date palm groves lining the riverbank as a screening force for Alpha Company, staging back at the plant.
Fifty minutes into the journey, the platoon sergeant shut off the boat’s engines, silently drifting the shadowy serial of watercraft downstream to the clandestine landing area. The Zodiac boats, standing only inches above the river’s surface and straining with Soldiers laden with weapons and body armor, began their long trip upstream powered by quiet outboard motors. Radical Islamists operating from across this seemingly impassable river obstacle continued their slow, grinding campaign of attrition warfare, aimed at wearing down coalition and Iraqi security forces, through incessant use of improvised explosive devices, IEDs, and sporadic mortar and Katyusha rocket attacks.Īlpha Company, living within the plant’s massive, concrete and rebar wire-lined infrastructure, has been dealing with these daily attacks, carefully expanding their local network of informants, waiting patiently for their moment to strike back. forces living in the plant would be hard-put to cross its bridgeless banks, separated by 250 yards of deep, swift and muddy water. Since then, local insurgents sought refuge across the river, knowing that the combined Iraqi and U.S.
Coalition forces then converted the large abandoned plant into a forward patrol base for a combined force of two U.S. In late October, Soldiers of Task Force 2-14 forcefully expelled the former Abu Musab Al Zarqawi-inspired Sunni jihadists who represented the terrorist group Mujahidin Shura Council in a bold nighttime raid. There they will launch merciless attacks against the unsuspecting to gain headlines that fuel the division of American support for the war. Until recently, this power plant served as a sanctuary and rest stop for Al Qaeda terrorists funneling foreign fighters and material – a waypoint before the trip through the rat-lines into the heart of Iraq. The impoverished tribal village sits on the opposite bank of the Euphrates, literally in the shadow of the large partially-constructed Russian Thermal Power Plant. All are fully aware that compromising their vulnerable position will make them easy prey for attacks by insurgents known to inhabit the village. Each is crouched in low silhouette, embarked into four black rubber Zodiac boats on the eastern bank of Iraq’s Euphrates River.įor more than 45 minutes, the infantrymen of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division wait in ghostly silence for the go-ahead call to commence their covert infiltration of Owesat Village on the far bank. Reg't., 2nd BCTĪ bright March moon provides near-perfect ambient light for the scout platoon about to launch on the waterborne raid of a lifetime. John Valledor, Commander, 2nd Bn., 14th Inf.