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thedrifter
10-20-03, 03:08 PM
October 17, 2003

Back in action
Stability, humanitarian aid are 13th MEU’s missions in Iraq

By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer


CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — It’s only been about a month since the 1st Marine Division left Iraq, but Marines already are back in action there.
The 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit came ashore from three amphibious assault ships in the northern Persian Gulf the week of Oct. 12 for security, stability and humanitarian-assistance operations.

For many of the 2,200 men and women of the 13th MEU, this marks their first view of Iraq. Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, and the rest of the MEU were knee-deep in predeployment training when Operation Iraqi Freedom kicked off March 19.

The MEU deployed Aug. 22 as part of Expeditionary Strike Group 1 for what is expected to be an eight-month float, arriving in the Arabian Sea in early October.

Now, it’s their turn.

As of Oct. 16, most of the 13th MEU Marines were ashore, said unit spokesman Capt. William Pelletier in a telephone interview.

“Right now, we’re not sure how long the mission is going to last,” he said.

The bulk of BLT 1/1 and MEU Service Support Group 13 are working with Multinational Division Southeast, a military force led by a British two-star general. Elements of the MEU’s aviation combat element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163, were based at the Basra airport. Smaller elements of the 13th MEU remained on ship for other missions, including maritime-interdiction operations with the rest of ESG-1 in the gulf, officials said.

Most of the MEU’s equipment and vehicles stayed on ship. “The commander’s guidance was to remain expeditionary,” Pelletier said.

During their first four days in Iraq, BLT 1/1 and MSSG-13 ran vehicle checkpoints, handed out water to local residents and patrolled the streets and villages with Iraqi police and British soldiers.

Iraq’s southeastern peninsula, with its key waterways and proximity to Iran’s southern ports, has long been a strategic piece of terrain and a hotbed of commercial business and smuggling activities. It remains littered with mines and “a lot of unexploded ordnance,” said Col. Michael R. Regner, who commands the “Fighting 13th.”

Regner, speaking Oct. 16 by cell phone from the peninsula, said that he’s pleased with their work so far.

The operations ashore are helping dispel the locals’ perception of U.S. Marines as hard and uncaring, he said.

“I think we’re really giving the Iraqi people a good sense of what we are doing for them,” he said.

While on patrol, the Marines are wearing soft covers in lieu of helmets so as to appear more approachable. “It’s a much more friendly environs,” Pelletier said. “Obviously, we take all the necessary precautions to protect our forces.”

One of the MEU’s main security and stability missions has been to stymie the smuggling of oil out of Iraq, an act prohibited by UN sanctions and Iraqi law.

Smugglers break into pipelines and collect the oil, hauling it to the waterways to sell. British troops “have been interdicting significant numbers,” Pelletier said.

Already, the Marines have detained several people suspected of stealing oil. In one coordinated mission with Iraqi police, Alpha Company, BLT 1/1, helped nab some men who stole a boat and held several people hostage.

“It’s not full-fledged combat ops, but it’s a chance to do something that is lower down the scale but which is having an impact,” Pelletier said.

Along with patrols, the MEU and ESG-1 units also will conduct rebuilding projects and medical- and dental-care programs.

“The security-stability ops and humanitarian aid go hand in hand, so (the Iraqis) can help themselves get back on their feet,” Pelletier said.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-292925-2313714.php


Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

thedrifter
10-20-03, 03:10 PM
October 16, 2003

Element of 13th MEU to aid anti-smuggling operations in Iraq

By Robert Burns
Associated Press


A group of ship-borne Marines has gone ashore in southern Iraq to assist in an anti-smuggling operation that already has seized dozens of barges and oil tankers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.
Air Force Gen. Gen. Richard Myers said Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit operating from the amphibious assault ship Peleliu in the Persian Gulf have gone ashore, but he provided few details.

Other Marine units played a major role in both the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the initial months of the U.S. occupation, but the last of those Marines departed the country in September.

Myers also provided the first public confirmation that U.S. forces captured Aso Hawleri, a leading figure in the Kurdish-Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam, which U.S. officials say has ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Myers said Hawleri was captured near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, but he did not say when or provide other details of the arrest.

Speaking at a Pentagon news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Myers said the U.S.-led coalition recently began “Operation Sweeney,” designed to prevent smuggling in southern Iraq.

“To date, we have arrested about 75 individuals, seized 20 full barges, 15 empty barges, eight oil boats, 36 petroleum tankers and nine pickup trucks containing fuel and 10 fuel pumps,” Myers said.

“As part of this effort, Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit operating from the USS Peleliu have gone ashore in Iraq to assist in this operation,” he added.

Myers did not say how many Marine went ashore. Normally the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., has about 2,200 Marines and about 2,000 sailors aboard.






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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2309721.php


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: