The Battle for Haditha Dam
DANA PITTARD
WITH REMARKS FROM WES BRYANT
Early September 2014
We’d had a lot of indicators that ISIS was planning to seize the strategically important Haditha Dam in the western Iraq province of Al Anbar.1 Al Anbar was a Sunni province that included the ISIS-held city of Fallujah as well as the contested provincial capital city of Ramadi.
In the north, Brigadier General Castellvi had been doing an excellent job convincing the Kurds to go on the offense. The Kurdish leadership from President Masoud Barzani on down was embarrassed at how poorly the Kurdish Peshmerga had fought against ISIS back in early August. The successful Mosul Dam operation had helped them regain some of their prestige, but they were intent on seeking revenge against ISIS and recovering all the lost Kurdish territory in northern Iraq’s Ninewa Province.
Cas and I needed to de-conflict the various offensive opportunities we saw in northern, central, and western Iraq. It was a nice problem to have. Both the Kurds and Iraqis finally wanted to attack ISIS. We developed an aggressive timetable for operations to continue to keep ISIS off balance, one that considered the operations being conducted by the Syrian Army, the YPG (Syrian Kurds), and other groups fighting ISIS in Syria supported by our special operations forces in northern Iraq.
The first operation under our new timetable would be the Kurdish Peshmerga’s attack to seize Mount Zerkel. From Mount Zerkel, the Kurds would be able to observe movements in and around Mosul. That operation was quick and successful—the Kurds seized Mount Zerkel from ISIS on September 5.
Pushing the Iraqi military leadership into conducting an offensive operation over 175 miles west of Baghdad, however—and within a Sunni province—was not an easy task. The remnants of the Iraqi 7th Division were barely holding on to the Haditha Dam, the large town of Hit, and nearby Al Asad Air Base.2 The rest of the Euphrates River Valley was dominated by ISIS, and they maneuvered freely from the Syrian border at Al Qaim all the way east down to Fallujah, about seventy kilometers from Baghdad.
Colonel Ed Abisellan and our operational planner, Major John Holsted, worked closely with the Iraqi military staff to develop an operational plan that would integrate air support from the U.S. and Iraqi Air Force as well as Iraqi helicopters temporarily based out of Al Asad Air Base. The plan called for the movement of a battalion of the elite CTS—something around 400 men—to reinforce a brigade of the 7th Iraqi Division and conduct the attack at Haditha. Additionally, hundreds of friendly Sunni fighters from the Al-Jaghaifa and Alba Mahal tribes, as well as a contingent of Shia militiamen, were willing to fight.
The operation would be a two-pronged attack from both sides of the Euphrates River, moving south-to-north to free the town of Barwana first and clear all ISIS fighters on both sides of the river between the dam and Barwana.
We’d briefed General Austin and Lieutenant General Terry on September 4. I let them know that I strongly expected seizing positions around Haditha would cause a violent reaction from ISIS, and that we were preparing for a fierce counterattack after the initial battle. We suspected ISIS would attempt to reinforce with fighters from Syria through the ISIS-owned Iraqi border post at Al Qaim, fifty kilometers west of Haditha Dam. We also expected to see some ISIS senior leaders visit the battlefield to rally their fighters.
On Saturday, September 6, we kicked off our airstrike campaign day and night against ISIS positions in the area.3 We hit ISIS hard, even though the airstrike approval process was still long and laborious since approval authority continued to remain with Lieutenant General Terry in Kuwait. (It was becoming clearer by then that airstrike authority had to be delegated to my command in Iraq.)
The Iraqi Army’s ground attack began on Sunday morning, September 7. ISIS put up a staunch resistance near the railroad station outside of Barwana, with quite a bit of ISIS crossfire coming from both sides of the Euphrates River toward our ground forces. We supported with airstrikes while the Iraqis laid down very effective fire with their helicopter gunships—modified Russian-made Mi-17s and Mi-35s—as well as a contingent of Russian-made Su-25 fighter-bombers led by my old friend, Major General Falah.
