Taking Back Iraq's Streets

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The Iraqi Special Forces Brigade, or ISOF, is made of two distinct parts. The 36th Commando Battalion, famed for its tenacity in battle, is a hard core of elite troops trained in urban combat and reconnaissance who are put through what their U.S. trainers dub "Ranger school-lite". Applicants for the 36th are carefully screened for criminal or insurgent connections. Many have past military experience. Under the Green Berets' tutelage they endure a three-week initial training course designed to elevate their fighting skills and build a cohesion even the veteran fighters have not known before. Their marksmanship drills make them far superior to their army colleagues. Comparing the U.S. regimen to those from his days in Saddam's army and later as a Kurdish peshmerga officer, the 36th Commando school commander says "the Americans' training kicks the Iraqis' ass".

The ISOF brigade's other component is the Counterterrorism Task Force, modeled on the U.S. Delta Force. With more intensive weapons training, and specialist skills such as fast-roping from helicopters, the CTF is more adept in the arts of close-quarter combat, like those needed when storming a house to rescue hostages. While the Commandos wear Iraqi uniforms and carry Belgian-made Kalashnikov knockoffs, the CTF members don U.S. fatigues, carry cut-down M-4 carbines, travel in armored Humvees rather than open-back trucks, have modern communications equipment and pack sniper rifles and heavy weapons such as AT-4 anti-tank missiles. When CTF soldiers queued on Jan. 30 at a Baghdad polling station to vote people confused them with their American counterparts.

The brigade not only pursues what the military terms national level targets, such as terrorist kingpin Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but is also equipped for classic special forces' unconventional warfare and covert operations. Donning civilian clothes, its men dissolve into the streets to scout targets and eye off insurgent mortar sites. U.S. commanders say that during the stand-off with renegade cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia in Najaf last summer, their Iraqi charges were "the only Coalition unit to provide daily intelligence from within the Imam Ali mosque". Posing as locals coming to pray, soldiers slipped past Sadr's forces to scope for the militants' command positions, documents and arsenals. It's a skill, and a daring, they learned from the Green Berets. In some operations American Special Forces have worn the flowing Arab dishdasha, with body armor hidden underneath. According to a 1st Cavalry Division commander, a covert team of U.S. troops has used similar tactics to penetrate target houses.

Though the U.S. is pleased with the performance of the commandos, there are also gnawing fears that sending Iraqi units to take on insurgents could fuel sectarian tensions. The vast majority of the ISOF troops are Iraqi Shia, with some ethnic Sunni Arabs; the brigade's deadly snipers are drawn from the core of Kurdish peshmerga soldiers who bolster, and in some cases, command the Special Forces units. It's not the demographic mix the Americans would like, but recruiting from within the Sunni community, which provides the backbone of the rebels' forces, is proving tough.

The Green Berets are watchful of factions emerging within the units. "We keep an eye out for nepotism," says the Task Force Pioneer commander. As a demonstration he turned to the Americans around him, pointing out each man's ethnic origins. "Look at us," he told the Iraqi recruits, "this guy is Polish, he's Mexican, and this guy, I don't know where the hell he's from but he's going to do what he's told." The first 72 hours of training are geared to tackling the cultural divisions with exercises like taking orders from female medics. "By American standards it's not that severe," says an advisor. About 15% of the trainees wash out, he says, compared to half of American recruits failing Ranger School.

So far, the ISOF Brigade is weathering the test. One commando, a 27-year-old former lieutenant from Saddam's army says he joined because he's military through and through, and wanted to continue serving his country. Plus, he adds, his $520 monthly salary is an improvement on the $60 he earned in the defunct Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Unlike most members of the CTF, he has told his family he was working with the Americans. He's already received two "threat letters" from the insurgents to quit or face death for himself or his family. Still, his family and his new fianc support him. "They told me, God will protect you and your guys," he says.

Given the desire of the incoming Iraqi government to assume greater authority over the country's security forces, U.S. officials worry that the commando-training program may be curtailed. It's hoped the ISOF Brigade will not be disturbed. There's a long way to go, but these elite troops are the best Iraq currently has to offer. The American Task Force Pioneer commander hopes by building these Special Forces, he is on the way to "working ourselves out of a job" in Iraq. That's a goal both Iraqis and Americans can agree on.