It ‘was a mild, overcast Silvesters in Baghdad in 2019 and six of diplomatic security agents were trying to defend against angry demonstrators Iraqis to fluctuate in their connection. The Iraqis were throwing Molotov cocktails on the outer wall, in an apparent attempt to fire the fuel depot message started. Now they are trying to force two open doors on both sides of the connection north-eastern gate. Special Agent Michael yohey, a 43-year-old Army veteran from Fredericksburg, Va., Can very chaotic chatter heard over his radio to get on protesters trying. He rushed to the northern embassy gate a security handful join the already existed, try dozens of protesters Iraqis to fight, open doors had been forced on both sides of the gate. But the worst had already happened: the message connection has been violated. Those in charge of diplomatic security agents of the defense of the vast embassy complex 104 acres on the west bank of the Tigris knew Iraq Iran supported militias for a fight fails. There have been demonstrations since US air strikes have killed many of its members. But the Americans had not heard a word of a plot against their message. And she had no way of knowing that the Iraqi security forces, their host counterparts, while maintaining the outside of the secure message entrusted would result, and thousands of angry protesters left in the international zone pour housed major diplomatic and military relations of United States. It ‘been a carefully orchestrated attack that intensifies the shadow war tit-for-tat between the US and Iran, with Iraq serving as a battlefield bag and punching, victims and instigators. For years, weapons are arming the whole country its proxy forces in Syria and Lebanon and the Trump administration looked the other way when the Israeli bombing destroyed many of these programs in Iraq to smuggle senior US and Iraqi officials , anonymous Iran says the transactions to describe that Israeli officials refused to confirm. In recent months, in 2019, the militias opposed rocket and mortar attacks on diplomatic and military positions of the US Iran-backed respecting and killed by these rockets on 27 December, a flood an American contractor and wounded four American soldiers. Two days later, the Trump administration responded with the US strikes in Syria and Iraq, killing at least 25 members of a group of Iranian Iraqi militia backed by Iraqi security forces and was under the nominal control of the first Iraqi minister. The answer was killed a funeral march for the New Year’s Eve by Shiite militiamen in the air strikes. It threatens to quickly overwhelm the US embassy defenses that were never designed by thousands of demonstrators, without assistance from the host country for an attack. In the frantic opening hours of the next handful of Diplomatic Security agents a stalemate two days that would bring the US embassy in Baghdad, the defense thinking Benghazi – the militants attack on September 11, 2012 as a masked protest that invaded ‘US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, and cost the lives of ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The six agents that led to this day the message of the emergency team of about two dozen security companies for their courage to the prices of federal law enforcement now appointed. For about 10 hours, which prevented thousands of protesters who came to them in waves, burning fuel bombs and pieces of broken concrete lobbing. No one died. None of the dozen Marines stationed on the roof pillars, the protests began with a view of the fire. He could have diplomatic special security agents, teams, and the military commander of the US in their connection a few hundred meters a wrong move did away the furious protests into a bloodbath shot, and kicked off a conflagration wider and direct struggle between the US and Iran. “They’re trying to get us to kill one of them,” he said a high-level two security agents who participated in that day, the anonymous said to describe the turmoil that threatened to overwhelm the first time the connection defenses. This account is based on interviews filled the hours of the US Embassy with the six officers who were at the front of the protests, their certificate of allocation and interviews with other senior US officials, the part were the answer. “I’m over the bridge” It ‘was a Tuesday morning, and the diplomatic security officials knew that the militia Iraqis had their funeral march near the center of the capital started on a road on the opposite side of the wide river, muddy Tigris, in front of the international zone that the message and the key offices of the Iraqi government and hosted apartments. They were on guard, but they were not particularly interested; they thought, would be the bridge that marks heavily guarded to keep the input from the center to the government district, the Iraqi security forces, the angry protesters come from above. The international zone as soon as it’s called “Green Zone”, filled more busy so with Canyon-like high blast walls as it was when the US troops in the country. Most of the international zone walls were reduced by 2019, but there were still some important safety bottlenecks where the Iraqi security forces can control the public record. Shortly before 10:30 this morning, Special Agent John Huey, 41, a call by Iraqi security officials had become a friend. You come across the bridge, said the Iraqi, and there’s nothing we can do. Somewhere in the upper echelons of the Iraqi government, officials had decided to allow the protesters. The officers, of which most were in the compound at its command center, incredulously watched by surveillance cameras occupying the outside of the embassy compound. Hundreds, then thousands of protesters filled Iraqi Al-Kindi Street, a broad avenue, and usually empty outside the embassy. “It ‘happened very quickly from this group on their parallel funeral march to the embassy. The next thing I heard was,’ Oh, I’m on deck … You are on the bridge,” recalls Huey, an Atlanta native and commander Unfold the incident to this day. “They were only allowed to go.” He first saw the protesters as they were planning a peaceful demonstration, set up tents and political banner. They hung a banner of massive militia on a residential building in Al-Kindi Street, an important number of skyscrapers in the area of government, the Iraqis enough to merit hosted a house in the international semi-protected area. Agent Thomas Kurtz Weil, 42, the “Blue” Tor was conducted as part of the agents of choreography security plan. The former officer of the US Army Infantry from North Carolina in 2003 had seen combat in Iraq a year after the invasion. Now he saw the demonstrators built through the window bulletproof fortified gate of the small reception, the embassy would build traffic to pass. “I saw them bring trucks with curtains that were outsourced, and I said, ‘Well, I’m here for a while’ will, ” he says. The complex, which he addressed the embassy was quick to make a de facto base of operations for the mixture of Shiite militias, who had gathered outside the embassy their air rage. It ‘was the first of three days by Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said Mourning, who was angry that the Americans had killed members of popular mobilization forces who were technically under its control. This force includes more than a dozen mostly Shiite militias, had keys to turn the tide against the Islamic state following a violent apocalyptic version of Sunni Islam. About a third of the Shiite groups it was recommended and supplied by Iran, which also cultivated a close relationship with the struggle against ISIS legendary commander of the Iraqi army general Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. After their success against ISIS, the prime minister was not willing to dismantle such a popular force in a country where Shiites are two-thirds, which he groups under the umbrella Iraqi security led, despite protests by Sunni and other Iraqi minorities. Now some of these militants were making Tehran’s orders, vying for increased financial support from Iran by US targets for attack, according to the senior US administration and the armed forces, the intelligence grasps anonymous communication with the militiamen speak Islamic revolutionary Guard to discuss. It seemed obvious to the diplomatic security officials that the militia had carefully traced the attack. Do not install their tents for a long time, they began systematically take the message of external surveillance cameras, says Special Agent Ian Mackenzie, 35, a former officer of the Missouri Police. “They were big poles is about breaking down the cameras and our views on the outside at what was happening limit.” The American embassy were now on alert, and after a series of emergency protocols that would repeatedly tried, diplomats were “Duck and Cover” located in safe areas of the road. Diplomatic Security Special Agent Evan Tsurumi, 41, who headed the Embassy of the rapid reaction force, that day came one message shooter on a rooftop to get an aerial view of the crowd. At this time the public had not been violent. Tsurumi, a former New York thousands paramedic and Navy Corpsman saw gathered in front of him, wearing some flags and some carrying weapons. They were to bring them mostly young men in their early 20s, some forces uniforms. “They were very disciplined, and they had an agenda,” he says in a new video call time with other agents. The home changed quickly. A little ‘more intimate than an hour after they arrived, the protesters “Death to America”, at the northeastern end of the compound of the US Embassy to scream and began lobbing Molotov cocktails – flaming bottles filled with fuel – the message fuel tank just inside the wall. It ‘it has been a strategic objective that special agents of the United States say the protesters must be chosen in advance, hoping to rekindle a fire that would lead to a massive explosion. Huey and Special Agent Mike Ross, a 37-year-old Marine reservist, runs to the tank farm where the message of fire – a mix of foreign entrepreneurs in the United States and – already tried extinguished flame before the fuel tanks burned inside, “We were dodging” says Huey rocks, “a surprising massive volume of stones and Molotov cocktails.” At least they have tried to dodge. Each agent and a member of the security forces, the main gates to defend the wheel that day in a sort of fragments of brick or paving protesters bullet hit was dug outside the embassy from the street, or baseball apparently brought large rocks rioters with them outside the international zone. The rocks bounced largely by military style helmets Team and American body armor, but still large enough to rattle around the brain, and the cutting and the arms and legs in what would become a battle of an hour bruised. Not many strikers was immediately clear they faced, or what they’re trying to do. “It ‘s been very difficult to read the situation, because all we had to do on the floor a lot of work, but we could not really see what was going on outside,” says Ross. The agents worked on the assumption that the demonstrators planned to storm a connection. “We were concerned that … there as Iran may be in ’79, it is only massively overwhelmed by the opposition, which was outside the embassy,” Tsurumi said, referring to 1979 US embassy acquisition in Tehran when Iranian students took 98 American hostages. “We have had many hundreds of souls who were responsible, and that probably will not be able to evacuate in time if we are not able to keep these guys out.” After attacking the tank farm, the demonstrators marched on the outskirts message to its next downward objective:, formally known as the red gate, one of the three inputs would attack them in that day to the northeast entrance. The staff inside the entrance security gate fort-like barricaded themselves inside, dictated by an emergency protocol, but the