Donkey Island

I guess I need to back fill a little, since I keep referring to it. When Operation Arrowhead Ripper began and Al Qaeda in Iraq was pushed out of Baqubah, some of them surfaced 3 miles south of Ramadi in al Anbar Province. They massed at Donkey Island, around the end of June, and had intended to attack Ramadi to try and regain Al Anbar province. The Iraq Police notified the Coalition Forces in the area that AQI was massing and where, then the CF and IP, in a joint operation, went there and attacked them. The first step was to call in a couple of air strikes to seal AQI in, then they went in and killed and captured what was left. The one thing in the reports I read that stood out to me was the fact that we trapped them there first so they couldn't run, then went into battle. Hopefully that helps fill in a piece.

* Updated 7/20/2007 *

Just found more on this today.

When the CF and IA forces arrived at Donkey Island they found more than expected. This wasn't just Al Qaeda massing, it was a staging point. This was the point they were going to carry out continued attacks on Ramadi.

Also, in case you didn't see it. There was a story right around this time about an Apache helicopter team that happened to see a wounded soldier on the ground and no medivac aircraft in sight. They landed and put the wounded soldier in the front seat (it's a two seat aircraft) and "following a seldom-used technique" one of the pilots strapped himself to the wing and they flew the wounded solder to an area he could be attended to by medics. That was here.