Rogue Forces (17 page)

N
ORTH OF THE TOWN OF
B
EYTUSSEBAP
, R
EPUBLIC OF
T
URKEY

T
HE NEXT EVENING

The squad of eight Iraqi Kurd guerrilla fighters had used sniper team tactics—self-taught by reading books, using the Internet, and learning information passed down to them by veterans—to make their way to their target: crawling for dozens of miles sometimes inches at a time, never rising up past knee height for any reason; changing camouflage on their clothing every time the terrain changed; being careful to erase any signs of their presence as they dragged heavy packs and rocket-propelled grenade launcher tubes behind them.

One of the fighters, a former police officer from Irbil named Sadoon Salih, broke off a piece of a fig candy bar, tapped the boot of the person ahead of him, and held it out. “Last piece, Commander,” he whispered. The person made a “quiet” motion back at him—not with her left hand, but with a rakelike appliance attached to her wrist where a hand would normally be. Then the rake averted, open-handed, and the fighter dropped the candy into it. She nodded her thanks and kept moving.

They had brought food and water for only five days on this reconnaissance patrol, but with all the activity in the area she had decided to stay out. The food they brought ran out three days ago. They had cut back their daily rations to absurdly low levels and had begun subsisting on food they found in the field—berries, roots, and insects, with an occasional handout from a sympathetic farmer or herdsman they dared approach—and sipping stream water filtered through dirty kerchiefs.

But now she had discovered what all the military activity was about, and it was a lot more than just the Jandarma goon squads attacking Kurdish villages looking for revenge for the attack in Diyarbakir: the Turkish army was building these little fire bases in the
countryside. Was Turkey bringing in the regular military to reinforce the Jandarma?

They had changed their reconnaissance patrol plan because of the spectacular double missile launches they had observed the night before. They were accustomed to seeing artillery and air bombardments from Turkey against Kurdish villages and PKK training camps, but these were no artillery rounds—they were guided high-performance missiles that were maneuvering while ascending, not in a ballistic flight path, and they exploded far up in the sky. The Turks had a new weapon in the field, and they obviously had something to do with all this base construction activity along the Turkey-Iraq border. It was up to her and her squads to check it out.

Along with water and concealment, the most important aid to the fighters was preservation of night vision. All of the fighters carried red-lensed goggles, and the closer they got to their objective the more they had to use them in order not to spoil their night vision, because the perimeter of their objective was illuminated by banks of outwardly aimed portable floodlights, which threw the encampment beyond into total darkness. It was an interesting tactic, thought the squad leader: the Turkish army certainly had night-vision technology, but they weren’t using it out here.

It could be a trap, but it was definitely an opportunity they couldn’t waste.

The squad leader, Zilar Azzawi, motioned for her shooters to move forward. As they spread out and began setting up, she scanned the perimeter with her binoculars. Set between each portable floodlight setup was a sandbag firing nest, separated from one another by about twenty yards. Seventy yards to her right was a truck entrance built of sandbags and lumber, blocked by a troop transport truck with the right side covered with a solid wall of green plywood panels, forming a simple movable gate. There was a single layer of thin five-foot high metal rolled fencing between the sandbag emplacements, held up by lightweight stakes. This was definitely not a permanent camp, at least not yet.

If they were going to take advantage, now was the time.

Azzawi waited until her team was ready, then pulled out a simple Korean-made hiker’s walkie-talkie and clicked the microphone button once, then clicked twice. A few moments later, she got two clicks in reply, followed by three clicks. She clicked her walkie-talkie three times, put it away, then touched the arm of the two men on either side of her with the silent “get ready” signal.

She lowered her head, closed her eyes, then spoke “
Ma’lēsh
—nothing matters,” in a low, quiet voice. She paused for a few more heartbeats, thinking of her dead husband and sons—and at that, the fury within her pushed the energy of a jet engine through her body, and she smoothly and easily stood up, raised her RPG-7 launcher, and fired at the sandbag gun mount across from her. As soon as her round hit, her other squad members opened up on other emplacements, and in seconds the entire section was wide open. At that moment the two other squads under Azzawi’s command on different sides of the base also opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades.

