A deadly group of terrorists have set up a base deep inside Iraq. They have been cooking up chemical weapons and need to be taken out. So, an elite special forces unit. The green berets are sent in. It's something I think every SF guy aspires to. You want to be at the very tip of the spear. Be the front element. They have to work with a group of local guerilla fighters. We were like, "Oh, wow. All right, now it's on. We got some hardened fighters in challenging mountainous terrain." They knew this was going to be a very difficult fight. This is the inside story of Operation Viking Hammer. How a small group of men defy the odds in pursuit of one of the most important counterterrorism missions of the Iraq War. It's the first hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Baghdad. Dad. Saddam Hussein's regime is being hit with a devastating shock and awe bombardment. The Iraqi capital is pummeled for hours by multi-million dollar high-tech weaponry. What few Americans realize is their military planners are also targeting a different problem. that is hundreds of miles to the north. It is in a mountainous area known as Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the Iranian border. The enemy are not Saddam's soldiers, but a hardcore group of Islamist terrorists. Ansa al-Islam, the fighters of Islam. They have close links to the most wanted terrorist network in the world. Al-Qaeda, responsible for some of the most notorious atrocities of recent times. They suspected uh that they had uh major al-Qaeda connections, that there were a range of foreign jihadists. Among its 800 members are battleh hardened veterans of the war in Afghanistan. They were wellarmed with RPGs and mortars and machine guns, the the Soviet style and Iranian and Iraqi weaponry. [Music] It is also rumored they have a chemical weapons lab manufacturing ryin, a poison made from caster beans. The problem facing the US military is the terrorists are deep inside enemy territory. Answer alis Islam was nested in an area called the Halabja salient in the eastern part of Iraq right on the border with Iran. They were along the mountainous ridge line that formed the Iraqi uh border with Iran. They dominated the key terrain in that area. It's time to call in a unit that's skilled in operating behind enemy lines and which is perfect for this mission. The Green Berets. Their entire uh mission and operation uh revolves around the conduct of unconventional warfare. Based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Green Berets were set up over 60 years ago. The Green Berets uh were officially established in June of 1952. They first came to prominence in the Vietnam War. They were increased greatly in size during the Vietnam War and sent there to do a number of missions. Like many special forces, they are highly trained and multi-skilled. They are able to use a variety of deadly weapons systems. Entry requirements are rigorous. They must be airborne qualified. So they have to go to airborne school. And then they go through a very arduous selection process for the special forces. The great majority of those applicants do not make it through the training. What makes the Green Berets different to other special forces is that they are specialists in fighting alongside local troops deep behind enemy lines. The Green Beretss are the Army's unconventional warfare experts. They are trained to work with host nation or indigenous forces. The Green Berets have to have all of the technical soldiering skills, but they're also expected to be experts in the languages, cultures, uh, and and politics of the regions that they go to. They're act they're expected to act as diplomats, uh, to engage with the people on the ground. The aim is that the Green Berets mentor local indigenous forces and supplement their firepower with American knowhow. This is what's known as force multiplication. The force multiply aspect there really are two parts. One is the ability to organize, train, motivate and lead these indigenous forces and also to uh bring in and employ the different larger weapon systems, air operations, closeair support, those kind of things that are available. If there is one man perfect for the mission against Ansar al-Islam, it's Lieutenant Colonel Kentov. He typifies the Green Beretss. He's a highly experienced operator and commander of the Green Beret's third battalion. Ken Tovo is a very polished individual. He really did personify kind of the diplomat warrior. He is the man chosen to lead what will become known as Operation Viking Hammer. What makes Tovo especially valuable is that he has previous experience of Kurdistan from the 1991 Gulf War. Tovo has already identified which local force he will work with. Tojo's aim is to harness the firepower of thousands of local fighters. The Kurdish guerilla forces known as the Peshmerga. The Kurds are a different ethnic