Liberating Amerli
Dana Pittard
Late August 2014
I knew it would be difficult to get approval from CENTCOM and the Obama administration to support an offensive operation to relieve the Shia-Turkmen town of Amerli. The area was of no real strategic importance and was over a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad. It was literally on none of our operational “radar screens.” However, it was quickly becoming a moral litmus test with the Shia-dominated Iraqi government and military leaders.
To get approval for airstrikes I consciously avoided referring to any U.S. effort in Amerli as an “offensive operation” during briefings. Instead we called it a “potential humanitarian relief.” I spoke to Lieutenant General Terry on the phone about the possibility of conducting the operation, and he was lukewarm at best even though he didn’t actually say no.
Luckily, we received inadvertent help from an unexpected source—the United Nations. On August 23, the UN expressed worldwide concern over the situation in Amerli.1 The UN warned about the possibility of ISIS committing a massacre or genocide in the town. At that point, General Austin and Lieutenant General Terry quickly came around to the idea of a humanitarian mission at Amerli, and we soon received approval from both CENTCOM and the administration to provide relief. I silently thanked the UN!
Ed Abisellan, Eric Timmerman, and the JFLCC-I staff—with timely help from ARCENT and Combined Joint Forces Air Component Command (CJFACC)—were able to develop a credible plan with the Iraqi military similar to the one we’d carried out at Sinjar Mountain. It centered on providing humanitarian airdrops, protecting the civilian population, and facilitating a ground force to lift the ISIS siege.
Generals Terry and Austin supported the concept. General Austin sold the plan to the Pentagon and the White House, but I was given quite a few restrictions on the operation—including ensuring not to support any pro-Shia Iranian forces. The entire operation would be complex and sensitive. Anything involving the Iranians or giving the appearance of our working with the Iranians was very politically delicate.
For the operation to relieve Amerli, three major ground forces would form the anti-ISIS coalition: The Iraqi Army units that we were advising and assisting from Baghdad would approach Amerli from the south. The Kurdish Peshmerga that Brigadier General Castellvi and our U.S. Special Forces were advising from Erbil would approach from the north. And various groups of Shia militias supported by Iranian Quds Force advisors would approach from the east. (Ironically, they and their Iranian advisors were generally hostile to the U.S.)
Our Iraqi Army contacts would coordinate the necessary de-confliction with the Shia militias and Iranians—even despite major issues at first with the de-confliction of Iraqi, Kurdish, and Iranian artillery fires as well as our humanitarian airdrops and airstrikes. We certainly did not want to hit any of our friendly partners nor our reluctant anti-ISIS “allies.” Luckily, we managed to work out most of our de-confliction issues before the operation began.
We briefed the operational and fire support plans via video teleconference to General Austin in Tampa and Lieutenant General Terry in Kuwait on Wednesday, August 27. General Austin had a lot of questions and plenty of guidance, but ultimately approved the plan. They both reiterated the need to carefully de-conflict and control our airstrikes and the artillery from Iraqi and Kurdish forces so that we did not inadvertently kill any friendly forces, civilians, Shia militias, or Iranians.
Because of the sensitivity of the mission, Lieutenant General Terry would provide clearance of fires authority. I chaffed at having our clearance authority all the way back in Kuwait. In the end, though, I was just happy we were supporting the operation in Amerli. I knew how important it was to our Iraqi allies.
Most of the ground forces moved to their initial staging areas by Friday, August 29. We quickly found that the roads leading into Amerli were laced with ISIS-emplaced IEDs. This forced both the Kurdish Peshmerga in the north and the Shia militias in the east to maneuver off-road due to their lack of route-clearing engineers and equipment necessary to clear IEDs.
The Iraqi Army force—a brigade-sized element—moved at a slower pace. They approached from the south, clearing nearly every IED on the road. They had the additional mission of opening the highway between Baghdad and Amerli to facilitate the safe passage of humanitarian relief trucks in their wake.
On Saturday, August 30, our anti-ISIS coalition attacked ISIS forces and secured the towns surrounding Amerli to the north, east, and south. The fighting was heaviest in the east between ISIS fighters that had teamed up with local Sunnis and the Iranian-backed Shia militias.
Late that night we carried out selected airstrikes against ISIS targets outside of Amerli. We still had growing pains within our small strike cell in the U.S. Embassy, and we had a very restrictive and time-consuming process to gain airstrike approval.
On Sunday, August 31, the Iraqi Air Force airdropped humanitarian supplies to the outskirts of Amerli. That relief was followed by massive humanitarian airdrops from coalition transport aircraft from the U.S., France, U.K., and Australia.2 The live video of hundreds of parachuted supplies sailing down through the air was indeed an amazing sight to see on our Predator drone feed! It felt good to witness the event.