Now the lights that had prevented the attackers from seeing inside the base gave them an advantage, because they could see survivors and other Turkish soldiers preparing to repel the attack. Azzawi’s sniper teams started picking them off one by one, which forced the Turks to retreat farther back from the perimeter into the darkness of their camp. Azzawi threw her RPG launcher aside, retrieved her radio, and yelled, “
Ala tūl
! Move!” She picked up her AK-47 assault rifle, screamed, “
IlHa’ūnī!
Follow me!” and ran toward the base, firing from the hip.

There was no alternative but to dash across the illuminated no-man’s-land to the base—they were easy targets for anyone inside. But without her pack and RPG launcher, and with the surge of adrenaline mixed with fear coursing through her body, the fifty-yard run felt easy. But to her surprise, there was little resistance.

There were a few bodies in the destroyed gun nests, but she saw no signs of things like mine detonators, antitank weapons, or heavy machine guns or grenade launchers, just light infantry weapons. Apparently they hadn’t been expecting much trouble, or they hadn’t
had time to set up properly. This notion was reinforced a few moments later when she found construction equipment, concrete, lumber for forms, and tools in piles nearby.

In less than five minutes of sporadic fighting, Azzawi’s three squads met up. All three had pushed forward with relative ease. She congratulated each of her fighters with handshakes and motherly touches, then said, “Casualty report.”

“We have one dead, three wounded,” the first squad leader said. “Seventeen prisoners, including an officer.” The other squad leader reported similarly.

“We have four wounded and eight prisoners,” Salih, Azzawi’s assistant squad leader, said. “What is this place, Commander? That was too easy.”

“First things first, Sadoon,” Azzawi said. “Set up perimeter guards in case their patrols come back.” Salih ran off. To the second squad leader, she said, “Bring the officer to me,” as she wrapped a scarf over her face.

The captive was a captain in the Turkish army. He was holding his left hand over a gaping wound on his right biceps, and blood was freely flowing. “Get a medical kit over here,” Azzawi ordered in Arabic. In Turkish, she asked, “Name, unit, and purpose here, Captain, and quickly.”

“You bastards nearly shot my damned arm off!” he shouted.

Azzawi raised her left arm, letting her
hijab
sleeve roll down to reveal her makeshift prosthetic. “I know exactly how it feels, Captain,” she said. “Look at what the Turkish air force did to
me
.” Even in the semidarkness, she could see the soldier’s eyes widen in surprise. “And this is far better than what you did to my husband and sons.”

“You…you are Baz!” the officer breathed. “The rumors are true…!”

Azzawi removed the scarf from her face, revealing her dirty but proud and beautiful features. “I said name, unit, and mission, Captain,” she said. She raised her rifle. “You must understand that I don’t have the desire or the ability to take prisoners, Captain, so I
promise you I will kill you right here and now if you don’t answer me.” The officer lowered his head and started to shiver. “Last chance: name, unit, and mission.” She raised her weapon to her hip and clicked the safety switch off with a loud
snap.
“Very well. Peace be with you, Captain—”

“All right, all right!” the officer shouted. It was obvious he wasn’t a trained or experienced field officer—probably a desk jockey or lab rat pressed into service at the last minute. “My name is Ahmet Yakis, Twenty-third Communications Company, Delta Platoon. My mission was to set up communications, that’s all.”

“Communications?” If this was just a communications relay site, it might explain the lax security and ill-preparedness. “For what?”

Just then, Azzawi’s assistant squad leader, Sadoon Salih, ran up. “Commander, you have
got
to see this,” he said breathlessly. She ordered the prisoner to be bandaged up and secured, then ran off. She had to hop over a lot of cables strung throughout the camp, and she saw a large truck carrying what appeared to be a large steel container to which most of the cables were attached. They followed a bundle of cables up a slight rise to a large enclosure covered with camouflage netting.

