Miles of Barren Desert Dotted With Smugglers, Insurgents

This is Iraq’s wild west, where for a year Marines have fought a relentless battle with insurgents and smugglers along hundreds of miles of barren desert that is the unmarked border with Syria.

The action here has been overshadowed by ongoing violence in Baghdad, Mosul and in Fallouja and other cities in the so-called Sunni Triangle. Nevertheless, the Marines say their efforts to choke off the border to foreign mercenaries, jihadists and weapons smugglers have been marked by near-daily military clashes. In addition, U.S. diplomatic pressure has been brought to bear on Syria.

Washington has complained that Damascus, at a minimum, is providing a haven for smugglers and insurgents as they prepare to head into Iraq and, at worst, may be assisting their clandestine efforts.

At a series of outposts along the border, Marines seek to block smugglers who work largely at night to spirit their cargo along ancient routes that were once camel trails but now accommodate sport-utility vehicles driven at high speeds with lights off.

Mortar and rocket attacks on several Marine outposts are a common occurrence. For weeks many of the assaults were being launched from the Syrian side of the border, the U.S. troops said, where Marines are forbidden to go and where Syrian law enforcement can be lax. Only after the Marines began returning mortar fire across the border, the troops said, did the insurgents stop using Syrian soil.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Bush said Syria “still allows its territory, and parts of Lebanon, to be used by terrorists” and he called on Syria to “end all support for terror and open the door to freedom.”

The Syrians have vigorously denied that they would do anything to fuel Iraq’s insurgency. In addition to stepping up border patrols, Syria has built a berm and several watchtowers along a portion of the southern reach of the border.

“It’s minimal, to be honest,” Lt. Col. Christopher Woodbridge said of the Syrian assistance. “But it’s done a lot to shut down the mortar attacks.”

Woodbridge, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, based in Twentynine Palms, said many of the factors that led Fallouja to become a hotbed for the insurgent movement were also present in towns along the border: weak or corrupt local leadership, support from religious leaders and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of weaponry.

Rather than confront the insurgents in a massive way as they did in the November assault on Fallouja, Marines here have been selective in their tactics.

“We’re not going to fight him on his terms,” Woodbridge said. “We’re not going after him at 2 o’clock in the afternoon after a [roadside bomb] has gone off.

“We’re going at 2 o’clock in the morning to his living room where he can’t hide.”

Dozens of suspected insurgents have been arrested in the last four months. Countless weapons and explosive devices have been seized in raids.

Marines from Woodbridge’s battalion, working as part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, began stopping trains late last year from Syria headed to Baghdad, 200 miles away. With a tank blocking the tracks, Marines have arrested suspected insurgents.

So brazen had the insurgents become that they were putting foreign fighters on passenger trains that passed within a stone’s throw of the main Marine camp here, the troops said.

Some of those held had Syrian currency worth thousands of dollars. Others had stacks of U.S. notes, with consecutive serial numbers, Marines said.

As with any anti-smuggling effort, success is difficult to gauge.

The Iraqi government has closed the border crossing at Husaybah. The closure has kept desperately needed fuel from being smuggled from Iraq to Syria, where it can fetch a higher price. But it has also led to a shortage of some food commodities on the Iraqi side.

The local economy depends on smuggling, and the U.S. and the new Iraqi government have been frustrated in their efforts to gain local cooperation.

Marines here say the insurgents appear to be stepping up their tactics, using roadside bombs with greater explosive power, coordinating ambushes with small-arms fire and intimidating local leaders with greater ferocity.

“They’re getting more aggressive, and they’re getting more accurate, a little more know-how on how to use the gear they have,” said Staff Sgt. Warren Clukey, 35, of Yucaipa. “But we’ve shown them, we’re not going to give this ground up.”

A day without contact with insurgents is rare.

“It just seems to us like it just keeps going, it never stops,” said Staff Sgt. Steve Brumfield, 29, of Danville, Va., whose job includes clearing away mines and roadside bombs. (A company commander was killed by such a bomb late last year).

Woodbridge said the Marine camp north of Qaim in the town of Husaybah was under such constant attack from rockets and mortars that he had to decline to bring in Marine brass for inspection tours.

The terrain is open desert, with only the buttes on the Syrian side providing contrast. The desert is rocky and harsh; summer temperatures soar above 130 degrees; winters are frigid and snow fell on one recent day.

A new chow hall has just opened, named for a Marine lieutenant killed by a roadside bomb. But Marines say there is still a sense of isolation at their outpost.

“I feel like we’ve been left out here,” said Cpl. Billy Epperson, 22, of Tulsa, Okla.

Others seem to relish the sense of being in a wide-open moonscape, far from the rest of the troubled nation and the glare of media.

“As far as being isolated, we get everything we need: food, water and bullets,” said Staff Sgt. Jeff Wagner, 35, of Ashland, Mich., who led the “takedown” of the trains.

The population of the region, about 250,000 people, is overwhelmingly Sunni but split along tribal lines. Imams have been known to preach violence against Americans. Tribal rivalries have also made it difficult for the U.S. to get cooperation.

This is a land of Bedouins, some still living in tents and practicing the nomadic life of their ancestors. Others have moved into settlements but retain old ways. Subsistence agriculture predominates.

In “The Arab Mind,” which is recommended reading for Marine officers assigned to Iraq, anthropologist Raphael Patai says Bedouin culture is marked by an antipathy toward manual labor and change. Woodbridge said he had found this to be true.

“We’re talking about a population that is indolent and opposed to change,” he said. “It’s a very backward area, culturally. It’s the hinterland.”

The long-range plan for the U.S. is to turn the border mission over to Iraqi security forces, but their performance has been spotty.

A border police unit is deployed along the northern part of the border, and a special squad called the Desert Wolves is deployed along the southern part of the Iraqi-Syrian border and the Iraqi-Jordanian border.

For the enlisted Marines, the deployment has been long and harsh, but morale seems high, buoyed because the battalion will soon be going home. Many of the Marines are in their second or third tours in Iraq.

“My mission is to take all my men back home safe,” Brumfield said. “So far, I’m 100%, and I’m thankful to God for that.”

Brumfield isn’t the only Marine to have his thoughts turn to religion during the long months on this wind-swept and lawless frontier.

“I’ve put my life in God’s hands,” Epperson said. “I know he sent me here for a purpose.”

Perry is traveling with the 1st Marine Division.