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http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f...925-980445.php

Stryker soldiers fend off suicide attacks during border town fight

By Matthew Cox
Times staff writer


RAWAH, Iraq — Insurgent forces launched two suicide car bomb attacks against U.S. soldiers Monday in the second day of fighting in this small city near the Syrian border.
The first suicide attack came at 2:45 p.m., as soldiers from 2nd Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment were patrolling the streets of the city, located in southwestern Iraq just north of the Euphrates River.

That’s when a car bomb detonated near one of 2-14’s three Stryker combat vehicles. None of the soldiers inside the armored vehicle were injured, but the explosion set ablaze a nearby Iraqi fuel tanker.

The patrol quickly started hunting for a white sedan, believed to be the spotter vehicle in the attack.

Within minutes, a quick-reaction force made of about 30 soldiers from 1st Platoon of B Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment rolled out of a newly established combat outpost three kilometers north to re-enforce the patrol.

On the way, 1st Platoon leader 1st Lt. Matthew Uremovich was directed to the bridge crossing the river on the city’s west end , where elements of the patrol had stopped a white sedan .

A military-aged male stood with his hands up near the vehicle as Uremovich’s Stryker crosses the bridge. Just then a pickup truck approached rapidly in the opposite lane.

From inside the Stryker, Staff Sgt. Jason Hughes rotated the remotely-operated .50 caliber machinegun atop the vehicle and fired off a three-round burst at the truck. The pickup exploded violently within 50 feet of the Stryker.

Uremovich, who was standing up in the front hatch of the Stryker, ducked down as the truck disintegrates, hurling the engine block into the front of the armored vehicle. “Everybody OK?!” Hughes shouts, turning around to check the nine infantrymen and two Army Times reporters in the back of the vehicle.

Again, no Americans are injured in the blast.

As a precaution, Hughes shoots several bursts from the .50 cal., at the white sedan and another nearby parked car to make sure they aren’t additional car bombs. Soon both ignite into orange flames, sending thick black smoke skyward.

Uremovich and his soldiers then filed out of the back of the Stryker to check the scene.

The Iraqi male that was standing near the white vehicle has vanished. It’s unclear if he slipped away at the last second or was obliterated in the blast. Small pieces of human flesh littered the scene along with a Nike sneaker with a foot still inside that landed on top of Uremovich’s Stryker.

Overlooking the wreckage at the base of the bridge is a city welcome sign bearing a graffiti message that, translated, states “Fighting Americans is the duty of every Muslim.”

Uremovich’s platoon from 3-21 and the patrol from 2-14 are part of a battalion-size task force under 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) based in Mosul, roughly 143 miles north of here.

Elements of the battalion arrived here late Saturday night to set up a permanent combat outpost here. The move is part of an effort, involving Army, Marine, Air Force and special operations forces to prevent what is believed to be a strong presence of foreign terrorists from crossing the Syrian border into Iraq.

“We are here to project combat power into an area where there hasn’t been much in the past,” said Lt. Col. Mark Davis, commander of 2-14’s taskforce.

Marines with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, who have clashed with insurgent forces over the past few months, will continue to operate south of the Euphrates. Davis’s task force will now be responsible for the area north of the Euphrates River along the border .

Monday’s double bomb assault was the second against coalition forces here in the past two days.

On the unit’s first day here, Davis and B Company, 3-21 commander Capt. Mark Ivezaj led a joint U.S. and Iraqi Army patrol into town to gauge the attitude of the local population.

Before entering the city, Sheik Raad Naif Haroush, commander of an Iraqi Army battalion out of Qayarrah, told the Americans that the people here were friendly the last time he visited in 1997. But a few minutes later, insurgents waiting in ambush attacked the column of four Strykers and eight Iraqi Army pickup trucks.

Ivezaj was standing up in the turret when the enemy triggered a roadside bomb next to the Stryker riding in front of him. Then enemy machine gun fire opened up on the patrol.

Ivezaj ducked quickly then came up firing his M4 carbine at an insurgent machinegun position. “Nine o’clock!” he shouted to his soldiers in the other two hatches, pointing out the enemy position.

Ivezaj fired off another pair of rapid shots and hit the machine-gunner.

“He’s down!” he shouted.

He shoots a few more rapid pairs of shots before running out of ammunition.

“Reloading!” Ivezaj shouted ducking down into the hatch. That’s when Sgt. Todd Usack fireed a three-round burst from the .50 cal.

“Coming back up!” Ivezaj shouted. He and Usack continue to fire .

A brief cease-fire is interrupted when the enemy fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the column. But they flew harmlessly over the vehicles.

Ivezaj’s Stryker halts a few blocks up the street. He and two other soldiers and an interpreter run out the back of the vehicle and enter a nearby house.

“Get down! Get down! Get down!” the soldiers shouted at the occupants. They cleared the house and headed upstairs to the roof.

From the rooftop Ivezaj and his soldiers cover 1st Sgt. Joseph Alexander and a group of five soldiers as they begin searching nearby houses . The city of 20,000 was ghostly quiet, the streets deserted.

“Friendly my ass,” Ivezaj says. “Every time someone has said that to me we have gotten hit – every single time.”

Despite an exhaustive search, the insurgents who launched the ambush had vanished.

Still, Ivezaj requested close air support to drop a Joint Direct Attack Munition bomb on the building that housed the ambush position.

Davis said OK and the one-story concrete building is demolished in the wake of the 500 pound bomb’s deafening explosion.

Later Sunday evening, Ivezaj characterized the enemy’s first ambush as nothing more than the opening round.

“All they did today was to figure out what type of response we have, and what we can bring to bear,” he said.

“That’s all they did today.”