Excerpt from ‘Sniper: American Single-Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan’ - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Excerpt from ‘Sniper: American Single-Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan’

Rolling out of a U.S. compound anywhere southwest of Baghdad meant being ready for anything. The area was known as the Triangle of Death and had lived up to its name formidably.

In both directions along the banks of the Euphrates River and along the main supply routes used by the U.S. military coalition, a maze of ditches, berms, irrigation canals and farmland, tall grasses, and narrow footpaths became a place for U.S. soldiers and Marines to die.

The endless string of roadside bombs that killed most of them were supplied and resupplied by innumerable weapons caches buried throughout the valleys and plains west of the Euphrates River, an infinite desert that extends to the borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria.

When the sniper teams with 1st Battalion, 67th Armor of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team rolled out on their missions from the corroded Soviet-era power plant they called home, they never left without their high-value target list.

The mission that sticks out most in Sgt. Ben Redus’ mind is the one in May 2006 when he and his team “eliminated Abu Omar.”

The team’s infiltration route, concealment, and tactics were flawless, and it arrived at the house it planned to watch at the time it planned to get there. The team members walked in darkness over coarse farmland a distance of nearly 10 kilometers.

Redus was the point man, Pfc. Christopher Lochner walked behind him, Staff Sgt. Timothy L. Kellner, the sniper section leader, took third position, and Sgt. John Nebzydoski, who was tapped to provide extra security, brought up the rear. They wore ghillie suits, but the terrain was crisscrossed with elevated roads that would have silhouetted the men if they’d walked on them. So they skirted the lower edge of one of the elevated roads until they reached a crop of date palm trees where they could move a little more freely.

After walking all night, the snipers arrived at the outer edge of the targeted property. At the edge of the property, a 15-foot drop led to a small drainage ditch. Behind that was a larger drainage ditch with intermittent reeds rising as high as 10 feet. The team set in on the far side of the larger ditch, nestled into a nice little saddle that allowed them to stay underneath the edge while still using the reeds for concealment. The barrel of the suppressed M24 sniper rifle was aimed at the house but concealed by the reeds.

Between them they had the M24 with a 10-power scope and three M14 rifles. Redus had a 40-power spotting scope, the kind that looks like a fat, mini-telescope, and Lochner was on the M24.

The sun began to rise about an hour after they set in and no sooner had the area been washed in fresh light than they saw a man come out of the house.

They suspected ... it was [wanted man Rasool Bandre Aass Fayhen Al Janabi], but the grainy computer printout of his face left room for doubt. They watched him walk over to a neighbor’s home [with] a small box that he placed on the doorstep before returning to his house.

The door opened a crack, and a man stepped out, scooped up the box, and quickly went back in and shut the door.

About three hours had passed since the first man had walked over to his neighbor’s house, when the neighbor came out and walked over to the first man’s house. Using his 40-power scope, Redus easily identified the neighbor as Abu Omar, “a terror cell leader with Syrian connections. He controlled and funded IED emplacement teams all across western Iraq.”

The two men sat on low benches, the man who looked like Rasool to the side, facing Omar’s left side. Omar sat and rested his elbows on his knees. The neighbors were 336 meters away from the barrel of Lochner’s M24.

Redus and Kellner confirmed to each other that they had positively identified Omar, and each had a strong feeling about Rasool, but a strong feeling wasn’t enough to shoot him.

What Kellner saw definitively were the blasting caps and detonation cord in Omar’s hands. Kellner had already given Redus the okay to set up the shot, so Lochner was ready.

He recalled Kellner saying to them, “Spotter up, shooter up. Send it.”

The team was rewarded with a “crack” and saw a bit of trace as the bullet struck Omar squarely in the spine between the shoulder blades.

“Omar did not move. I could see the blood pooling up on his shirt, but they just sat there and nothing happened,” Redus said.

Rasool kept talking with Omar, who still had his elbows planted on his knees. He sat there motionless while [nearby] children played and the women worked.

About a minute later, the team saw one of the children come over to say something to Omar, who didn’t respond. When the child touched his arm to get his attention, his body slumped over dead. Rasool stood in shock, and the children and women burst into screams of hysteria.

Lochner was ready to take another shot but didn’t have to. The terror had had its effect and launched a series of events that enabled them to capture the man they thought to be Rasool.

With the quick reaction force on the way to pull the snipers out, they continued to watch the yard as a Toyota pickup truck with about five men inside pulled onto the scene and loaded Omar’s body into the back. As they began to pull away, Nebzydoski fired a shot from his M14 rifle into the vehicle, and every man, including Rasool, got out with his hands up, looking around in fear, trying to figure out where the next shot was going to come from.