Another good blog

Michael Yon is a journalist. Only better.

If he's good enough for Major K. and Lance In Iraq, he's good enough for me.


Camp Caldwell
Iran Border Region, Iraq

A platoon from the Tennessee National Guard was preparing to creep up to the Iranian border during the night. Using night-vision equipment, the soldiers were to employ ground surveillance radar to locate smugglers crossing the mountains into Iraq. But as the platoon prepared their equipment for the night's mission, Captain James Hite, the company commander for Team Brave 1/278th Regimental Combat Team, walked into the TOC and announced a new mission. Fresh intelligence indicated that a priority target had arrived in a nearby village. The smugglers would get a free pass tonight; the platoon was to conduct a hasty raid to capture or kill a suspected terrorist.

The target was Ali Niami Jani, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Iraqi Border Patrol, who moonlights for Iranian Intelligence. Ali Jani was apparently a proud and boastful man, saying he owned "a thousand sheep." Translation: I’m rich.

According to the Iraqi Border Patrol, Ali Jani was known to smuggle "anything that will make money" into Iraq, or into Iran: drugs, weapons, explosives. Ali Jani is also known to sell arms and explosives used to attack Coalition and Iraqi forces. This would make Jani a terrorist.