HQ$History - United States Special Operations Command

agency effort to disrupt AQIZ and capture AMZ.
By devoting a variety of intelligence resources
and increasing the operations tempo, SOF significantly
increased both the speed at which it
planned and executed and the number of terrorists
it caught. These tactics significantly disrupted
AQIZ operations, but even with the
added resources, capturing AMZ proved to be
difficult.
In spring 2006, a break in the hunt for AMZ
occurred when SOF learned the identity and
location of AMZ’s closest advisor. Instead of
launching an immediate raid to capture or kill
this terrorist, SOF monitored the advisor and
waited for any indication of a meeting with
AMZ. On 7 June, SOF learned when and where
he would next meet with the head of AQIZ.
AMZ, however, had chosen his hideout so well
that it would be nearly impossible to prevent
him from escaping if SOF conducted a raid on
the house. SOF leadership decided to call in an
airstrike and then land a ground force to do sensitive
site exploitation (SSE). An F-16 dropped
two bombs, killing both AMZ and his advisor.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had terrorized Iraq
for years. The follow-on search of the site also
uncovered documents that enabled SOF to capture
or eliminate more terrorists in the weeks
that followed.
Additional Tasks
In addition to conducting DA and advisory
tasks, SOF also took on a number of other high
priority missions. One of the most successful
was providing personal security detachments for
high-ranking members of the Iraqi government.
It was a mission where failure would be highly
visible, but success would go largely unnoticed.
Terrorists targeted key Iraqi government ministers
because successful assassinations had political
and psychological effects on the Iraqi government.
However, the terrorists were unable to
assassinate any of the Iraqi leaders who had
SOF security details.
When the interim Iraqi government was
established in June 2004, the NSWTG-AP
assumed the task of guarding key Iraqi government
ministers. The mission continued after the
Iraqi national elections of January 2005, and the
SEALs executed it flawlessly. The SEALs had
trained Iraqis to take over the security mission
135
from the start. By August 2005, the SEALs were
able to turn the mission over to the Iraqis but
remained as mentors until mid-November when
the Iraqis took over the mission completely.
In another high-priority, low visibility mission,
SOF provided Special Forces Liaison
Elements (SFLEs) to other coalition forces.
Beginning in 2004, 1st SFG (A) maintained
SFLEs with the South Korean elements in
northern Iraq, and the 7th SFG (A) sent SFLEs
to advise the El Salvadoran elements in the
Polish Division sector southeast of Baghdad.
The ODAs from 1st SFG (A) chiefly assisted the
South Korean Army in its conduct of Civil-
Military Operations. The South Korean battalion
operated in a relatively secure part of northern
Iraq, freeing the ODAs to train and advise
local Iraqi units as time permitted. The
Salvadorans, on the other hand, had a small
force operating in a hostile environment and
conducted many aggressive combat operations.
The ODAs from 7th SFG (A) assisted their
Salvadoran counterparts in the conduct of these
missions.
SOF also conducted a number of successful
hostage rescue missions. The rescue of PFC
Jessica Lynch in 2003 was the first and most
famous hostage rescue in Iraq, followed by the
rescue of several western hostages in 2004,
including U.S. citizen Roy Hallums in 2005 and
a significant number of local Iraqi citizens. In
addition, U.S. SOF facilitated the rescue of other
western hostages by coalition SOF forces.
SOF also contributed a variety of innovative
approaches to IO connected with OIF. For
example, SOF pioneered an IO effort to counter
the recruitment of foreign terrorists to fight in
Iraq. SOF worked with the Iraqi government
and other nations to return captured foreign terrorists
to their countries of origin. SOF also
publicized these terrorists’ apologies for their
actions in Iraq, announcing their disillusionment
with Jihad, and the AQIZ recruiter’s lies
that had induced them to go to Iraq.
The Evolving Threat
In February 2006, a terrorist attack on the
Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra provoked a
dramatic rise in sectarian violence between
Sunnis and Shiites. The worst manifestation of
this strife was the startling rise in so-called