demonstrators were able to open two doors to force the steel gate on both sides . This is when yohey and his Iraqi translator rushed to the entrance in a vehicle speakers with skills that they would use to warn the protesters to keep the rest of the day away from the Embassy and by radio to all who were injured. Huey and Ross from the heat of the tank farm was to connect as Tsurumi. “They would also set up several generators on fire, and they were still the gas bombs roll over the wall,” said Tsurumi. “And they were flooded through the gate.” “All calm the f-ck down” The handful of agents and their message security forces – a dozen in all – in a semicircle around the formats protesters who had inside, and tried to move them. They opened fire with a number of weapons “non-lethal”: tear gas; “Flash-bang” percussion grenades; and “Stinger balls,” dense rubber balls fired from grenade launchers, usually directly on the zero jump and beat protesters in the knees or intestines. They managed is the first wave to force back on the road, but a second wave of about 50 protesters stormed soon Huey was worried his team was on its overflow -. And if that happened, he was worried that the security team at the embassy building above would apply to a deadly called violence if he draw fire from armed militias feared on the road saw that he had been careful not to approach the compound of ‘ embassy, ”We have unleashed a truly robust burst of less than lethal ammunition at the crowd,” says Huey, but the rebels soon as you turn. This is also in Iraqi Huey anti-terrorism troops spotted their way from the road by increasing protesters. They tried to get the militants from the link. “And at that point, it became very clear to me that we needed to regain control” as Iraqi counter-terrorist forces give some ‘space to work their way through the crowd and convince them to end the connection. Huey jumped between his line of officers and guards, and the protesters Iraqis, and a hoarse voice, all of them shouted: “Each of the rest f-ck down” And everyone, including the Iraqis took a step back. It worked “surprisingly good,” he recalls with a smile. “And we were all kind of cap that can aggressively attack that had unleashed on these people”, and Iraqi counterterrorism troops were officers of grazing militia. This was the first time, what a long day in the fray with protesters besieging, the embassy gates in coordinated waves. A fifty demonstrators at the gate would have peaks and then fold, replaced by 50 more, according to a senior security official who was the protest from the base through the road monitoring, speaking on condition of anonymity. The diplomatic security agents were eventually forced into the position of closed doors. Back outside the compound walls of the Porta Rossa pushed “Benghazi certainly crossed the minds of everyone,” the demonstrators marched through the streets to the two goals to destroy the Blue consular inputs and the reception building, and a metal roof an external sunroof with a ramp to climb the wall. The embassy staff in this small building of the fortified station had been evacuated already sensitive documents and evacuated. These two doors, making the protesters in the embassy compound in the same numbers rather than at the Red Gate, but he kept trying for hours. “The rest of the day was a stalemate with various breaks genre in which they explore the various defense more gas to launch the bomb” and thousands of baseball great rock says Tsurumi, he described the mission as a defensive marathon. “We were there alone, without the help of about 10 hours, you know, just work creatively.” The funds were now also serve as firefighters, as fire its contractors were not paid to fight, while under enemy fire. The insurgents held Molotov cocktails to throw over the wall, where a number of embassy vehicles parked so Mackenzie, who had joined the fight to the Red Door, scrambled key to the vehicles on fire, jumps in to find them, and drive them out of the way to put walls around the fires. The first hour was violently agitated. “Benghazi, definitely … all come to mind,” says MacKenzie. What you might not know it from his point of view in the middle of the fight for the fact that the US military had status in the team Iraq, the Gulf, Europe and even back to the US to flood the message the agent protects the inside and if necessary evacuate the diplomats, the two senior security officials said on condition of anonymity, says the answer to describe. In Washington, the officials aged between State Department, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and sent Brian Hooks Iran, the siege has been observed by several cameras, which have remained at the embassy and the US in Iraq on the road by the military joint cameras trained military base, Union III, catty corner from the diplomatic compound on the opposite side of the Kindi Street. In Virginia, Michael Evanoff, the head then of Diplomatic Security, got the call first to his house shortly after three in the morning – the 10th time in Iraq point – as the protesters were allowed to cross the bridge and the message approach. It goes directly to the Diplomatic security command center in Rosslyn, Va., Where you can control what his agents were doing on the ground. A former agent of Diplomatic Security with decades of experience in conflict zones, Evanoff had been hired in 2017 with a higher order from the White House: no longer “Benghazis” The Trump administration did not want to miss the US diplomats because of the structures diplomatic unacceptable. Evanoff and his team planned for years to repeat as a disaster in Benghazi style, and this would have given his evidence. They had reinforced multiple layers of security inside the embassy in Baghdad, such as high-threat posts had with others, the addition of a Task Force Team US Marine Air Ground addition to the Marines who regularly protect embassies and the ‘internal classified material. They are constantly