Triangle of Death Search: A Final Report

STILL MISSING: BYRON FOUTY (Top) AND ALEX JIMENEZ

Three weeks ago today, the early morning calm at a small U.S. Army outpost in the village of Quarghouli hard by the Euphrates River southwest of Baghdad was shattered by rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.

A dozen or so insurgents, led by Al Qaeda regulars, overwhelmed the seven soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division, breaching the concertina wire ringing their two Humvees and setting the vehicles afire.

The area around the attack is considered a birthplace of Western civilization and not far away are the ruins of the ancient Babylonian city of Sippar. But today the area is anything but civilized and is known as the Triangle of Death.

That is because from the outset of the Iraq war, the American presence has been deeply resented by the predominant Sunni tribes, although not as much as the Shiite-run central government in Baghdad. The hatred of occupiers and Shiites has resulted in a willingness to allow insurgent groups, including Al Qaeda, to roam freely in the triangle, creating havoc for the mere 3,000 U.S. soldiers assigned to cover an area roughly the size of Cape Cod.

The Iraqi Army is supposed to be playing a greater role in securing the triangle, primarily keeping insurgents from feeding bombs and weapons into Baghdad, but that has not happened. As it is, an Iraqi detachment near the Quarghouli outpost probably saw and heard the attack, but chose not to get involved.

The Americans fought back, but didn’t stand a chance. Their crude outpost – a result of a risky but necessary new counterinsurgency tactic promoted by General David Petraeus that emphasizes pushing soldiers out of safe bases into local communities – was too far from reinforcements that wouldn't hesitate to get involved.

The attackers, as they have over and over again since the outset of the insurgency, had adapted to a change in American tactics with deadly efficiency.

* * * * *

The first relieving force to reach the scene of the attack was delayed because of concern over roadside bombs, but it probably wouldn't have mattered because the four soldiers and an Iraqi Army interpreter that they found had been killed in the firefight. That was bad enough, but there was evidence that the three other soldiers had been abducted.

Later in the day, a group calling itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia announced that it was responsible for the ambush and abductions, which it said were in retaliation for the March 2006 rape of 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murder of her family by several U.S. troopers in a nearby village.

That communiqué and a second shortly thereafter warning U.S. troops not to look for the men were to be the last.

Unusually, no videotape or photographs of the captured men were released, leading commanders to believed that the quick insertion of troops – many pulled from security duties in Baghdad that are part of the surge strategy – had boxed in the insurgents and their captives before they could flee the triangle.

Battling 100-plus degree heat, hastily assembled search teams totalling 4,000 soldiers fanned out across the area, which is crisscrossed by irrigation ditches and canals that flow from the Euphrates. The fertile region is dotted with hundreds of family-owned farms growing barley and wheat, date palm groves, villages and small towns like Quarghouli, and occasional mansions that once belonged to Saddam Hussein loyalists.

The dragnet soon grew with the addition of 2,000 Iraqi troops, helicopter units, search dogs and FBI interrogation specialists. Houses were torn apart, a canal drained and abandoned fish farms searched. In the following days, hundreds of Iraqis were arrested and about 100 detained, including several whom officials said had participated in the attack or knew people who did.

Two searchers were killed by bombs laid along back roads and several were wounded. But one week on, there was a glimmer of hope when General Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told an interviewer that it was believed at least two of the three men were alive.

Then on May 23, the body of Joseph Anzack, one of the three missing soldiers, was found floating face down about 30 miles down in the Euphrates in Babil Province by local villagers. The 20-year-old private first class from Torrance, California had been shot in the head and torso and there were signs that he had been tortured. There also was a disturbing report that American troops might have cornered the insurgents holding Anzack, who then killed him and dumped his body as they fled.

Whether the searchers had indeed trapped the insurgents and their captives not far from the attack remains one of the two biggest mysteries of the now three-week-old drama.

The other is the fate of the two remaining missing soldiers – Alex R. Jimenez, a 25-year-old specialist from Lawrence, Massachusetts who had earned a Purple Heart and mastered conversational Arabic on his first tour in Iraq, and Byron R. Fouty, a 19-year-old private from Waterford, Michigan who had been in-country for only a few weeks.

* * * * *

The Army creed of No Soldier Left Behind has been sorely tested.

Three weeks on, the size of the search has been inevitably, if quietly, reduced in size. Hopeful reports, including one several days ago that Jimenez and Fouty had been found alive, have not panned out. The reporters and camera crews that had been filing daily reports have gone on to the next big story. A reinforced concrete watchtower has been erected on the road in Quarghouli, a shrine of a sort to the murdered and the missing.

One by one, Anzack and the four men killed in the attack -- Sergeant First Class James D. Connell, Sergeant Anthony J. Schober and Privates First Class Daniel Courneya and Christopher E. Murphy -- have been returned to their hometowns in American flag-draped coffins.

But back in the Triangle of Death, the trail has gone cold.

* * * * *

Here's an index of previous Kiko's House reports on the ambush and search:

Friday, June 1: A Tough Month For San Marcos
Thursday, May 31: The Lonely Vigils Continue
Wednesday, May 30: Chris's Final Resting Place
Tuesday, May 29: A Shrine to the Dead
Monday, May 28: The Next War
Sunday, May 27: Search Enters Third Week
Saturday, May 26: A Somber Holiday in Michigan
Friday, May 25: Memorial Day Edition
Thursday, May 24: A Vigil For Joseph Anzack
Wednesday, May 23: A Body Is Found
Tuesday, May 22: Ambush Victims Come Home For Burial
Monday, May 21: Hopes Grow Slimmer
Sunday, May 20: A Flicker of Hope But the Trail Goes Cold
Saturday, May 19: The Triangle of Death Up Close
Friday, May 18: Who Are the Dead and Missing Men?
Thursday, May 17: Has the Search Impacted on the Surge?
Wednesday, May 16: Anatomy of An Abduction & Search