Rules Change

27 May 07
Happy Anniversary, honey! I’m off to Baghdad today.

The militia has been caught off guard by lots of changes in the Coalition/British rules of engagement and increased capabilities. As I mentioned earlier, after Abu Khadir was killed the insurgents attempted to retaliate against numerous MNF targets. We found out later that 26 British soldiers had been surrounded and in jeopardy of being overrun by over 100 militants when the F-16 I mentioned strafed their attackers and saved the trapped soldiers. Additionally, the Basrahwis are accustomed to seeing remote controlled/unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the skies over Basrah. However, the aircraft they are accustomed to seeing don't fire missiles so they’ve never seen a UAV fire missiles before. I’m sure the militia must have been shocked/horrified when an MQ-1 Predator UAV fired several Hellfire missiles into their vehicle.

What makes the Predator kills even more incredible is that the crews controlling the aircraft are connected via satellite from their control center back in Las Vegas. These guys from Basrah have no idea that some guy in Las Vegas, NV, just reached out and touched them before he went home for dinner with the family!