Hunting the Caliphate: America's War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell

by Dana J. H. Pittard, Wes J. Bryant, David Petraeus (Foreword by)

Overview

As seen on Fox News!

See America’s campaign against ISIS through the eyes of the men on the ground.

In this vivid first-person narrative, a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and his commanding general give fascinating and detailed accounts of America’s fight against one of the most barbaric insurgencies the world has ever seen.

In the summer of 2014, three years after America’s full troop withdrawal from the Iraq War, President Barack Obama authorized a small task force to push back into Baghdad. Their mission: Protect the Iraqi capital and U.S. embassy from a rapidly emerging terrorist threat.

A plague of brutality, that would come to be known as ISIS, had created a foothold in northwest Iraq and northeast Syria. It had declared itself a Caliphate—an independent nation-state administered by an extreme and cruel form of Islamic law—and was spreading like a newly evolved virus. Soon, a massive and devastating U.S. military response had unfolded.

Hear the ground truth on the senior military and political interactions that shaped America’s war against ISIS, a war unprecedented in both its methodology and its application of modern military technology. Enter the world of the Strike Cell, secretive operations centers where America’s greatest enemies are hunted and killed day and night. Plunge into the realm of the Special Operations JTAC, American warfighters with the highest enemy kill counts on the battlefield. And gain the wisdom of a cumulative half-century of military experience as Dana Pittard and Wes Bryant lay out the path to a sustained victory over ISIS.

For more information about the book, visit www.huntingthecaliphate.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642930559
Publisher:	Post Hill Press
Publication date:	08/27/2019
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	342,408
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Dana J. H. Pittard retired from the U.S. Army in 2015 at the rank of Major General after 34 years of active duty service. He was a highly decorated combat leader and commanded units at every echelon from platoon to division, including multiple combat tours in Iraq and the Middle East. In 2014, he was picked to lead the initial U.S. response to halt the aggressive spread of ISIS in Iraq. Dana, a West Point graduate and Harvard fellow, is a vice president with a manufacturing company in Indiana. He currently lives with his wife Lucille in the Indianapolis area.

Wes Bryant is a former Special Operations Forces Tactical Air Control Party - Joint Terminal Attack Controller (SOF TACP - JTAC), a member of the elite ground combat forces of the U.S. Air Force who serve as combat airpower specialists for America's special operations units. In 2014, as the senior enlisted JTAC to establish the Baghdad Strike Cell, he coordinated and controlled some of the first airstrikes of America’s war on ISIS. Later, he was the senior airpower expert for special operations task forces hunting ISIS throughout Syria and Afghanistan until his retirement in 2018. Wes holds a Bachelor’s in Asian Studies and currently pursues writing, editing, and consulting while teaching traditional Kung Fu. He lives with his wife and daughters in North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction xiii

Reference Maps xvii

Prologue: Good Hunting: The Iron Fist of Fallujah 1

Part 1 The War on Terror: ISIS Rising 9

Chapter 1 Awakening the Eagles 11

Chapter 2 Through the Eyes of a JTAC 23

Chapter 3 A Stage Set in Syria 33

Chapter 4 As Vultures Nest 41

Chapter 5 An Enemy Apart 45

Part 2 The Iraq Crisis 53

Chapter 6 Defending Baghdad 55

Chapter 7 The Crisis Response Force 63

Chapter 8 The Ground Truth 69

Chapter 9 Quick-Look Teams 77

Chapter 10 Dangerous Rules of Engagement 80

Chapter 11 Eyewitness to a Massacre 85

Part 3 The First Strikes on ISIS 89

Chapter 12 A Mission Unknown 91

Chapter 13 Herding Cats 97

Chapter 14 The Abisellan line 101

Chapter 15 A New War's Fog 104

Chapter 16 Is This Any Way to Run a War? 109

Part 4 The Campaign Expands 115

Chapter 17 The True Enemy 117

Chapter 18 Relief of Sinjar Mountain 122

Chapter 19 Uniting Iraqis and Kurds 126

Chapter 20 Re-taking Mosul Dam 131

Part 5 Unabalancing ISIS 137

Chapter 21 Anticipating ISIS 139

Chapter 22 The Battle for Haditha Dam 143

Chapter 23 The Battle for Haditha Dam 149

Chapter 24 Rebirth of the Iraqi Air Force 154

Chapter 25 Virtual Mutiny 159

Chapter 26 ISIS on a Silver Platter 163

Chapter 27 The BIAP Strike Cell 170

Part 6 Unleashing the Dogs of War 177

Chapter 28 Keeping the Iraqis on the Offensive 179

Chapter 29 The First Strikes in Baghdad 183

Chapter 30 The Foggiest of Wars 187

Chapter 31 The Braveheart of Bayji 195

Chapter 32 A Relentless Enemy 201

Chapter 33 Caged Dogs 215

Chapter 34 The Bayji Oil Refinery 222

Chapter 35 Sharp Shooter 232

Chapter 36 Vampire Village 237

Chapter 37 Shock and Awe: First Strikes in Syria 243

Chapter 38 A Visit from Senator John McCain 248

Part 7 Chaos into Syria 255

Chapter 39 A Proxy War 257

Chapter 40 Politics on the Front Lines 261

Chapter 41 Enter the Russians 270

Chapter 42 Russia and Turkey: The Bear and the Wolf 275

Part 8 State of the Hunt and the Way Forward 291

Chapter 43 The Fate of Iraq 293

Chapter 44 Entangled in Syria 297

Chapter 45 ISIS-K and the Resurgence of the Taliban 303

Chapter 46 Our Country 308

Chapter 47 After the Caliphate 312

The JTAC 317

Glossary 320

Acknowledgments 324

About the Authors 325

Editorial Reviews

"Providing an in-depth view into the worlds of military commands and strike forces on the ground, the book reveals insider details such as how the use of drones and airstrikes—representing a significant change in American warfare—came about. Though primarily a memoir, the text straddles several genres, all of which keep Pittard and Bryant at the fore. They provide both a historical account of the fight and psychological insights into the mentalities of professional soldiers...