group from Iraqi Arabs. The Peshmerga have been fighting a war of resistance against Saddam Hussein for years. They occupy a small enclave in northern Iraq. [Music] Since the first Gulf War, it is protected by a no-fly zone enforced by American and Allied jets. The partners in this case were the PUK or the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan was the Kurdish entity and the Kurdish armed forces that Tovo was partnering with. And the job of operation Viking hammer and their Kurdish Peshmerga partners was to go down this valley into this mountainous area and root out ansaral [Music] Islam. Tovo's plan is that a small group of green berets will lead the Kurdish attack. They will operate in small flexible teams of up to 12 men called ODAs, operational detachments, alpha or a teams. One team is chosen to spearhead the whole operation. ODA081. It is led by Brian Row, a young captain at the time. My role during the mission was the detachment commander. Operation Viking Hammer was my first deployment, my first combat deployment as a special forces team leader. I had just graduated the qualification course uh about a year prior and was assigned to ODA081 as the uh team leader. Alongside him are a number of veteran NCOs. I had a great group of NCOs. They were all very much more experienced than I. They're all senior sergeants uh with years and years of experience. Among them is senior sergeant grit. He was about 7 years older than me, about 36 at the time, I believe. Uh he had a lot of experience, really brought a a sense of competency to the team. And then you have the specialties. I had two weapon sergeants, both incredibly skilled snipers. Uh, both sergeants first class, both very competent medical sergeant and an engineering sergeant. The communications man is Blake Kramer. I was the senior communications sergeant. Most people would probably look at um being shot at as not being okay. It was something that was expected and I was okay with it. [Music] But first, Tovo and his Green Berets arrange to meet the PUK leadership. They have to win them over if Operation Viking Hammer is to have any chance of success. Within hours of arriving in northern Iraq, Kentovo and his Green Berets traveled to the PUK headquarters in the town of Halabjia. We were focused on linking up with our partners, the uh the PUK, specifically the Peshmerga leadership. We were excited. We were part of that lead element. Getting in there and getting to be one of the first onto the ground was something I think every SF guy aspires to. [Music] The Kurds have a long history of opposing Saddam Hussein. In 1988, he infamously gassed the Kurdish population of Halabja, the town where Tovo is heading to meet the Kurdish leaders. More recently, Halabja and the Kurdish outposts have been the victim of suicide bombings and regular mortar attacks from the Ansar Al-Islam positions. So, the CIA has been trying to make sure the Americans will be welcomed with open arms by the locals. For 12 months, the agency has sent bundles of cash and what it calls lethal aid, guns, and ammunition. But when Tovo meets the Kurds, he finds they will need persuading. So they met up in Halabja and uh began to plan how they were going to take on Ansar al-Islam. The first problem Tovo faces is cultural. The Kurds are a warrior people. Their name Peshmerga means he who faces death. The Kurds sport mustaches and view any clean shaven outsider as an inexperienced child. While the Americans must maintain strict grooming standards at all times, there really was a warrior culture within the Kurdish people. Most young men felt compelled to do their duty fighting and would enlist or join for periods of time in the Peshmerga. Really is a badge of honor in that culture. The Kurds have even deeper reasons to distrust the Americans. 10 years earlier after the first Gulf War, the Kurds rose up in revolution and had expected America to send troops to help them. But they didn't. Instead, Saddam Hussein led a ruthless fight back, slaughtering the Peshmerga and thousands of civilians. For their part, the Americans view the Peshmerga with similar caution. They are not professional soldiers and lack military discipline compared to the Americans. For Brian Rowan, the first impressions are not great. They're not what you would expect from an American soldier perspective. Uh they're typically, you know, wearing baggy clothes. Uh, I think uh, we call them MC Hammer pants, tennis shoes, maybe an AK-47 or some other weapon. They were able to get a big bushy mustache almost invariably, and then a head wrap. They didn't have radios. Maybe they'd have a little handheld or a cell phone. That was it. [Music] Both sides must win each other's respect. The Green Beretss have a plan that will show the Kurds that they mean business. Kentovo will do it all with a simple click of a mouse. On the night of the 