Chasing the Ghosts

The order for the main force to move comes on Sept. 2. That day, in an armored squadron pushing into the city from the north and the south, Grim Troop's Blue Platoon, dubbed the Dragoons, enters from the southeast along an artery code-named Route Corvette, into a predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood. Within 30 minutes, they come under sniper fire. A three-man sniper team from the élite Iraqi Counterterrorism Task Force (akin to the U.S. Delta Force), with a pair of U.S. special-forces liaisons, takes positions in front of the platoon, scanning for muzzle flashes, as an Abrams tank 50 yards up Corvette fires its 120-mm cannon at an insurgent mortar team, followed by a burst of .50-cal. machine-gun fire. A helicopter swoops ahead, firing a Hellfire missile at the insurgent position to help clear Blue Platoon's path. The helicopters kill at least a dozen insurgents by firing missiles into safe houses. At day's end Blue Platoon pulls out of the city to a rendezvous point in the desert, but fresh intelligence suggests the insurgents are displaying their mettle and have fallen back into well-defended positions. This enemy is not a rabble.

The Dragoons re-enter Tall 'Afar at 6 a.m. the next day, linking up with two Iraqi army infantry companies of Kurdish peshmerga and the U.S. special-force teams attached to them. The mission is to begin "draining the pond," as U.S. officers call it--clearing civilians from what is about to become a battlefield so that the insurgents could not blend back into the fold. The scenes are heart wrenching: the Kurds burst into houses as families gather for breakfast, ordering them at gunpoint onto the street with only the possessions and provisions they can grab in a few seconds. Women wail, and children cling to their mothers' sides, as they head to temporary camps on the city's fringe. Although explosions can be heard in the distance, the town takes on an eerie silence. "The city has never been this quiet," says a U.S. special-forces officer. "They're either getting ready, or they've left." Captain Brian Oman, the leader of the Dragoons, wonders if the homegrown "bad guys" are going to put down their weapons and sneak out with the civilians. "We'll be fighting them again in a week," he says.

It doesn't take that long. In the morning, the U.S. and Kurdish special forces begin moving north, toward Sarai, through the stone-paved alleyways. Within minutes, they are ambushed. The U.S. commanders rush machine-gun teams to the rooftops to pour out suppressing fire as the others advance below, clearing houses as they go. Anguished families come rushing out, caught in the cross fire and herded by the soldiers to the relative safety of the edge of town. A little girl cups her ears with her hands and wails each time firing breaks out. A 5-year-old boy gingerly waves a white flag. Insurgents duck and weave across housetops a few blocks away, trading fire as they withdraw back into their nest in the Sarai neighborhood.

The Green Berets pursue them onto Route Barracuda. Fire fights rage from one side of the street to the other, the combatants as close as 55 yards apart. Bradleys from Red Platoon pull forward, pounding the enemy firing positions; then the insurgents shift buildings and fire from new locations. Only after an Apache attack helicopter sends missiles into two insurgent buildings does the firing stop.