drilled what to do when a message is exceeded. “We are armed to the teeth and managed to destroy,” he says. “But we had to see the happiness that their intention was to harass.” Sitting thousands of miles away, Evanoff in Virginia, and Pompey and the other people watching from another monitoring center at the Department of State, followed the line of the highest officer of the floor: Bryan Bachmann, the Diplomatic Security representatives running the center of Baghdad command messages that day. It was Bachmann, its agents and emergency American entrepreneurs security forces have been adopted dealing with the attack on the gates well, and was put to avoid the decisive called uniformed troops in the battle so that the amount could inflame judge this and become fatal, says Evanoff. To Benghazi, embassies in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan were better already fortified, but the team took that further Evanoff, install multiple security rings mostly invisible. In Baghdad it would pass through the front gate of the building that visitors who have penetrated the protesters and burned by design less to buy than an hour to prepare within the lethal defenses, such as the dozens of marines armed with heavy machine guns positioned on rooftops . The damage to the three ports was about $20 million, one of the senior security officials said, but it was considered money well spent. There were some protesters vent their anger and bought time for those who prepare the inside. There were some parts of the plan that Evanoff not work so well. Somehow, the mechanisms have been put in at least one of the huge multi-million gate, dollar, agents have had to figure out how to remove the controls to close. Agent Kurtz Because a sharp knife says proved the easiest option, and then the agents and their teams eroded by the security company has made the connection to a vacuum container transport and a new inner ring to each of the inputs of the fire. In response similar goals in other US connections all over the world now, one of the security officials said, and there is a new standard procedure for improvising new port when a connection is overwhelmed. fuel farms have also been attached to withstand the attack from the outside. Wait until the evening of the first day, the police had secured the gates, and to calm her down several Iraqi officials, including the Minister of Interior and the General Commander of the Iraqi militia al-Muhandis protesters had visited. Iraqi officials say the time they worked as fast as possible to the situation of de-escalation, insisting it was more symbolic than a real risk to the occupants. A consultant to the then Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi said the US air strikes against militias conducted without notice to the prime minister, had created a certain degree of anger in the ranks of the government, which had to be handled with care. Around midnight, protesters started back their harassment, shouting “!, Happy New Year Amriki” for inward fire vehicles, including commercial fireworks first in air and then directly to Americans. “But it was not a mortar or an RPG,” said a grenade rocket, one of the security guards, and began a barrage of at the US Embassy and military ties were also a weekend event normal, harass the second security official said. So the agents sat alone, and prepared to eliminate all fires, the fire could prejudice the start. Second day of protests more like a public relations exercise felt by militias, says Huey. The protesters milled, sound systems blaring loud listened to patriotic music while American troops, including more than 100 additional Marines sent by the Pentagon waiting outside for the most part. At one point, the Americans fired tear gas at an energetic group of protesters who had climbed a reception of the building burned, but for the most part, the fight was over. At the end of the day, the protesters demands of their militia leaders to quit to look after their tents packed up and left. That’s when the US military invaded the message more defense, says the cover of darkness, in anticipation of the next round of Payback, a senior security official. On 3 January, a US drone strike killed in January Qasem Soleimani of the Iranian and Iraqi militias General al-Muhandis, the leading US officials gave the attack the US Embassy for planning. But this time it was not allowed protesters from reaching the street in front of the US embassy. the forces of Iraqi Prime Minister hold them off. Pompey had warned about the accident message on New Year’s Eve, which the United States would “protect and defend his people” if the embassy was attacked again. During these two days of tension, messages agents around frantically from loved ones at home were returned to watch the unfolding of violence as was filmed by local and international media, and the protesters themselves, in what was the whole ritual humiliation part of the American interior. “My wife was beside herself straight. And ‘was absolutely terrifying for them,” says MacKenzie. When he returned to the United States weeks, “he said, in essence, no turning back.” He has not returned since, although Huey and some of the other agents. The six men were called only the recipients of the National Award of staff of the Federal forces Enforcement Association this year for Brothers in the night, and global team of security in Baghdad has been appointed to keep calm in the face of an opponent for the Heroism Award Department of State, which tried to goad in violence. They knew that if things went wrong in the night, you could start a war, says Huey. “We knew what the game was here.” So they kept their mind and sense of humor, added Ross, with a comment, the grins brings all agents. “If you were to go down, I’m at least smiling down.” copyright Image of Murtadha-Sudani Anadolu Agency / Getty Images
Surely Benghazi Crossed all the senses: The Inside Story of the US embassy in Baghdad attack