Inside the enclosure, Azzawi found a large transport truck with a squat, square steel enclosure on the flatbed, along with two antenna masts lowered onto the deck of the truck and folded up in road-march configuration. “Well, here is the communications antennae the captain said he was setting up,” Azzawi said. “I guess he was telling the truth.”

“Not entirely, Commander,” Salih said. “I recognize this equipment because back home I guarded an American convoy of these things being set up to guard against an Iranian attack into Iraq. This is called an antenna mast group, which relays microwave command signals from a radar site to missile launch sites. That truck back there is a power generator…for a Patriot antiaircraft missile battery.”

“
A Patriot missile battery
?” Azzawi exclaimed.

“They must be the advance team setting up a base station for a
Patriot missile battery,” Salih said. “They’ll bring in a huge flat-screen radar and a control station and be able to control several launchers spread out over miles. It’s all very portable; they can operate anywhere.”

“But why on God’s great earth are the Turks setting up an antiaircraft missile site out here?” Azzawi asked. “Unless the Kurdish government in Iraq somehow built itself an air force, who are they guarding against?”

“I don’t know,” Salih said. “But whoever it is, they must be flying over Turkish territory, and the Turks shot at them last night. I wonder who it was?”

“I don’t really care who they are—if they’re fighting Turks, that’s good enough for me,” Azzawi said. “Let’s take these vehicles back home. I don’t know what value they have, but they look brand-new, and maybe we can use them. At the very least, we won’t have to walk as far to get home. Good job tonight, Sadoon.”

“Thank you, Commander. It’s a pleasure to serve under such a strong leader. I’m sorry we didn’t do that much damage to the Turks, though…”

“Every little cut weakens them just a little bit more,” Zilar said. “We are few, but if we keep on inflicting these little cuts, eventually we’ll succeed.”

Ç
ANKAYA
K
ÖŞKÜ
, A
NKARA
, R
EPUBLIC OF
T
URKEY

L
ATER THAT DAY

“The initial reports were true, sir,” General Orhan Sahin, secretary-general of the Turkish national security council said, running a hand through his dark sandy hair. “The PKK terrorists stole several components of a Patriot surface-to-air missile battery, specifically the antenna mast group, power generator, and cables.”

“Unbelievable, simply unbelievable,” President Kurzat Hirsiz muttered. He had assembled his national security council for an update on planning for the Iraq operation, but things seemed to be getting worse by the day and threatening to spin out of control. “What happened?”

“Early last night a PKK platoon, reportedly led by the terrorist commando mastermind they call the Hawk, attacked a Patriot headquarters emplacement that was being set up near the town of Beytussebap,” Sahin said. “The terrorists killed five, wounded twelve, and tied up the rest. All of our soldiers and technicians are accounted for—they took no prisoners, which means it was probably just a surveillance team or patrol, not a strike force. They made off with major Patriot missile battery components that were mounted on trucks for easy deployment, parts that allow the headquarters to communicate with remote launchers. Fortunately the headquarters vehicle itself and the missile transporter-launchers were not present.”

“Am I supposed to feel relieved about this?” Hirsiz shouted. “Where was security? How could this happen?”

“The base was not yet fully set up, so there was no perimeter fencing or barriers,” Sahin said. “There was only a token security force in place—the rest had been sent to help search for wreckage of the engagement that happened the previous night.”

“My God,” Hirsiz breathed. He turned to Prime Minister Akas.
“We must do this, Ays¸e, and do it
now
,” he said to her. “We must accelerate the Iraq operation. I want to declare a state of national emergency. You must convince the Grand National Assembly to declare war on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and all its affiliated groups throughout Turkey’s neighboring region and order a call-up of reserves.”

“That is craziness, Kurzat,” Akas said. “There is no reason for a state of emergency. Whoever leaked that rumor should be thrown in jail. And how can you declare war on an ethnic group? Is this Nazi Germany?”