21st of March, 2003, Tovo and his team head towards a lookout near the terrorists mountain base. The Green Berets and the Kurds take up position. The laptop and satcoms are set up. Mysterious numbers are typed in. The Kurds then wait an anxious 15 minutes for something to happen. The special forces group provided the targets, provided the coordinates. So you're sitting there, you're watching, you know that the missiles have been launched. You're waiting and all a sudden you hear this and they fly over and it's just one after another. And you just hear them all flying right over your head, which is amazing and a little bit terrifying at the same time. You just hope that one doesn't fall short. But these things all fly over and they hit. They just watched as the night sky lit up. It was cool. The first Tomahawk missiles flattened the base, killing several [Applause] terrorists. In just a few minutes, American technology and air power wins the Kurds respect. I think that our resolve was a little in question, but at that point definitely when when the tomahawks started coming in, they definitely knew we were there. We were going to be by their sides, and it wasn't just all talk. However, the missiles cause a new problem. The Ansar fighters retreat from their positions. They know they cannot take on the Tomahawks, so they simply pull back. As soon as the missiles began to impact, the teams could see the uh AI loading up on trucks, abandoning their positions. They were smart enough to get out of them and move away. They had a series of defensive uh positions that they were able to fall back to. [Music] The Ansar fighters move back to other defensive positions around the nearby village of Sarat. There they start to dig in. Sarat was the main stronghold of Ansaral Islam. It was down in the valley, but it was ringed by mountains. The terrorists have built trench systems and bunkers in the hills and mountains overlooking the area. It's very very mountainous, very rocky, little uh vegetation in the area, very few uh accessible road networks. The Ansar terrorists are well supplied with heavy weapons. These include heavy caliber Russian machine guns called dskas as well as mortars and heavy cannon. It looks like they're determined to fight to the death. A ground assault could be a blood bath. This is something that concerns the Kurdish leader Jalal Talibani. He suddenly decides to pull out of the whole operation. Talibani got cold feet right before they launched this uh attack and Tovo left to go visit him at his headquarters. With the operation in the balance, Kentovo and the Green Berets have to explain how they will do it and avoid Kurdish casualties. He uses a detailed terrain model to outline every aspect and talk through the risks and the battle plan. The Green Berets will work closely with a force of 7,000 Peshmerga. Because the enemy occupy multiple positions, each covering the other, the Green Berets and Kurds have to strike in a simultaneous multi-pronged attack. So he puts forward a plan to spread the Green Beretss between the Peshmerga to coordinate the attack. The Green Berets use cards to plot out exactly how the mission will work. The plan is that six different prongs will move through the area. Each prong has a color, black, orange, red, and so on. Yellow prong will be the main thrust moving along the valley floor. Yellow prong was the main effort that was going straight up the valley into Gulp and then onto Sargot. Green prong will clear the ridge lines overlooking the valley. The green prong was going to split off and go up on the high ground up on the mountain ridge and their role was to provide cover for the force proceeding down the valley floor into Sarot. With the entire mission in doubt, all eyes are on the Kurdish leader, Jalal Talibani, as he takes it all in. To reassured him that they had done all of the reconnaissance, that they were prepared to fight uh in an effective way. So, Talibani said, "Okay, I believe you. I trust you. Go ahead and launch the attack. [Music] Six Green Beret ODAs will be involved in the attack, but the task of spearheading it falls to ODA081. It's a nervous time for Sergeant Blake Kramer. I remember not getting much sleep at all the night prior. just had, you know, tons of things running through my mind. Um, all the whatifs, all the contingencies. Despite having only 10 men in his team, Captain Rowan divides them between the main yellow prong, whose objective is the village of Sarat, and Green Prong, who are heading into the hills. We actually split the team where six of us went with the yellow prong and three went with the green prong. And that's pretty typical for an ODA. You're designed again uh to be able to cope with uncertain situations because you're essentially like a a multi-tool. You can reconfigure as necessary and you bring to bear all the skills you you need. Brian