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AP reporter details night raid in Iraq

Jan-15-2006 » Filed Under: 172nd SBCT

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NICK WADHAMS, Associated Press

MOSUL, Iraq - The Iraqi informant is a new source, but his tip seems solid: The chief financier of a Mosul terrorist cell, a gas station owner, lives in the neighborhood. He is wealthy enough to afford two armed guards to accompany his son to Mosul University.

Now, at 1:13 a.m., under a light drizzle, 25-year-old Lt. Mark Brogan and 13 men from his platoon crouch behind a wall, waiting for the signal to storm the house. The informant claims the financier and his son are inside. The two bodyguards, almost certainly armed, might be there as well.

At last, 16 minutes later, the company commander in a Stryker armored vehicle down the block orders the soldiers to move. The men hustle to the gate in the wall surrounding the house next door. A ladder goes up and three soldiers clamber over. They open the gate from the inside and the rest of the men stream in, crowding next to a small sedan parked inside.

Sgt. John Alvarez, the squad leader, puts his M-4 carbine to his shoulder and runs to the door, ready to smash it in.

A man stands in the doorway waiting for him.

"Down!" Alvarez shouts at the silhouette. "Get DOWN!"

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Brogan and Alvarez's unit is Alpha Company of the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment - nicknamed the "Assassin Troop," and known for the giant skull painted on plywood hanging outside the bombed-out building they call home at Forward Operating Base Courage.

They profess not to be frightened of the night's raid. They have executed more than they can count, and the operations usually go smoothly. They bash open doors, shout their targets awake and bind their hands with thick plastic restraints called zipcuffs. The captives are fitted with blacked out goggles and taken to base for questioning.

But the raid this night will be a little more complicated. [...]


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