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Big fish gets away from scouts

Oct-30-2006 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

SEAN COCKERHAM; The News Tribune

MOSUL, IRAQ – The Stryker armored vehicle ground to a halt in front of a market that was a maze of pungent spices, bright fabrics and used T-shirts.

“We’re looking for a suicide ops guy,” said Lt. Blake Hall of Lakewood, leader of the scout platoon from Fort Lewis. “He’s a pretty big fish.”

Army officials believe this insurgent leader is responsible for everything from bringing foreign fighters into the country to coordinating their suicide bombings.

The Sunni insurgency in this northern city of 2 million people is mostly homegrown. But Hall said all the suicide bombers he’s heard of during his four months in Mosul were brought in from outside Iraq.

Suicide attacks have been a major threat here in recent weeks, targeting Fort Lewis Stryker brigade soldiers as well as Iraqi police and armed forces. Hall’s scout platoon has captured several bad guys lately. But Saturday’s mission showed some of the big obstacles Fort Lewis troops face in fighting an unseen enemy that can melt into the local population.

This is what the scouts do almost every day: Look for insurgents. Sometimes they find them, sometimes they don’t.

Soldiers from Lightning Platoon fanned out into a market area and blocked exit routes. They lined up more than two dozen young males and a handful of women wearing traditional head-to-toe burqas, checking for weapons and identification. A donkey hitched to a cart calmly took in the scene.

“I want everything out of their pockets. Everything,” said Staff Sgt. Armando Zavala, a 25-year-old from Fort Lewis. [...]


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