Rowan will have with him two important Kurds. A general Shik Jaffa in charge of the Peshmerga and the son of the PUK leader Baffled Talibani. who will act as their [Music] interpreter. On the 28th of March, everyone is set. For some of the Green Berets, it's the first time they have met the Kurdish Peshmerga fighters. Many of the Americans have changed their appearance and grown mustaches to blend in and gain more respect from their Kurdish allies. We met on the battlefield that morning. You look up and there's 7,000 Peshmerga and all the special forces guys standing around waiting to mass up and link up with our elements. It's also the first chance for the Green Beretss to comprehend the task ahead. When the sun comes up and you see the mountains with snow and just the sheer uh magnitude of them, it makes you realize just what a dangerous place you're about to to go into. The terrain was just very steep, rocky mountains with with a little bit of green scrub on it. You had the snow, you had the ice melt, it was very muddy, slippery, and that really brought out the reality of how tough this was going to be, particularly given that their positions, the Onsaros long positions were in depth going up the mountain. So, anything we were doing was going to be attacking uphill in mountainous terrain that was incredibly rugged and [Music] cold. Before the column moves off, Kentovo heads back to the command center to coordinate the operation from there. [Music] The operation is so complex that radio communication is the only way that Tovo and his officers can keep track of all the different prongs. [Music] They must keep in regular contact with all the green berets to monitor their positions and avoid friendly fire accidents, so-called blue-onblue casualties. [Music] Once the teams are in position and away from danger, he gets stuck in by ordering a preliminary bombardment by jets and fighter bombs. to soften up the Ansar [Music] positions. The ground assault column moves off and the Green Berets head towards Sarat with the Peshmerga. [Music] The main thrust, Yellowprong, must first capture a village called Gulp. The town of Gulp was a small little checkpoint area that uh was at the foot of the valley, but the enemy are waiting. As the Kurdish force started moving up the hill into Gulp, uh they came under some pretty heavy fire. You could hear the guns firing and then you would see in a uh a little bit of uh rounds impacting around. You would hear some some bullets whizzing [Music] by. It started getting a little bit more intense, more accurate. It was enough to get you on your toes and realize that you were in the game. [Music] In my particular prong, I had a general called Shake Joffer. Uh, and he was the one who was giving the orders to the Kurds. The Kurds suddenly stop. Shake Joffford basically says, you know, what are we going to do? You saw all the Kurdish force literally squat down and stop. The Peshmerga had come under fire from the Ansol Islam forces and stopped cold in their tracks. This is not good. We need to maintain the momentum. We need to, you know, keep moving forward. How how are we going to do this? To turn the situation around, Captain Rowan calls on backup and summons an air strike. They got on the radio. They called for help and a Navy F18 replied with 500 lb J [Music] dams. That was probably the sweetest sound we had ever heard. You could just tell it just sent this wave of euphoria or confidence that they had, you know, this huge force behind them. That was enough to rally the Peshmerga. They pushed on into [Music] Gulp. Inside Gulp, the Peshmerga fight house to house to clear it. It is now that the local forces impress the Green Beretss. The Kurdish fighters are armed only with AK-47s and a few magazines of ammunition. But that bravery is astonishing. There was a guy occurred assaulting with a cane. Uh, you know, he'd sling his weapon. He'd grab his cane and he'd get to the next rock wall. He'd lay down. He turned and look at me and give me a thumbs up, lay there, unslling his AK-47, roll back over and start shooting. Compared to the Green Berets, their tactics are simple. They're always on the attack, never pausing so as not to lose momentum. If a Kurd is wounded, he is expected to make his own way to medical treatment. The Peshmerga soon overrun and capture [Music] Gulp. It has taken just over an hour, but objective one has been secured. With the mission running ahead of schedule, the Kurds hold a team talk. Shake Joffer pulled them all in and talked to him about how they had done very well fighting this far and essentially gave them this this motivational speech, you know, talking through about the importance of fighting bravely, living up to their heritage. We're known as warriors. Uh this is our chance to fight with our American brethren. But the Green Berets soon realized that gulp is the easy