HQ$History - United States Special Operations Command

itself exceptionally well throughout the campaign.
Operating primarily out of Kuwait, ODAs
from CJSOTF-W infiltrated into Iraq on 19
March. Their primary purpose remained the
prevention of Iraqi SCUD launches, and they
accomplished their mission as not a single
SCUD was launched against the coalition.
Directing U.S. and allied aircraft, the detachments
dominated the vast terrain of the western
desert and quickly overwhelmed the Iraqi mili-
Karbala Gap hide site.
tary. ODAs also secured key terrain, including
the airfield at Wadi al Khirr and the line of communication
(LOC) on the outskirts of Najaf. In
one of the key actions of the invasion, ODA 551
provided SR of the LOC passing through the
Karbala gap, keeping it open for 3rd ID’s movement
into Baghdad. In the early days of the
operation, all of the SF teams in the western
desert were in contact with the enemy.
Remarkably, the ODAs suffered no casualties, a
testament to their planning, training, and leadership.
In southern Iraq, the primary tasks of
CJSOTF-W remained target acquisition. MH-
53s from the 20th SOS) inserted ODAs deep into
Iraq to provide surveillance of Iraqi troop movements.
Directing air strikes, the detachments
supported the advance of the ground campaign.
Additional ODAs in the south worked with Iraqi
nationals sympathetic to the coalition cause and
were able to identify and root out Fedayeen soldiers
(Saddam loyalists), Ba’ath party members,
Regime Death Squads, and other terror cells.
CJSOTF-N, dubbed TF VIKING, certainly
had a more difficult task staging and inserting
its forces. Turkey had denied access to both its
123
air and land space for coalition forces. The
forces of TF VIKING would have to insert into
northern Iraq under extremely daunting circumstances.
While TF VIKING had advance elements
in Iraq prior to hostilities, these detachments
were probably not sufficient in number to
thwart a large Iraqi assault, much less secure
key objectives originally tasked to 4th ID. Since
4th ID could not move through Turkey to northern
Iraq, TF VIKING would have to fill this void.
Beginning 22 March, MC-130s flew through
heavy Iraqi anti-aircraft
fire and landed
SOF team members.
One of the MC-130s
took so much fire it was
forced to land in
Turkey. The incident
did result in Turkey’s
subsequent lifting of its
airspace restrictions.
In the meantime, the
352nd SOG managed to
insert 51 ODAs into
northern Iraq within
the next several days.
On 19 March, the initial ODAs in KAZ
directed air strikes on to Iraqi positions. As
CJSOTF-N forces arrived from various parts of
Europe, TF VIKING orchestrated an offensive.
On 28 March, ODAs from FOB 103 and 6,500
Peshmerga attacked Ansar al Islam(AI)—an al
Qaeda (AQ) affiliate—in a fortified enclave that
housed 700 heavily armed terrorists near Iran.
Within 30 hours, the combined force crushed the
terrorist pocket. Through a subsequent series of
coordinated attacks along the Green Line, the
5th SFG (A) resupply site.