MARSOC: The Suicide IED That Set Off an International Incident in 2007
Part 5 of The Marine Corps Left Me series
We left Torkham Gate sometime around midday and headed west. We didn’t stay on the hardball route very long before we skewed off to the southwest and headed out into open country. We took a meandering route down through the countryside while the reconnaissance guys scoped out hilltops, lines of sight, took grid coordinates and did the sort of things they do. My interpreter and me were just along for the ride at this point. We were sitting in the back seats of the 3rd vehicle in the convoy, along with the platoon commander of the Direct Action Platoon, also called 1st Platoon. Ahead of us in the first two vehicles were other members of 1st platoon, both with vehicle mounted weapons.
Now, we had some “special” Humvees compared to the average truck seen throughout Iraq and Afghanistan during that time period. I guess we had a mixture of about half and half standard Humvees and these “special” ones. When I say “special,” it was the truck version with an open back, but still had 4 seats in the cab. Normally, we had what you call the “turtle back” which is the down-angled trunk area behind the cab. On these “special” versions it was just an open-back area with up-armored walls around it. The cab still had a turret mount on the roof, but the back was open which also allowed Marines to pop up and shoot out the back. On our “turtle back” models, all we had was a roof-mounted turret. With the fully up-armored doors there just wasn’t anyway to have Marines shoot from the vehicle besides the turret. This matters to the story, as I’ll get to that point.
The vehicle right in front of us, the 2nd in the convoy, was one of these “special” versions with the open back. They had a Marine riding the turret gun mount, and there was another Marine in the back who could shoot over the sidewalls. The vehicle we were riding in was a standard turtle back Humvee, and all we had was a turret gunner. So we had our driver, the Platoon Commander (Captain) in the front seats, our turret gunner was the 1st Platoon communications chief (platoon radio operator), and in the back seats were me and my interpreter. All in all, we had 6 vehicles in our convoy. The very last vehicle in the convoy was where our company commander sat, a very prominent and vocal Marine Corps Major. Anyone who follows this bit of history knows who he is.
This is all important stuff to keep in mind, as a six-vehicle combat convoy spreads out over a great deal of real-estate when travelling on hardball routes. With 50-100 yards of separation between vehicles, there is as much as a half-kilometer between the front and back of the convoy. Anything that happens at the front of the convoy won’t be known to the back of the convoy until someone announces it over the platoon radio. At that distance, given terrain and structures in the area, personal communication radios (MBITR, ICOMs) might not even work from front to back and you’d have to rely on vehicle-mount radios. Then, there is the issue with satellite communications (SATCOM) and one more chink in the armor: the IED countermeasures system.
Under Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) we would have the countermeasure system on any time we’re traveling along the hardball (paved) routes because supposedly they work by jamming the radio signal that IEDs use to detonate the explosive. Of course that doesn’t work if the IED is hardwired to a detonation command or uses some other rudimentary command device like a tripwire or pressure plate. We also weren’t even real confident that it would actually jam a command radio signal to begin with, but when you really don’t want to lose a leg or your life you’ll cling to anything to make you feel better about it. The problem we had was that the countermeasures system also jammed SATCOM signals. That meant that unless we turned off the countermeasures system, we were out swinging with our ass in the breeze if anything serious went down. We couldn’t reach out to tell headquarters, quick reaction force, air support, or medevac. Kind of a problem.
The last half hour or so of our scenic drive through the countryside was pretty uneventful, even downright boring if you ask me. I’m not gonna lie, I was getting drowsy and the tossing and turning of the Humvee made me want to get some shuteye. Then we finished up our safari and got back onto the hardball and headed west towards Jalalabad since our adventure for the day was coming to an end. Would be a quick hour long convoy back to base, however after getting back on the hardball my drowsiness suddenly ended and the hairs on the back of my neck started standing up.
What is this strange sensation I’m feeling that I haven’t felt in quite some time? Something was amiss but I just couldn’t put a finger on it. I knew the feeling; I’d had the feeling plenty before, I think I honed it in my deployment through Falljuah and Ramadi. It’s an uneasy feeling you get down in the pit of your stomach that taps into some adrenaline and sharpens your senses. You’re looking, you’re listening, you’re smelling, but you’re not sure what for. It brought me square out of my slumber and I was ready, but for what?
The feeling persisted for what seemed another 5-10 minutes as we drove west along the hardball, and then we entered the area of the Bati Kot market. It had been a fairly silent ride to that point; not much radio chatter or side conversations in the Humvee, just everyone minding their own business and watching their sectors. Then it happened. We were rolling through the market area of Bati Kot when I saw a blue van coming toward the convoy in the opposite lane of the highway. It passed our first vehicle, and then just as it was about to pass the second it swerved violently towards it and detonated. It was a massive fireball. It didn’t seem like any standard IED I witnessed in Iraq.
The artillery shells normally used in Iraq IEDs were massive concussion waves with shrapnel and explosive force without much fireball. This one seemed to be short on concussive force and heavy on the fireball. Also, it didn’t blow the Humvee off the road or even seem to damage it much. It knocked the turret gunner senseless and broke his arm, and it knocked the rear truck bed gunner down too. The convoy immediately came to a stop.
A quick survey revealed that we lost no one, we took one minor injury, and all equipment was still functional and mobile. We were still whole and mission capable at this point, but this is where sides of the story diverge and the whole thing went from not-so-bad straight into international incident with numerous dead innocent men, women, and children and a cover-up operation. This is where I depart from the generally accepted version that got traction with those who had and still have an agenda. This will be the part you haven't heard up until now.
To be continued…