In this book, we will use the name ISIS to refer to the terrorist force that has also been widely known as ISIL, IS, or Daesh. In August of 2014, ISIS controlled more than 34,000 square miles in Iraq and Syria—from the Mediterranean coast to the south of Baghdad. Eight months later, they’d lost almost half of that land. The authors are proud to say they were among the small group of U.S. service members to affect that.
An old military adage states “artillery is the king of the battlefield, while infantry is the queen.” Indeed, ground forces are maneuverable and able to utilize countless methods of warfare and insertion, while artillery—though not nearly as maneuverable—packs a punch come rain or shine. But as true as that adage is, it was coined far before the days of airpower. An entirely new player in the game of chess that is war, airpower is both far-reaching and devastating. In the war against ISIS, it was the combination of airpower and ground forces provided by the Iraqi military, Kurdish Peshmerga, Shia militias, Syrian Kurds, and other entities that would eventually defeat ISIS.
Airpower was expertly synergized in support of ground combat forces, with most of the airstrikes directed and controlled from remote operations centers—”war rooms” that would come to be known as Strike Cells. The strike cell soon became the dominant method of hunting and killing one of America’s most brutal and elusive enemies. By August of 2017, as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the United States and its coalition partners had conducted nearly 25,000 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria,1 most all controlled from strike cells operated by the U.S. military.
During the decade or so prior to the rise of ISIS, throughout the long-standing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, remotely controlled strikes were accomplished but on quite a limited basis in comparison. In the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, some of the first strikes against Saddam Hussein’s army were executed from remote cells. Over the years to follow, remotely controlled strikes onto “high value” targets became fairly routine in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other select locations in the Middle East. Still, the majority of airstrikes were coordinated and controlled by JTACs on the ground and in the direct fight.
America’s new war on ISIS changed things. The Obama administration restricted U.S. military combat action against ISIS almost solely to an air campaign, and in so doing inadvertently wrote a new chapter in U.S. military operational history. The scope of close air support, and the military’s implementation of it, soon evolved. The strike cell was born.
In the summer of 2014, Dana Pittard and Wes Bryant infilled into Baghdad as a part of the small task force sent by President Obama to protect the U.S. Embassy and other facilities from the threat of ISIS and, if necessary, evacuate thousands of American citizens from Iraq. Little did they know the mission would soon evolve into a devastating and intense military campaign against ISIS.
A year earlier, in 2013, Major General Pittard was deployed to the Middle East as the deputy commander of operations for the U.S. Army Central Command. When President Obama authorized the reaction force to enter Baghdad to respond to the ISIS threat, Pittard was quickly designated the Joint Forces Land Component Commander-Iraq. He infilled into Baghdad and commanded the first military forces to enter Iraq in a military capacity since the American withdrawal in 2011.
While General Pittard took charge of the Iraq crisis in Baghdad, Master Sergeant Bryant was tasked to the Kingdom of Bahrain as the senior JTAC for the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf Cooperation Council—the headquarters element that would oversee the special operations mission against ISIS. Soon after, Bryant infilled into Baghdad as the senior enlisted JTAC for the Special Operations Task Force-Iraq, and the noncommissioned officer in charge of its fires cell.
From the moment Pittard’s headquarters team hit the ground, he was determined that more needed to be done to stop ISIS. He persisted in levying the senior military chain of command to put pressure on Washington, and eventually gained authorization from President Obama to direct the first airstrikes against ISIS after ISIS attacked Iraq’s Kurdish Region.
The airstrike campaign kicked off with a fury. Once the administration and senior military leadership realized the results, a virtual Pandora’s box was opened. General Pittard soon directed Army Colonel Tim Kehoe and his 17th Field Artillery Brigade staff to establish a new strike cell at the Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) that would come to be known as the BIAP Strike Cell. With its multiservice team of conventional and special operations forces, the BIAP Strike Cell would safeguard central Iraq and the capital.
From his position at the special operations task force in Baghdad, Master Sergeant Bryant became the senior enlisted JTAC at the forefront of the establishment of the BIAP Strike Cell; and was the tactical lead for the team of special operations JTACs tasked to carry out the mission. Within weeks, the BIAP Strike Cell had prosecuted the first airstrikes against ISIS in the Baghdad region, pushed back the ISIS advance on the capital, and laid the foundations for how America would continue to wage its war against the caliphate. Over the months and years to follow, the BIAP Strike Cell and others like it would come to decimate ISIS ranks on a massive scale throughout Iraq and Syria.
By spring of 2015, Dana and Wes had gone their separate ways. Dana was serving as the deputy commander of the Army’s Central Command in Kuwait and preparing for his upcoming retirement from active duty. Wes was back in the States at his Special Tactics unit, training and evaluating the unit’s special operations JTACs while at the same time keeping himself sharp for what would become two more deployments to hunt ISIS in Syria, then Afghanistan, before his own retirement three years later.
It was around then that Dana began writing a book, initially about the U.S. infiltration into Iraq in 2014 and the first few months of the campaign against ISIS. In spring of 2016, Dana reached out to Wes to gain his JTAC perspective for the book. After some reconnection and collaboration, the two quickly found that the same synergy that had made their strike cell team so successful back in 2014 was still between them a year-and-a-half later. They soon made the decision to co-author a book on the war against ISIS, and Hunting the Caliphate was born into a joint endeavor that would come to be over three years in the making.
Dana and Wes felt that the unique and unprecedented blend of perspectives between the political, strategic, and operational insight of the senior commanding general on the ground combined with the first-hand tactical experience of the senior enlisted special operations JTAC to carry out the mission would be very impactful and resonate with a wide spectrum of readers.
Dana and Wes wanted to record a vital piece of history and do it in a way that was gritty and real—not just as a legacy to those who served in the fight against ISIS, but to educate the public on the inside story of a very unique campaign. They believe the American people deserve to know and, perhaps more importantly, that policy makers and government officials must better understand the warfighter’s point of view since they make the decisions that guide America’s military efforts across the world while often never having had any personal military experience.
There are a lot of standout aspects about Hunting the Caliphate: It is the first definitive account on the war against ISIS straight from two of the key men who waged it. It is one of the few books co-written by a general and a senior noncommissioned officer (from two different services, at that). And, it is the first major book written by a Joint Terminal Attack Controller.
First and foremost, Hunting the Caliphate is a story. It is a perspective on the campaign against ISIS from the eyes of two warriors, and it is their story. The authors could not possibly include enough in one book to highlight the amazing work that so many others accomplished in the fight against ISIS, including their teammates. Nevertheless, it is their hope that this story reflects the service and sacrifice of all who served in the initial months of the Iraq crisis of 2014, have deployed to hunt ISIS since, and continue to fight ISIS and other threats to this day.
—Dana J.H. Pittard and Wes J. Bryant