By the middle of the first day of fighting, it had become clear that the Iraqis would win. Even before the fighting was completely over, the Iraqi military flew their very polished spokesperson, Lieutenant General Qassan Atta, along with a lot of Iraqi media and press personnel into the Haditha area to show the Iraqi people that ISIS could be beaten. Other Iraqi politicians such as the Governor of Al Anbar, tribal leaders, and local town mayors also came to see the great victory.
Our JFLCC-I staff was very wary of the Iraqi politicians’ visits since the battle was not yet over. We told the Iraqi Army leaders that winning the initial fight would only be the first step, and to expect a violent ISIS response to our success. We warned them that ISIS was wounded in Haditha, but not dead. Unfortunately, as we’d feared would happen, an ISIS mortar round hit near the assemblage of Iraqi politicians and media. Some were killed and many injured, including the governor of Al Anbar province.
That evening at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense headquarters, General Kenani and his staff were nonetheless jubilant over the day’s successful battle. I told him to make sure Major General Wahab and the other Iraqi Army commanders in Haditha were preparing for an ISIS counterattack. Accordingly, the Iraqi Army and their Sunni tribal allies consolidated their forces in the Haditha area and hastily set up defensive positions. Once nightfall descended, we were amazed at the ISIS activity near the Iraqi Army positions around Haditha. As expected, ISIS attempted multiple counterattacks that evening—but the Iraqi Army was ready at every turn.
Remarks from Wes Bryant
ISIS was incredibly bold. So much that we couldn’t quite believe it when we witnessed them on the battlefield. Even so, when we initiated our airstrike campaign, ISIS really didn’t know what hit them. Even up to the Haditha Dam operation it was obvious that ISIS was reeling from such a large-scale military response from the United States.
Because of that element of surprise, many of our targets in the first weeks of the airstrike campaign were lucrative and unlike any we’d ever seen as JTACs. ISIS forces were often so easily discovered by our drones and fighter pilots that they may as well have had red targets painted on them. ISIS had previously been so used to moving unchecked and unafraid throughout the territories they controlled that we’d routinely come across large units of maneuvering ISIS fighters, huge convoys of gun trucks and armored vehicles, and embedded fighting positions that showed little attempt at overhead concealment. The new campaign against ISIS was truly a JTAC’s dream come true.
Still, even with all our successes up to that point, the reality was that the U.S. had launched a military campaign against ISIS later than we ideally should have. By the time we’d finally acted with any substantial military response, ISIS was well-embedded throughout Iraq. That created an operational environment where, by the time we planned and launched a counteroffensive against ISIS in one region, they’d already taken ground elsewhere. So, early on, we were flowing from counteroffensive to counteroffensive in a game of catch-up to get the strategic edge.
A Hostage Killed—David Haines
David Haines was a British social worker who’d been abducted by ISIS in Syria in 2013. Following the Iraqi military’s triumph at Haditha combined with the successful operation by the YPG to take the Syrian town of Kobani around the same time, Haines was beheaded by ISIS.4 The gruesome video was released on September 13, 2014, as more ISIS terror propaganda.
We came to expect that a western hostage would likely be executed after every ISIS military defeat or setback. If ISIS thought it was doing any good, it still only strengthened our resolve to destroy them.
1 Rebecca Collard, “Iraq’s Battleground Dams Are Key to Saving the Country from ISIS,” Time, September 8, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://time.com/3303403/strikes-against-isis-in-iraq-dams/.
2 Alissa J. Rubin and Rod Nordland, “Sunni Militants Advance Toward Large Iraqi Dam,” The New York Times, June 25, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/world/middleeast/isis-iraq.html.
3 “US strikes Islamic State militants at Iraq’s Haditha dam,” BBC News, September 7, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29098791.
4 Greg Botelho, “ISIS executes British aid worker David Haines; Cameron vows justice,” CNN, September 14, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/13/world/meast/isis-haines-family-message/index.html.