As the anti-ISIS coalition on the ground attacked to break the siege, we continued to control airstrikes against ISIS forces throughout the greater Amerli area. The Iraqis and Kurds allowed some of the ISIS fighters to escape to the desert in the west with the plan that the city would be easier to take back if it wasn’t full of fighters willing to fight to the death. As they escaped, those ISIS fighters became lucrative targets for our airstrikes as well as strikes from Iraqi helicopter gunships. None of us were interested in leaving ISIS survivors.
By the early evening of August 31, Amerli had been liberated.3 Still, we relentlessly pursued and eliminated groups of ISIS fighters escaping to the west, directing airstrikes well into the night and the next morning. Around 11 p.m. on the night of the liberation, I went to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense to confer with General Kenani. On the way I stopped by the Iraqi-American combined joint operations center to check on our U.S. personnel.
I walked in to the sound of cheers from the Iraqi generals as soon as they saw me. Some came up to me with tears in their eyes, vigorously shaking my hand and kissing me on the cheeks to thank me for the U.S. role in liberating Amerli. I was surprised and impressed by the outpouring of happiness over the liberation of the Shia-Turkmen people of Amerli, and I was truly touched by their gratitude.
General Kenani’s office was heavily guarded by large men in the sharp, all-black uniforms that signified they were members of the elite CTS. As I approached the imposing guards, they were also emotional about Amerli and were happy to see me—smiling and nodding their heads in gestures of appreciation. When I walked into Kenani’s office, several other Iraqi generals were there celebrating the liberation.
General Kenani raised his hands and yelled out, “General Pittard!” He got up and rushed to shake my hand, kissed me on both cheeks and gushed about how Amerli was a great success for Iraq. He raised his fists victoriously in the air. “The people of Iraq are so grateful for the liberation of Amerli. It could not have been done without your support, General!”
I thanked him for his kind words and calmly but firmly told him that Amerli was just the beginning. The operation in Amerli showed how the Iraqi armed forces with the will to fight, an offensive focus, and determined leadership, along with American airpower and intelligence, could defeat ISIS every time.
Kenani nodded with approval. “Yes, we are ready to fight ISIS. Now, let’s talk about the offensive operation around Haditha!”
I smiled and rolled out a map of western Iraq and the Haditha Dam area.
The Impact of Amerli
September 1, 2014
The Shia militias and the Iranians shamelessly took complete credit for liberating Amerli. They downplayed the U.S.-led coalition and the Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga’s role in helping to lift the siege. Major General Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander, even went to Amerli that day to be greeted as a liberator.
Even so, one thing that the liberation of Amerli proved was that a common enemy could help bring together strange bedfellows. We showed that we could coordinate with the Shia militias and the Iranian military for a positive outcome against ISIS. I wasn’t sure if my superiors ever fully understood just what an immense impact our support had on the psyche of the Iraqi military and Iraq’s political leadership.
In the eyes of the Iraqis, we had become full partners as we’d helped both Shias and Kurds. That gave us the additional leverage I was determined to take full advantage of. We were going to get the Iraqis to go on the offense against ISIS.
A Hostage Killed—Steven Sotloff
Steven Sotloff was an Israeli-American journalist working for Time Magazine and the Jerusalem Post when he was kidnapped in 2013 in Aleppo, Syria. Within twenty-four hours of the liberation of Amerli—another major defeat of ISIS at the hands of the anti-ISIS coalition—Sotloff was beheaded by ISIS murderers on September 2, 2014.4
After Sotloff’s murder we came to expect a similar response to ISIS defeats in the future. That consequence weighed heavily on us, but we couldn’t let their tactics of terror, no matter how cruel, sway us from victory. We would make ISIS pay in blood and defeat for every murder and every barbaric act one hundred-fold.
1 Jomana Karadsheh, Laura Smith-Spark, and Chelsea J. Carter, “U.N.: ‘Unspeakable’ suffering in Iraqi town besieged by ISIS fighters,” CNN, August 23, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/23/world/meast/iraq-violence/index.html.
2 AFP, “US drops humanitarian aid in besieged Iraq town Amerli,” The Telegraph, August 31, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11066175/US-drops-humanitarian-aid-in-besieged-Iraq-town-Amerli.html.
3 Peter Kenyon, “Islamic State Suffers Rare Defeat In Amerli,” NPR, August 31, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.npr.org/2014/08/31/344809411/islamic-state-suffers-rare-defeat-in-amerli.
4 Chelsea J. Carter and Ashley Fantz, “ISIS video shows beheading of Steven Sotloff,” CNN, September 9, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2014/09/02/world/meast/isis-american-journalist-sotloff/index.html.