bit. They are about to enter the hornet's nest. sat. I think that's when it really hit me. We had the translator with us and he was letting us know what Shake Joffer was talking to him about in Kurdish and it was really hitting home with me that we are getting ready to enter the crux of the battle. The Green Beretss move on again. [Music] But the problem at Sarat is the terrain. Ansar al-Islam holds the high ground. They were shooting down. It was almost like shooting down into fish in a barrel. It was the absolute worst place in the wrong place to be. It was a horseshoe shape and all along that top of the horseshoe was sporadic fighting position that were heavily dug in and fortified and they were mutually supporting. And then they all had some type of crew serve weapon, mortar tube or some type of heavy gun that could rain down fire on [Music] us. And all of a sudden we started taking a whole lot of fire, heavy fire. And when you hear the the dishas and the PKM rounds hit and the mud that was around us, it's just this thickening [ __ ] And it starts hitting all around us. [Music] We were within range of countless targets or or countless positions and it was just uh it was unreal. This time Captain Rowan can't summon an air strike. Calling in air support risks blowing up his own men and his Kurdish allies. The Green Berets will have to seize control and fight their way out. They were going to have to deal with this problem themselves. Captain Rowan comes up with a plan. The snipers that I had with me, the weapon sergeant, he immediately started putting precision fire on some of the positions. The weapon sergeants use an M82 Barrett 50 cal heavy longrange sniper rifle that can take out a target nearly 2 km away. Using the rifle, they pick off the enemy one man at a time. Thanks to the snipers, the green berets can move on. Next stop is the village of Sarant. The fighting is even more intense. The battle for Sarot was extremely ferocious. It was enough for us to know that we didn't need to stay there. These weren't rounds that were flying well over our head. They were within feet. Just tracer fire and bullets hitting all around on the road. um rocks disintegrating from bullet fire impacts. We could hear them start launching mortars at us. Captain Rowan wound up in the front of the force as they entered Sarot. With Rowan and his men bogged down, Grit and another weapons sergeant decide they need more firepower. So they grabbed the heavy machine gun. Fortunately in the truck we had with us still our 50 cal heavy machine gun. So the team sergeant and some of the other sergeants were able to get that out. They had to get a good sighteline uh against the ansural Islam positions. 50 caliber machine gun. Very heavy weapon. Fired about 700 rounds to neutralize one of the main positions that was firing down on them. Meanwhile, Blake Kramer is laying down suppressing fire with a light machine gun. We just opened up with a machine gun shooting at different enemy targets and positions trying to kind of generate that camaraderie and hey, I'm in it with you and and let's do this. Combined with the 50 and our machine gun, we were able to rally those guys up and start moving into the valley. The Green Beretss also get the Kurds to bring up their own heavy guns. They had one flatbed truck that had uh a dualbarreled 23 mm gun on it. This thing was huge. And the truck would drive up and kind of park sideways. They'd shoot the gun and the truck would rock way back as they'd shoot this thing. It's incredibly inaccurate, but scary as heck. [Applause] Now, back in the village of Sarat, Captain Rowan leads from the front. Captain Rowan, meanwhile, was down on the ground, literally leading the charge. He later found out that he'd forgotten uh to put the back plate in his armored vest. Um, so he was really kind of a sitting duck. It was a miracle that we didn't get [Music] hit. We've got gunfire mortars all around us. And I look over at our interpreter that was with us and he's on his cell phone and he's calling back talking to I believe it was his cousin and he was letting him know that we were in it. Are you serious? So, you're on the phone right now? Get off the phone. We're in the middle of all this. I thought that was uh that was quite comical at the time. These soldiers fought incredibly valiantly. [Music] The Americans are really out there outgunned and having to fight from the low ground to the high ground. Finally, after 4 hours, they enter Sarat. As they search the village, the Americans find passports from foreign fighters from Sudan, Yemen, Aman, and Saudi Arabia. After we went in, you know, we identified, you know, there was chemical suits. There's some anthropine injectors, other things that were a bit unusual. Critically, the Americans also find some evidence of chemical weapons manufacture residues of ryin, the poison made from