In Retaking of Iraqi Dam, Evidence of American Impact

MOSUL DAM, Iraq — The two bodies lay festering in the midday sun on Tuesday, some of the only remnants of the Sunni militant force that until Monday night controlled the strategically important Mosul Dam.

undefined — Kurdish pesh merga at the Mosul Dam the morning after they and Iraqi forces defeated militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Time

Around them was the evidence of not just a fierce battle but also a different sort of fight: buildings reduced to rubble; cars churned into twisted metal; mammoth craters gouged from the road.

All bore testament to the deadly effect American airstrikes were having on the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, who until this month were marauding over northern Iraq with little resistance and who two weeks ago seized control of the dam.

It was not until President Obama authorized airstrikes by the United States military on Aug. 7 that the Sunni fighters’ advance was halted. Two days of concerted air assaults starting Sunday around the dam then paved the way for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim the site.

On Tuesday, Kurdish military officials gave reporters a tour of the dam, to showcase Monday night’s victory and offer journalists a look at the facility. The dam itself, backed by a turquoise lake and surrounded by dun-colored mountains, was in fine condition, with little evidence of damage either from the fighting or from two weeks in militant hands.

The skeletons of cars and debris litter the Mosul Dam complex after repeated American airstrikes paved the way for Iraqi and Kurdish forces to reclaim the site. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

But about an hour into the visit, gunshots erupted from the western edge of the dam complex, as militants who were dug into the side of a neighboring mountain harassed a convoy of vehicles making its way up a hill to a secondary dam. A minor gunfight ensued, with the government laying down the majority of the fire from mounted machine guns and artillery. The hum of American aircraft — it was not clear what sort — was audible, though there were no airstrikes.

After an hour of sporadic fire, the confrontation ended, and the convoy resumed its trip. The hundreds of Kurdish pesh merga fighters arrayed along the dam, proudly posing for photos and videos, scarcely moved. It was almost exclusively troops with the Iraqi Special Forces, at the head of the convoy, who engaged with the militants.

The pesh merga have received the majority of the credit for retaking the dam. But the Iraqi Special Forces troops who worked alongside them, who were created in the image of their American counterparts, have gotten far less attention. Known as the Golden Force, fighters interviewed Tuesday said they came from Baghdad and were called into the fight several days ago.

One Special Forces group, stationed by a cluster of homes close to the site’s power plant, said they were the first to enter the area after a series of airstrikes Monday afternoon. A cheery banner over the road passing by the enclave read “Tourist City in Mosul Dam.”

Muhammad Karim, one of the soldiers, said that when they arrived at the first abandoned militant checkpoint, they discovered a woman, naked and bound, who had been repeatedly raped. Farther into the neighborhood, the Iraqi forces discovered another woman in the same state.

“ISIS are bad people,” he said, standing beside a demolished compound that hugged the road. “They are raping girls.”

Stories of women kidnapped by the militants have filtered through various minority communities, but Mr. Karim’s firsthand account, corroborated by colleagues interviewed separately, seemed to confirm the troubling rumors.

After the women were turned over to the pesh merga fighters, the Special Forces began to clear the area, they said. The movement of the forces was coordinated with American air support, with bombs unleashed whenever the fighters met stiff resistance.

Several compounds bore the marks of airstrikes, their walls collapsed and blackened. A large armored personnel carrier sat belly up, its body little more than strands of metal connected to a frame. The force of the blasts tore trees in two, spreading a blanket of branches and needles over a sloping road leading into the community.

**JOY AT IRAQI DAM** A Kurdish fighter with a black ISIS flag kissed the Kurdish flag at the recaptured Mosul Dam. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The airstrikes were directed with what seemed a high degree of accuracy. Single homes were leveled, while neighboring ones stood in good order, exhibiting only the scars of shrapnel. A few hundred yards from the entrance to the neighborhood, a pair of Special Forces soldiers came across the bodies of the two militants, some of the only ones the Sunni fighters had been unable to reclaim.

Until recently, the militants enjoyed relatively free rein in northern Iraq and northern Syria, moving freely with vehicles and weapons seized from the Iraqi military units that had crumbled in the first days of the attack on Mosul and surrounding areas. But with the Americans now engaged, their freedom of movement has been sharply curtailed.

“When I came here three weeks ago, they were moving fast and easy with armored vehicles,” said Gen. Mansour Barzani, the commander of the ground forces who reclaimed the dam. “Now, they don’t dare to move anymore.”

The next step for the Iraqi and Kurdish forces remains unclear, though skirmishes between Iraqi forces and militants were reported Tuesday in Tikrit, a militant-controlled city about midway between Mosul and Baghdad. While the dam is under government control again, the brief skirmish on Tuesday along the edge of the complex demonstrated the tenacity of the militants, even in areas ostensibly under the control of the Kurds.

A version of this article appears in print on August 20, 2014, on page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: In Retaking of Iraqi Dam, Evidence of American Impact.

Culled from The New York Time.

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