The convoy moving out of the Iraqi Army headquarters picked up speed as it cleared the edge of town and headed toward the first low ridge of hills four miles to the northeast. Bill Carroll sat in the rear of the dilapidated truck the Kurds had loaded with two goats and vegetables to take to the marketplace in Irbil and counted the vehicles as they roared past. His truck had been forced to pull to the side of the road by the lead armored personnel carrier, a Soviet-built BTR-60. Five more of the eight-wheeled ten-ton APCs passed, the last one swinging its 14.5 mm and 7.62 mm turret-mounted machine guns on them.
“I count six APCs in the lead,” Mustapha Sindi said.
“Figure fourteen troops inside each one,” Carroll said. He was worried about the attack he had planned and organized for the Kurds — suspicion that the Kurds might blame him for a defeat would not go away. “That’s a good armored car, you’ve got to be careful around them.” Mustapha only shrugged. Like all Kurds, the Pesh Merga tended to forget heavy odds against them in battle.
The two men counted twenty-four ZIL-157 trucks, each packed with troops. “About twenty to twenty-five to a truck,” Mustapha observed. “Good trucks, we could use some of them.” Two more BTR-60s passed, one a command vehicle. Another twelve trucks passed, heavily loaded with supplies. Four BTR-60s brought up the rear.
“They separate their supplies and personnel,” Carroll said. “We need to change our tactics. It’s not enough, the Iraqis have got to commit more troops before we attack.” He dug a small Israeli-made field radio out of a sack of vegetables and started to transmit. Mustapha pounded on the roof of the cab and told the driver to go on into Irbil.
Ghalib al-Otaybi sat in the commander’s seat of the command BTR60 monitoring the radios, the noise of the two GAZ-49B engines muffled by his headset. The freshly promoted muqaddam, Iraqi equivalent of lieutenant colonel, was leading his first operation as a newly appointed battalion commander. Both rank and command came from family connections and friends who had insured his combat experience in the Iran-Iraq war had been limited to the safety of a rear-echelon headquarters.
Now he noted the traffic on the road heading for the marketplace in Irbil, if anything lighter than normal, and by the time his convoy entered the first low range of hills the traffic had all but disappeared. The next seven miles leading to a small village nestled at the base of a steep escarpment were covered on time, and Otaybi saw nothing that indicated the Kurds were active in the region. Their intelligence was wrong and the prisoner had lied. He would settle up that when they returned. He keyed the radio, ordering the convoy to close up when the lead BTR reported the village in sight.
Ahead of him, unseen, over three hundred Kurds were running to new positions after receiving Carroll’s latest radio message.
Otaybi’s rear guard had cleared the village when the convoy came under attack. “Small arms fire,” the lead gunner reported, closing his hatch and crawling into the turret. A hail of 7.62mm bullets rained down on the aluminum skin of the BTR ricocheting harmlessly into the air. The gunner swept the hillside with a burst of heavy machine gun fire as the driver accelerated down the road. Three BTRs followed him while the last two halted, stopping the unarmored trucks behind them, ready to act as a shield. Men poured out of the trucks, searching for cover.
The last armored car was less than a hundred yards beyond the village when a turbaned boy of sixteen popped up from behind a rock with a dark green tube — a U.S.-made, Israeli-supplied light antitank weapon. The small rocket with a shaped charged warhead streaked toward the BTR less than forty yards away. The Iraqis never saw the boy or the shot that penetrated the aluminum armor and gunner. Now the boy ran for cover while two more LAWs riddled the BTR. The last hit blew askew the two wheels that steered in tandem on the left side, and the momentum of the BTR slued it to the left, blocking the road …
From the safety of his armored car in the middle of the convoy, Otaybi ordered his dismounted troops to sweep the area to the rear and the village, to shoot any Kurd on sight, armed or unarmed, woman or child.
The soldiers sweeping the village reported no activity or Kurds, and the village was known to be friendly. A hit-and-run attack, nothing to stop him, the battalion commander decided. Otaybi had convinced himself that the Kurds were not as brave, or as suicidal, as the Afghanis and too weak and disorganized to put up any resistance in force. He radioed for two of the BTRs surging ahead to return to the convoy and for the other two to scout the road. Most of the men clambered back into the trucks while a detail zippered the dead BTR gunner into a body bag and the three wounded men were treated and taken to the village. None was seriously hurt, and Otaybi radioed the division headquarters in Irbil to send an ambulance. A BTR pushed its destroyed mate to the side of the road and the convoy resumed its chase …
The Kurds who had attacked the rear of the convoy could still see the dust of the disappearing trucks when they approached the destroyed BTR and started packing it with high explosive charges. The smell of blood was still fresh inside the armored car. Only when they were finished did they send a message to Carroll that the road could be sealed off …
The two BTRs scouting ahead reached a bridge twelve miles down the road thirty-three minutes later, radioed their position and were told to secure the bridge and wait for the convoy. The lead armored car did not cross the bridge but waded the river and climbed the far bank to reach the other end. The three Kurdish patrols watching the bridge from different vantage points each sent a runner to the rear.
When the convoy reached the bridge Otaybi sent a demolition team to inspect it. They reported finding two satchel charges wired to the girders of the central span, noted the fuses were wired to a small transmitter, and withdrew. Otaybi sent them right back to disarm the charges. Two hours later the team exploded the satchels in the river gorge a half mile downstream, and Otaybi felt the area secure enough to crawl out of his BTR as he sent his trucks across the bridge.
The high-pitched shrill of incoming mortars shattered his confidence. Explosions echoed down the river gorge, adding to the confusion and making it impossible for Otaybi’s commands to be heard. He leaped into the BTR and slammed the hatch shut, locking his driver out, as the bridge disappeared in a geyser of smoke and sounds. The Iraqi demolition team had missed the two-hundred-pound charge the Kurds had buried at the base of the far pylon. The attack ended as quickly as it had started, and Otaybi could only stare at the ruins of the bridge, with most of his troops on the far side of the six lead BTRs.
He grabbed the radio’s mike and ordered his men and BTRs to ford the river and reform on his side, abandoning the trucks. A BTR leading the return nosed over the embankment and presented the tail of its boat-shaped hull to the sky. An 84mm Carl Gustav antitank missile streaked from the hillside and punched a hole in the engine compartment. Otaybi saw a tail of flame erupt from the disabled BTR before he heard the muffled explosion and saw the two hatches flop open and men spill out. A fresh hailstorm of small-arms fire and mortar rounds swept over his Iraqi troops, driving them for cover. The battalion commander cursed in frustration when he saw the two-man team that had fired the Carl Gustav scamper over the top of the ridge to safety.
Suddenly, it was quiet again. Then a series of explosions from the rear of the convoy resonated through the river valley and the leading shock wave rocked the command BTR. Panicked, Otaybi yelled into the mike, trying to reestablish contact with his rear guard. Nothing. He cracked his forward hatch and ordered the driver to send a squad to check on the rear of the convoy. No answer. Fear was his only companion as he jabbed at the radio, sending a plea for help to Irbil.