“If you don’t want to participate, Prime Minister, you should resign,” Minister of National Defense Hasan Cizek said. “The rest of the cabinet is with the president. You stand in the way of getting this operation fully under way. We need the cooperation of the National Assembly and the Turkish people.”

“And I disagree with this plan, as do the legislators I have spoken with behind closed doors,” Akas said. “We are all disgusted and frustrated by the PKK attacks, but invading Iraq is not the way to solve the problem. And if anyone should resign, Minister, it is
you
. The PKK has infiltrated the Jandarma, stolen valuable weapons, and run roughshod over the entire country. I am not going to resign. I appear to be the only voice of reason here.”

“Reason?” Cizek cried. “You stand there and call for meetings and negotiations while Turks are slaughtered. Where’s the reason in that?” He turned to Hirsiz. “We’re wasting time here, sir,” he growled. “She will never comply. I told you, she’s a brainless ideological idiot. She’d rather stonewall than do the right thing to save the republic.”

“How dare you, Cizek?” Akas shouted, stunned by his words. “I am the prime minister of Turkey!”

“Listen to me, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said. “I can’t do this without you. We’ve been in Ankara together for too many years, in the National Assembly and in Çancaya. Our country is under siege. We can’t just talk any longer.”

“I promise you, Mr. President, I will do everything in my power
to make the world realize that we need help to stop the PKK,” Akas said. “Don’t let your hatred and frustration lead you to bad decisions or rash actions.” She stepped closer to Hirsiz. “The republic is counting on us, Kurzat.”

Hirsiz looked like a man who had been beaten and tortured for days. He nodded. “You’re right, Ays¸e,” he said. “The republic
is
counting on us.” He turned to the military chief of staff, General Abdullah Guzlev: “Do it, General.”

“Yes,
sir
,” Guzlev said, and he went to the president’s desk and picked up a phone.

“Do what, Kurzat?” Akas asked.

“I’m accelerating the deployment of the armed forces,” Hirsiz said. “We’ll be ready to begin the operation in a few days.”

“You cannot begin a military offensive without a declaration of war by the National Assembly,” Akas said. “I assure you, we don’t have the votes yet. Give me more time. I’m sure I can convince—”

“We won’t need the votes, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said, “because I’m instituting a state of emergency and dissolving the National Assembly.”

Akas’s eyes bugged out in complete shock. “You’re
what
…?”

“We have no choice, Ays¸e.”

“
We
? You mean, your military advisers? General Ozek?
They’re
your advisers now?”

“The situation demands action, Ays¸e, not talk,” Hirsiz said. “I was hoping you’d help us, but I’m prepared to take action without you.”

“Don’t do it, Kurzat,” Akas said. “I know the situation is grave, but don’t make any rash decisions. Let me gather support from the Americans and the United Nations. They are sympathetic to us. The American vice president will listen. But if you do this, we’ll lose all support from everyone.”

“I’m sorry, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said. “It’s done. You may inform the National Assembly and Supreme Court if you wish, or I will.”

“No, it’s my responsibility,” Akas said. “I will tell them of the agony you are experiencing at the loss of so many citizens of Turkey at the hands of the PKK.”

“Thank you.”

“I will also tell them that your anger and frustration has turned you insane and blood-drunk,” Akas said. “I will tell them that your military advisers are telling you exactly what they want you to hear instead of what you
need
to hear. I will tell them that you’re not yourself right now.”

“Don’t do that, Ays¸e,” Hirsiz said. “That would be disloyal, to me and to Turkey. I’m doing this because it needs to be done, and it is my responsibility.”

“Isn’t that what they say is the beginning of madness, Kurzat: to insist that you have responsibilities?” Akas asked. “Is that what all dictators and strongmen say? Is that what Evren said in 1980 or Tagmaç said before him, when they dissolved the National Assembly and took over the government in a military coup? Go to hell.”