Iraq:  Al-Qaida Emir Killed in Air Assault

Al-Qaida Emir Killed in Air Assault

Story by Sgt. Christina Mc Cann
 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division Public Affairs Office

   SADR AL-YUSUFIYAH, Iraq - An air assault and a fortuitous chain of events on the western bank of the Euphrates in Owesat Village, Iraq, Aug. 4, resulted in the shooting of a major al-Qaida emir by a sergeant reacting from his training.
   Sgt. Joshua Cox, of Kerrville, Texas, a team leader with 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) out of Fort Drum, N.Y., was near a reed-line after midnight. A man came out of the weeds with an AK-47 assault rifle and charged at Cox. After shouting two verbal warnings with no response, Cox shot him. It was only later that he learned the man was Ahmed Taha Awad al Janabi, the brigade’s top target and one of Multi-National Division-Center’s top 15.
   Company A, 2-14th Inf. Regt., arrived near a cluster of houses just after midnight. Almost immediately, they came under small arms fire from seven fleeing terrorists. A Soldier was shot in the thigh, and a medical evacuation helicopter was called in to evacuate him.
   As the helicopter came in to pick up the wounded Soldier, it too came under fire from the terrorists, who had not run far. Taha had stopped in the reeds.
   “He shot at the medevac helicopter,” said Lt. Col. John Valledor, commander, 2-14th Inf. Regt. and a native of Weehawken, N.J. “That was a fatal mistake.”
   The shots brought other Soldiers, including Cox, to the reed-line, and when Taha climbed out of the reeds and ran toward him, rifle in hand, Cox reacted.
   “He didn’t respond to my warnings, so I shot him,” Cox said. “I was scared, too – in the mission briefing we were told that they would probably have suicide vests, and when I shot him, he fell on me. I had to push him off, and I thought he was going to explode before he died. But he wasn’t wearing a suicide vest, luckily.”
   The Soldiers continued the mission and got their wounded comrade to medical treatment.
   “Last year, the Soldiers spent hours training to put two rounds center-mass in a target,” Valledor said. “Not many ever have to do it in real life. But when Cox was presented with that need, he acted instinctively and put his rounds center mass. He took out the brigade’s number one target.”

 

Al-Qaida Emir Killed in Air Assault
Story found on DVIDS: Digital Video Imagery Distribution System
Copyright © 2008 Kirk S. Ramsey
Last modified: December 06, 2021