CHAPTER 9

Plan

Leif Babin

RAMADI, IRAQ: HOSTAGE RESCUE
“They have IEDs buried in the yard and bunkered machine gun positions
in the house,” said our intelligence officer with a grave look of concern.
It was a hostage rescue mission, the ultimate high-stakes operation:
not only bad guys to kill, but an innocent victim to save. We had trained
for missions like this, but they were rare. Now Task Unit Bruiser had the
opportunity to execute such an operation for real.
A young Iraqi teenager, the nephew of an Iraqi police colonel, had
been kidnapped by an al Qaeda–linked terrorist group. They demanded
his family pay a $50,000 ransom and threatened to behead the young
man otherwise. Kidnappings and beheadings were common occurrences
in Ramadi and Anbar Province in those days. Often the hostages were
tortured or killed, even if the family paid the ransom. These terrorist
kidnappers were evil people, plain and simple, and could be counted on
to carry out their gruesome threat. For Task Unit Bruiser, there was no
time to waste. We needed to put together a plan in a hurry, brief that plan
to our troops, and launch as soon as possible.