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Resilient Sunni Stronghold Tests the Iraqi Army's Best
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Then he informed Muhammed that he had been promoted to a major. Later that night, Muhammed called his wife and daughters with the news. His mind soon drifted back to the task ahead. Before falling asleep under the starry desert sky, he told a visitor, "It's going to be dangerous tomorrow."
Explosives in a School
The next day, Muhammed and his men entered the village of Hachim al-Sultan at 5:30 a.m., accompanied by Iraqi infantry troops. Dogs howled. There were only four families left in the village, all displaced Sunnis who had fled Shiite areas. They said they had seen insurgents enter the school and other nearby houses. They suspected a white flatbed truck was rigged with explosives.
"Take your family and go far away," Muhammed told Amar Saud, 61, who lived across from the school. "These houses could all be booby-trapped."
At 5:48, Muhammed and Shegas walked into the school, slowly, looking for changes in the soil or shrubbery. In the first room, Muhammed found a five-liter jerrycan, topped with a red wire, filled with explosives.
A few minutes later, an explosion echoed in the distance. Another roadside bomb.
The pair soon found two bigger jerrycans, also topped with wires. They turned out to be fake. It was unclear why.
At 6:23, the soldiers spotted two men on a nearby plain and fired at them. The men fled. Ten minutes later, Muhammed exploded the bomb in the jerrycan. Afterward, Muhammed walked briskly and inspected the other houses and the white truck. They were not rigged. One grateful family brought the soldiers tea and breakfast.
Muhammed made sure he exploded the bomb away from the school because the building "could be reopened next year." The Americans, he said, would have conducted an airstrike against it.
After their mission, soldiers from different sects and regions celebrated Muhammed's promotion. They danced along the main road, clapping and laughing. One soldier chanted:
Adil never knows what is fear.
The roadside bombs fear him.
The next assignment came 15 minutes later. Iraqi commanders ordered Muhammed and his team to join a long convoy of Iraqi and American vehicles. Three miles after they passed the turnoff to the Road of Hell, they approached another road. But just as the convoy prepared to turn onto it, they were ordered to turn around. American intelligence and technology had found that the road was littered with mines, possibly as thickly laid as the Road of Hell.
