All language subtitles for Black.Ops.S01E04.Assault.on.Al.Qaeda.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-NTb_track3_[eng]

Narrator: A vicious militant

is systematically targeting
innocent civilians.

Mudd: The guy was so brutal.

If you kill everybody else,
eventually people stand back

and say,
"whoa, we got a big guy."

Narrator:
An elite group of special forces

are hand-picked
from across the world

to take the terrorists out.

You do a series of raids
that is devastating.

Narrator: They are led
by a Maverick general

with radical new methods.

If you hit an organization
repeatedly enough,

you could actually
cause them to collapse.

Narrator:
It's a race against time.

[ Explosion ]

They must stop him
before more blood is shed.

Nothing's routine
if there is lives at risk.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

narrator: Iraq, April 2006.

In the dead of night,

a helicopter lifts off
from a desert air base.

Onboard is a group
of elite soldiers

from a secretive unit
code named task force black.

Zinke: On the way to a mission,

I'm often asked,
"were you nervous?"

You don't have time
to be nervous

because there's so many things
happening.

I mean, everyone is busy.

Narrator:
They are bound for a house

in an area known as
the triangle of death.

Their mission
is to arrest a senior member

of the deadly terror group
Al-qaeda in Iraq.

You should always
be expecting the worst.

What if we get fired upon?

What if the fast rope
is in the wrong spot?

What if we get around

and the helicopter
is downed outside the compound?

Narrator: Their targets
are ready to resist

with extreme violence.

Urban: Almost as soon as
they were through the door...

[ Gunfire ]

...they were hit
by a hail of bullets.

The people inside clearly knew
somebody was coming.

They were armed,
and they were waiting.

Narrator: The team quickly kill
the first militant...

[ Indistinct shouting ]

...and move in to clear
the rest of the building.

Urban: There were half a dozen
assault rifles.

There were dozens
of hand grenades.

There were at least two,
possibly three

wearing suicide vests.

Narrator: And at the top
of the staircase...

[ Shouting indistinctly ]

Narrator: ...One of the suicide
bombers steps out of the shadows

and detonates his vest.

[ Explosion ]

By now,
the militants are fighting

with everything they have.

Two more appear on the roof

and spray the assault force
with bullets.

The soldiers of task force black

are accustomed to
this kind of brutal violence.

They face it on a daily basis.

At the end of the day,
we're gonna win.

And we'll do whatever it takes
to win.

Narrator: Though the special
forces don't realize it,

this house holds the key

to finding the most wanted man
in the middle east.

One of their captives tonight

will lead them
to abu musab Al-zarqawi,

the leader of Al-qaeda in Iraq.

He has murdered thousands
of innocent civilians

and spread terror
throughout the region.

[ Siren wails ]

His campaign of violence
is so effective,

the U.S. has created
a black ops task force

with just one mission --

taking Al-zarqawi down.

This was a guy who had murdered
thousands of people.

In fact,
he murdered many more people

than osama bin laden ever did.

Narrator: To understand
how Al-zarqawi rose

to become one of the most feared
terrorists on the planet,

we must look to
the town of zarqa, Jordan,

500 Miles to the west
of Baghdad.

Al-zarqawi was born here
in 1966.

Alexander: Al-zarqawi's
background is he was a criminal.

He spent time in a Jordanian
prison for sexual assault.

He was a drug dealer.

He was a petty criminal
in Jordan.

Urban: Accounts differ
as to whether he was actually

a sort of hard-boozing villain
in his hometown,

but it's certainly true

that he was involved
in some forms of crime

and that he probably had
some kind of epiphany,

some kind of moment
when he realized

that his life
was going the wrong way

and that islam was the answer
for him.

Narrator: In 1989, Al-zarqawi
travels to Afghanistan

to become a freedom fighter
against the Soviet occupation.

It is here that he meets
his mentor and inspiration,

osama bin laden.

He had come up during the course
of the war in Afghanistan.

People understood his importance
as an operational leader,

and he was clearly trusted
by bin laden

and the Al-qaeda
senior leadership.

