Recently, a high-ranking Hezbollah commander who helped the plan was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria is one of the boldest and most complex attacks against American troops during the Iraq war, according to a senior US official defense official.
Ali Moussa Daghdugh was captured by US forces in 2007 after a raid by militants posing as an American security group killed five US soldiers. However, he was later released by the Iraqi government.
Details of the Israeli airstrike are scarce. A senior defense official said it was unclear when the strike took place, where in Syria, or whether it specifically targeted Dagdug.
A Pentagon spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli embassy referred questions to the army, which did not immediately respond.
The raid, which was prepared according to the plan facilitated by Dagdug, was carried out on January 20, 2007 at the US-Iraqi military complex in Karbala. A group of individuals posing as an American military security team – dressed in US military combat fatigues, carrying US weapons, and some speaking English. – convinced the security forces to let them through several checkpoints to a building where US and Iraqi soldiers were working.
The facility was part of a series of compounds known as Joint Security Stations in Iraq where US soldiers live and work alongside Iraqi police and soldiers. More than two dozen US soldiers were at the Interim Joint Coordination Center, or PJCC, when the militants arrived, including several in the barracks where the soldiers lived.
The militants surrounded the building and used grenades and explosives to breach the entrance. An American soldier was killed by a grenade. Entering, the militants took two US soldiers captive inside the building and two outside the building, then sped away in waiting SUVs.
US attack helicopters caught up with the convoy, prompting the militants to get out of their vehicles and take off on foot. They shot and killed four US prisoners during the escape.
The four soldiers shot by their captors were 1st Lt. Jacob Noel Fritz, 25; Capt. Brian Scott Freeman, 31; Pfc. Shawn Patrick Falter, 25; and Spc. Jonathan Bryan Chism, 22. The soldier killed by a grenade in the mix-up was identified as Pfc. Johnathon Miles Millican, 22.
After the attack, US officials suspected the militants had direct support from Iran, given the level of coordination, training and intelligence required to carry it out.
US forces captured the city of Daghdugh in March 2007 and soon made progress in establishing that Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit of the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, was involved in planning the Karbala raid. Dagduq, who was interrogated, said that the operation took place as a result of the direct support and training of the Quds Force.
Daghdug was detained by the US military in Iraq for several years, but was handed over to the Iraqi authorities in December 2011 after the end of the US military mission. He was the last prisoner to be handed over before the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
The Iraqis convinced US officials that they would prosecute Daghdug, but he was released within months. It caused the anger of American officials and politicians. A US defense official said Dagduq was soon leading Hezbollah fighters again.