45 Commando
Op Haven 1991

The telephone rang and the voice the other end said, 'Can you get the unit ready to go in three days?'. The answer of course was 'Yes', and 24 hours later the recall from leave started. Although we had planned quite carefully for just such an eventuality, the business of finding 637 men, many of whom were in inaccessible parts of the world or had changed their plans and so were not where we expected them to be, was considerable. Nevertheless, three days later the Advance Party of five left Brize Norton as the unit took shape in Condor.

The first days were hectic. With very little more than a fleeting impression of huddled masses in mountain refugee camps (gained entirely from television reporting), we had little idea of what to do. In the event the Recce Party landed in Diyarbakir (somewhere in Turkey) in the late evening of 20 April and flew East to Silopi (near the junction of the Turkey/Syria/lraq borders) by Chinook the next morning. We landed in a large field, apparently in the middle of nowhere, but by quick talking we were able to drive into North Iraq, visit the HQ of Task Force Bravo, commanded by Maj Gen Jay Garner, who had moved down from Germany for this task, select a unit HQ location in a school 1Okm outside Zakho, and return to Silopi for a night in the large, and growing, tent city on the flat Turkish plain.  

Xray Coy Make use of a new mode transport...

There were some bizarre aspects to the day. We drove through Zakho, a ghost town with no people but lots of Iraqi police and soldiers who stood, uncertainly, and watched as we drove by. This was not an invasion, but it was quite clearly a demonstration of force and immense cheek. The school we had selected was a mess, as is all of North Iraq, and as we occupied it we were watched by the Iraqi army, still dug in on the ridge line 600m away, protected by the inevitable mine field that makes so much of the countryside quite unsafe. When told to move, one of the Iraqi commanding officers replied that he could not do so since he had no orders to that effect, and that should he do so on his own initiative he would most certainly be executed. We had clearly come to a different part of the world!

The rifle companies flew in over the following four days, straight to the school, where they spent 24 hours re-organising before moving out into the field. The first plan was to move to the mountains in helicopters borrowed from 24 MEU, the USIVIC force that had arrived in the Zakho area just before ourselves, patrol North to the camps and help bring down refugees. That was before we fully understood that the refugees would not move until their home areas were secure, or that humanitarian aid and security operations were inseparable. By 24 April we were retasked to an operation in Zakho, involving all four companies patrolling the streets, identifying Police, Secret Police and Army barracks, and then ejecting their occupants.  

45 commando Patrol Welcomed by Peshmerga in Mankesh

It was potentially a huge task. Iraq is a country with an enormous military/police infrastructure, and its people are in the grip of a terror we just do not understand. We discovered a bit of it in Zakho where we found it extremely difficult to eject the Secret Police who were arrogant and could not believe that their apparently unchallenged right to kill and beat their subject population was about to end. In the event, firm Northern Ireland-style patrolling proved its worth, and Zakho came back to life.

The first day on the streets was a remarkable experience as people came out of their houses, free for the first time but barely able to believe it. As the days passed thousands returned to Zakho, travelling by car, lorry or on the back of tractors. For two days our few vehicles worked the mountains bringing people to their homes, people who also could not believe they could return.  

45 Commando on Patrol duties

Events then became a blur. On 29 April we started moving East, with Sp Coy in Batufa, a strategic valley village essential if the Kurds were to return to the Zakho valley. By 2 May the whole Commando was disengaged from Zakho and moving East across rolling country reminiscent of East Africa. There were no lions, but dishevelled groups of Iraqi soldiers, soon to withdraw with their few possessions and what loot they could carry. Finally, by 4 May the unit was established in its present area, some 1000 sq km of N Iraq, where the slower work of returning a valley system to normality began.  

The villages of the Sirsenk Valley have been mostly destroyed, some blown up, some shelled and some gassed. When we arrived they were almost deserted and uniformly wrecked and looted. Within days we had found and reconnected water, provided food, improved the health care and motivated the returning people to clean up their own towns. The effect was quite astonishing as we witnessed the return of life to AI Amadiyah (Sp Coy), Quadish (Y and Sp), Birmini (Y Coy) and Sarsink (Z Coy). X Coy was deployed in the hills and mountains to the South, up against the Iraqi Army in an area of uncertainty.  

Our first month in Iraq was amazing. We moved over 100 km and brought freedom to towns and villages as we went. In our second month we stopped and were faced with the harder tasks of resettlement and rebuilding. As this goes to press, we should be returning, our mission of restoring the Kurdish people to their homes complete. Whether we have in any way achieved anything permanent remains to be seen.