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thedrifter
10-01-05, 07:09 AM
Little sleep for Marines as mortar fire comes close
- Anna Badkhen, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, October 1, 2005

Outside Sada, Iraq -- The mortar rounds hit in the early morning. The first one, a harbinger of the assault to come, whooshed up from the sleepy border town of Sada at around 5:30 a.m. Friday, landing in a burst of sparks several hundred yards short of the sandstone cliffs where U.S. Marines were camped out.

The shell's trajectory left a momentary orange trace in the predawn sky, but the impact was almost inaudible, and most of the Marines slept right through it, wrapped in their sleeping bags in the foxholes they had dug in the hard-packed desert dust.

The second round landed closer, and the Marines felt the impact with the soles of their feet as it shook the ground.

The third hit closer yet, followed by several rockets and more mortar shells. The aim had become steadily more accurate, forcing the Marines to get into their armored humvees, withdraw from the cliffs overlooking Sada and move to a swath of parched wasteland farther from the town, about 7 miles east of the Syrian border.

"They were mortaring us good," said Sgt. Stephen Lybarger, a member of the 1st Mobile Assault Platoon, Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. "They were making good adjustments. I felt like a coward, leaving that hill."

As the 3rd Battalion prepared for an assault on insurgents holed up in five Iraqi towns on the border with Syria, the mortar and rocket attack suggested that the Marines are up against a well-armed and determined enemy.

"They were as good as our guys were," Lybarger said. "I wanted to kill them before they teach all the other guys how to do that."

Lt. Col. Julian Alford, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, stationed outside the western Iraqi town of Qaim, said fighters linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi control Sada and four other towns in this western corner of Anbar province, including Qaim.

Marines hope to quash the insurgency here ahead of the vote, scheduled for Oct. 15, on Iraq's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution, "trying to create an environment for a successful referendum," said Col. Stephen Davis, commanding officer of the Marine Regimental Combat Team 2, which incorporates the 3rd Battalion.

As Marines drove away from the cliffs, another mortar landed about 40 yards to the left of the armored humvee carrying Gunnery Sgt. Derrick Link and the vehicle's gunner, Cpl. Jeremy Anderson. The crack from the explosion rang in their ears.

"That one was close, gunny," Anderson called down from his turret as Pfc. Dale Fellows swerved the wheel hard.

"Yep," Link replied. Another mortar landed about 100 yards behind their truck.

"Another impact," Anderson remarked.

"Is that outgoing?" asked Link, distractedly, as he tried to speak to the battalion commanders on the humvee's radio.

"That's incoming, gunny," Anderson said.

"It's always from the left or the right of the blue mosque, that f -- ing area down there," he said.

After the humvees pulled out, U.S. helicopter gunships patrolled the skies over Sada. Within an hour, the pilots had located a house from which U.S. forces believed insurgents had lobbed the mortars and a car they said was packed with mortar rounds. The helicopters fired at the car and it exploded, the boom echoing over the town and into the wasteland where Link's humvee now stood.

An F/A-18 Hornet strike fighter, flying so high that it was invisible from the ground, dropped a 500-pound bomb known as Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, on the house, sending a plume of black smoke in the air. Several seconds later, there was a large cracking sound and the rumble of an explosion.

It was not immediately clear how much damage the bomb had caused or whether it had killed or injured any fighters or Iraqi civilians.

For the next several hours, the Marines sat in the baking desert sun, smoking and napping after a sleepless night in the desert. Fellows leaned his head against the armored window of his humvee, his mouth slightly open. Navy medic Michael Larson slept in the back seat, his head slightly bowed. Anderson also dozed off, standing up in his turret.

Link stood by his humvee smoking a cigar.

Sgt. Scott Wood stopped by on his way back from a patrol.

"How'd it go?" Link asked, sounding uninterested.

Wood shrugged: "F -- ing desert."

Shortly after midday, the muezzin in Sada began his elaborate, melodious call to Friday afternoon prayer, the most important prayer of the week. After the call ended, a mullah took over, spewing words into the loudspeaker.

The Marines, who did not understand Arabic -- there was no translator on hand -- took notice of the mullah's enraged tone.

"This is not your usual call to prayer," said Link.

"This guy was angry," said Larson. "Probably at us."

E-mail Anna Badkhen at abadkhen@sfchronicle.com.

Ellie