Special Forces and Iraqi Commandos Kick Off Phantom Fury

first published on May 4, 2018 by Funker

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American Special Forces teams and the Iraqi 36th Commando Battalion conduct an attack into the Fallujah General Hospital to secure the location from insurgent forces. This was the first ground attack into the city of Fallujah during Operation Phantom Fury, conducted in the early morning hours of November 8, 2004 just hours before Blackwater Bridge was secured to facilitate troop movement into the city. Video below shows U.S. Special Forces team members aided by Iraqi Commandos securing the Fallujah General Hospital.

Fallujah General Hospital was a known hot spot of insurgent forces, and propaganda before the Second Battle of Fallujah started. Securing the location at the start of the battle was an essential task created to make it impossible for insurgent forces to medically evacuate their wounded forces for the duration of the battle. At the start of Operation Phantom Fury, before American and Iraqi forces had even secured the bridge leading into the city, the decision was made to take the hospital by force using American Special Forces teams, and the 36th Command Brigade of the Iraqi Army that the Special Forces teams had been training for roughly one full year during the team’s deployment to Iraq.

It took less than one hour for the Special Forces and Commando teams to secure the hospital, which happened with absolute no resistance. Inside of the hospital, the only people that were present that the time were hospital staff and patients. As the teams cleared the building room by room, floor by floor, they detained every ambulatory person that they came across using flex cuffs. A number of flash bangs, breaching devices, and a single round from a Kalashnikov were used to secure the entire building. The Kalashnikov round, fired by one of the Iraqi Commandos, also ironically caused the only casualty during the entire operation when a commando accidentally discharged his AK-47 and shot himself in the leg.

In the video below, there is about 20 minutes of footage taken during the attack against the Fallujah General Hospital. It contains scenes of soldiers from U.S. Special Forces teams leading Iraqi Commandos through a series of room clearing operations as they flash bang around corners, and effortlessly flow through the uncontested hallways. Doctors and patients alike are collected and moved by the Commandos into collection points, where they are bound and searched until the operation comes to its inevitable conclusion. After the hospital has been secured, and the Soldiers have finished searching all of the detainees, the doctors and patients are released to continue about their business, while the Soldiers get to work on securing the location.

This video is part of a 44 minute long video that also shows Blackwater bridge being secured, and several other tense combat operations that occurred during Operation Phantom Fury in 2004. We will be breaking that video down into bite sized portions, and doing our best to tell the full story of each individual clip as it was spliced together by the individual who recorded it. Stay tuned to Funker530 – Combat Footage on Facebook to see the rest of this footage, and to see the stories of the individuals who conducted what was called the second bloodiest battle of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Also, feel free to visit us on Patreon if you feel the need to support this archive of footage from conflicts around the world.