OPERATION RED DAWN: SPECIAL FORCES CATCH SADDAM HUSSEIN

Task Force 121 was a covert unit made up of Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, Army Rangers, Night Stalkers and several intelligence services, specialized in high-value targets. That let it operate largely on its own, and during the Iraq War it took part in one of the biggest manhunts in history: the hunt for Saddam Hussein.

Hussein dropped out of public view soon after the invasion of Iraq and was declared “High Value Target Number One.” Between July and December 2003 the American military ran twelve raids without result, until the first hot lead turned up on December 1. Through a former driver, TF 121 identified Hussein’s right-hand man and pinned him down in an insurgent headquarters, and he gave up his leader’s location. It was the village of ad-Dawr, where Hussein was born in 1935 and where he could hope for the strongest support. When further sources confirmed the information, “Operation Red Dawn” was launched on December 13, named after the film classic. Backed by roughly 600 conventional troops, TF 121 hit two suspected locations code-named “Wolverine 1” and “Wolverine 2.” They searched hard, but the former Iraqi president was nowhere to be found. As the operators finished searching the village and called in helicopters for exfil, one of the soldiers kicked a patch of ground aside and uncovered a fully built-out spider hole. The soldier was about to drop a fragmentation grenade into it to take out any insurgents when Hussein suddenly appeared. The Delta operator struck him with the stock of his M4 carbine and took his Glock 18C off him.Hussein put up no resistance and was flown to Tikrit in an MH-6 Little Bird of the Night Stalkers for positive identification. Three years later a court sentenced him to death for crimes against humanity.

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