caster beans. They found a number of other indications that Ansaral Islam had actually been trying to develop some chemical weapons capability there. It is the first serious evidence anywhere in Iraq of a link between al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. The US forces orchestrate a press conference and tell the world all about the raid and the incriminating evidence they have found. But no mention is made of the role the Green Berets played in the discovery. At that time, no one knew what a ferocious battle had been waged up the valley to get to Sarot. So, this full story of the battle only came out years later. Now, the Peshmerga and Special Forces A teams are functioning well. They have earned each other's respect. The gorillas also know that their partners in their heavily armed pickups are a formidable unit and morale is pretty high cuz now they're in Sarat. This is the home of answer all Islam. The battle seems almost over. So for now, the Kurds and Green Berets halt their advance as darkness falls. However, the remnants of the Ansar fighters withdraw again. Their destination, the caves above Sarat. Here they plan to lay a trap for the Americans and the Peshmerga. They will use the caves as fortified bunkers. [Music] As dawn breaks, the Ansa al-Islam fighters settle into their positions in and around the caves. The next morning, we uh we continued on with our push. There were huge cave complexes. I mean, there was just multiple multiple caves. As they approach, the Green Berings come under fire. We received some gunfire back and uh we were like, "Oh, wow. All right, now it's on." Uh again, you know, we got some we got some hardened fighters. We've been firing uh fully automatic into these caves and we couldn't drive these guys out and they were continually shooting at us. The Green Berets and their allies become pinned down. Realizing they have to do something, they come up with a plan to flush the enemy out of their stronghold. We just uh secured the front of the cave, made sure nobody could get out, and sent one guy back for a anti-tank round, put it into action, and we backed off from the cave a little bit. We just collapsed it [Music] in. 70 Ansar fighters are killed that day. The last dieards are taken down. 3 days after the operation began, the Green Berets watched the final stragglers of Ansar al-Islam retreat across the border into Iran. The terrorists have been neutralized. Ansar al-Islam is defeated for now at least. Only a handful survive the onslaught. With their heavy weapons lost and their infrastructure and Ryson lab dealt a death blow, there is little left of the threat first targeted days earlier. After just 8 days of intense action in Kurdistan, the Green Berets have completed their counterterrorism mission. In the end, ODA081 uh was awarded three silver stars and six bronze stars. And this was without doubt the most ferocious battle the special forces had fought since Vietnam. In the next few days, they link up with other forces and target Iraqi units in northern Iraq. In early April, the city of Kirkuk falls to Tovo's men. The conventional Iraqi units there didn't even put up a fight in conjunction with other American forces. Northern Iraq is secured and the ways opened for tanks to move into Baghdad 3 weeks after hostilities began. Two years later, the PUK leader who worked with Tovo, Jalal Talibani, is elected the first Kurdish president of Iraq. Operation Viking Hammer will go down as a classic green beret operation. Viking hammer could be looked at as a textbook application of the training. At its heart was the doctrine of persuading local forces to fight alongside small American teams, bringing in devastating air power and fighting deep behind the lines. to fight a battle uphill in a mountainous area with indigenous forces as your main body. To come out of that with no casualties and very very few problems is is a remarkable achievement. I think the operation overall was a success in many ways. We took absolutely no casualties for us and for the small close-knit teams fighting in the northern sector of Iraq. They may not have received as much media coverage, but it's still a source of immense pride. I was just fortunate to be a part of it and every guy on that team played a huge, huge part of that day. It's something I'll never ever forget. And moments like that when you've got five other guys on your left or right flank, I I couldn't have been blessed with a better group of men to have the fortune to lead during combat. Operation Viking Hammer was really the opening act of many incredible battles that the special forces fought not only in 2003 but for the next 10 years. They have really been engaged in numerous incredible firefights and battles. So what you have now is the US Army special operations forces are absolutely the most battle tested force in US history. [Music]