Pittard and Bryant take turns telling the story, but the narrative is cohesive and engaging, revealing stories that most of the general public will not know...

Hunting the Caliphate is a raw and honest account of how ISIS was beaten, told from the inside by those who brought the caliphate down.

Foreword Clarion Reviews

Simply excellent. Hunting the Caliphate is the first account to give sustained insights into the events and personalities shaping the war on ISIS that academics and journalists have been unable to capture except in snapshots. Effectively written, and with editing nothing short of first-rate, it is a descriptive and gripping narrative from two contrasting yet intersecting perspectives that offers readers a broader view of the US military campaign against ISIS. As a historian of modern combat operations, I applaud the insightful observations appearing throughout that serve to accurately convey an important history—and dispel its myths.

Mark J. Reardon

"From mass executions to pinpoint air strikes, political and military frustrations, and the politics of coalition warfare, Hunting the Caliphate is a compelling blend of military history and first-person memories of the war against terror—the complex battlefield, the joys of victory, the tragedy of loss and the sacrifice of the men and women who carried out the mission. An insider account from a senior Army ground commander and a front line battlefield airman, the book is a gritty, compelling read for all who hope to understand America’s longest war."

Deborah Lee James

"With the complementary insights of a general and his senior enlisted man, along with an insider's eye for detail and an unshakeable belief in their mission, Pittard and Bryant expertly pull back the curtain on the front line fight against ISIS. From Iraq to Afghanistan and Syria, Pittard and Bryant describe the development of a devastating air campaign waged from a distance, where rapid life or death decisions must be made with limited information and murky rules of engagement, and where ultimate success hinges on coordination between a state-of-the-art operations center with a small group of highly-trained Americans led by Pittard and Bryant, and their indigenous allies battling ISIS on the ground. Eye-opening, candid, and at times deeply human, Hunting the Caliphate is a must read for understanding a new kind of war told by two men who not only fought that war, but helped define it."

David Broyles

Simply excellent. Hunting the Caliphate is the first account to give sustained insights into the events and personalities shaping the war on ISIS that academics and journalist have failed to capture except in snapshots. Effectively written, and with editing nothing short of first-rate, it is a descriptive and gripping narrative from two contrasting yet intersecting perspectives that offers readers a broader view of the US military campaign against ISIS. As a historian, I applaud the insightful observations riddled throughout that serve to accurately convey an important history—and dispel its myths.

Mark Reardon

2020-01-31
A dual memoir and military history of America's war with the Islamic State group.

This book provides readers with what may be the most complete insider's perspective on the United States' struggle against the Islamic State group to date. Maj. Gen. Pittard is a graduate of West Point, a former senior fellow at Harvard University, and the former leader of a U.S. task force "to help Iraqi and Kurdish Forces protect the capitals of Iraq and the Iraqi Kurdish Region from the relentless advance of the terrorist ‘army' of the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS)." His co-author, Master Sgt. Bryant, enlisted in the Air Force in 1998 after a directionless post-high school period that included a few failed community college classes. Their combined perspectives create a narrative that expertly explains the complexities of Middle Eastern politics and also offers the perspective of the war from the soldiers on the ground. Pittard's chapters give readers key insights into the geopolitical and domestic factors that complicated American strategies, from competing ethnic and religious groups to contentious behind-the-scenes conversations with American politicians, such as U.S. Sen. John McCain. One section that particularly stands out is Pittard's discussion of the difficulties locating "trained moderate Syrian rebels," whom American politicians were eager to assist. Alternately, Bryant's passages relate the intensity and terror of the battlefield in a flavorful vernacular ("the hours eked by") that's absent from Pittard's lessons on Middle East politics. The book also tells the story of the rise of "strike cells" to hunt and killing Islamic State members, which combined ground forces with airstrikes, directed from remote operations centers—and represented a new phase in U.S. military history.

The two men provide a shared skepticism of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, intermittently critiquing both of them throughout the book. Pittard, for instance, asserts that Russian leader Vladimir Putin "diplomatically outmaneuvered" Obama to become a central player in the region following the American president's reluctance to intervene in Syria—even after it was proven that Bashar Assad's regime used chemical weapons. Emphasizing the point of view of troops on the ground, Bryant critiques American politicians who seemed to have placed "not just the lives—but the perceptions of the Afghan people above the welfare of U.S. warfighters." His accounts are also peppered with implicitly orientalist descriptions of the Middle East, however; at one point, for example, he describes Kandahar as "a Mad Max version of civilization—trying to copy the West, but not quite getting it right." That said, in one of the book's more introspective sections, Bryant reflects on his own biases after observing joyous Muslim families at a shopping mall in Bahrain. Similar contemplative passages are rare, though, leaving readers without valuable insights into the physical, mental, and spiritual tolls of war, which are common in military memoirs. Also, although both authors introduce readers to their families, the impact of the war on their loved ones' lives is equally elusive.

An insightful, though often impersonal, exploration of an ongoing conflict.

Kirkus Reviews

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