Catching the Bad Guy

Catching The Bad Guy

How many people can say they captured a number four multi-national target? It was my platoon's job to go out and stop terrorists from continuing to demolish their own country. A multi-national target is a terrorist that is wanted in multiple nations. Not only terrorist that was targeting American soldiers, they also planned attacks against their own people. This was a frightening feeling having to be around foreign nationals on a regular day to day basis. All the hard work and training my platoon and I put in prior to deployment in Iraq, was put to test on the battlefield against our enemies.

We were living in a broken down restaurant that we took over with the Peshmerga (Kurdistan Militia) and Iraqi Army during November of 2009. My platoon and I put in a lot of time fixing it up and making it a more secure place for us to live. With help from the Peshmerga and Iraqi Army, we also had to conduct a search checkpoint for vehicles coming in and out of Northern Iraq. The Peshmerga were friendly soldiers working with us from the country of Kurdistan north of Iraq.

Besides rebuilding our Area of Operation and conducting vehicle searches, my platoon and I had to do daily missions with the Peshmerga and Iraqi Army. Our jobs as American soldiers were to train and supervise them on combat operations. It became a difficult task communicating between Peshmerga and Iraqi Army due to the fact that they both spoke different languages.

On the morning of January 12, 2010, we received our orders that our next mission was to capture Hassan Jalad, who was a number four multi-national target, and number one on our battalion's high value target list. This was an exciting but also scary day for us not knowing what the outcome could result in. As soon as we were ready to catch Hassan Jalad, we rolled out of our forward observation base with the Iraqi Army in front, followed by two of our vehicles, then Peshmerga, and another one of our vehicles taking rear.

When we drove up to the house where the intelligence report said Hasan Jalad was living, no one was seen outside. This is normally a bad sign because children are always playing soccer outside, and the only time Iraqi civilians would hide inside is when they knew something bad would happen. That left us in fear and more alert to our surroundings. The Iraqi Army and Peshmerga trucks drove up to the house while our vehicles set up outer security surrounding their property, looking for any suspicious civilians or out of the ordinary objects. We learned what type of ordinary vehicles, objects and civilians to watch out for during everyday patrols through villages.

Simultaneously, as we set up security, the wife and children of the known terrorist came outside. An Iraqi soldier asked where her husband was, and she responded with, "I don't know." All of a sudden, a male who was positively identified by one of our gunners on a vehicle pulling security was seen walking out of the house with bags of clothes. He called over the radio to our second squad leader, who brought his teams over to stop him.

During the questioning, the Iraqi soldiers and Peshmerga