Narrator:
Over the next 15 years,

partly with bin laden's support,

Al-zarqawi grows to become
an accomplished terrorist.

By 2003, he is in Iraq,

fighting against
the American-led invasion.

The early months of the war

appear to be a swift
and stunning victory,

as the old regime melts away.

But Al-zarqawi is waiting
in the shadows

to start a new campaign
of violence.

Townsend:
When he was deployed into Iraq,

we understood, as the American
counterterrorism community,

that this
was a significant event.

He had that unique combination
of skills

that would allow him to be
a real force for Al-qaeda

against us inside Iraq.

Narrator: In the months
that follow Saddam's overthrow,

chaos envelopes the country.

Al-zarqawi takes full advantage
of this,

actively working
to stir up hatred

between Iraq's
two main religious groups --

the majority shia muslims
and the minority sunnis.

He creates a militant group

with the aim of killing
as many shias as possible,

thus sparking retaliations

and creating
a brutal cycle of violence.

It's called Al-qaeda in Iraq
or a.Q.I.

We mistakenly look
at these organizations

as terrorist groups.

This is too narrow.

These are
revolutionary organizations

that want to spread an idea.

[ Man chanting
in native language ]

Urban: The militant islamists
were prepared

to do pretty much anything,

and, of course,
quite soon they discovered

that bombing things
like markets,

queues outside police stations

where the police
were recruiting,

all those sort of things,

were actually far easier targets

than American convoys
or American bases.

Narrator:
Al-zarqawi orchestrates
numerous suicide bombings.

A devastating series of attacks
in march 2004

kills close to 200 people
at shia holy sites.

So, they shifted their targeting

towards the sort of
softer targets

that could yield
more spectacular results.

And, of course,
soon they were killing dozens,

scores, maybe even sometimes
over 100 people

in a single complex attack.

Narrator: On may 11, 2004,

Al-zarqawi is linked
to a new outrage.

A video of an American hostage
appears on a jihadist website.

The American,
deliberately dressed

in a Guantanamo bay style
orange jumpsuit,

is Nick berg,

a 26-year-old communications
engineer from Pennsylvania.

Berg was kidnapped in Iraq
a month previously,

and the video shows
his unimaginably horrific death.

[ Man speaking native language ]

Urban: The video is one of those

horror-show type
of jihadist videos

in which a long knife is used
to cut his throat,

and you can even hear the sound
of knife on bone,

the screams.

It's a truly horrific video.

But the point is
at the beginning of the video,

in the original form
it was released,

it says, "abu musab Al-zarqawi
slaughters an American."

Narrator: The CIA determines
that Al-zarqawi himself

is the hooded man
wielding the knife.

[ Man shouting
in native language ]

The guy was so brutal, so tough,

it's sort of like a mafia family
operating in New York City.

If you kill everybody else,

eventually people stand back
and say,

"whoa, we got a big guy,
a big dog on the corner in town,

and we better be careful."

So, just the brutality and
the effectiveness of his efforts

against first the Americans
and then the locals,

I think people stood back
and said,

"this guy's a blowtorch.
We better let him roll."

What the Iraqi sunnis
started to believe,

and those people
who had joined Al-qaeda,

was that if the Americans
can't kill abu musab Al-zarqawi,

can't stop him,

then maybe he was predestined
to win the war.

Narrator: Berg's death
is a signal to the world

that Al-zarqawi's
reign of terror

is escalating out of control.

But secretly, the U.S. is
planning a series of black ops

designed
to bring him crashing down.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Narrator: Abu musab Al-zarqawi
and his terror group,

Al-qaeda in Iraq, or a.Q.I.,

are waging a devastating
campaign of violence

against the U.S.-led coalition.

In Washington, ending
Al-zarqawi's reign of terror

has become a top priority
for president bush

and his inner circle
of advisors.

You come in, and the days
where the momentum --

you feel like the momentum
hasn't been with you,

you start with -- your thought
is really so simple.

It's "let nothing blow up today.

Let me get through today
with nothing blowing up."

Mudd:
It wasn't that we were losing.

It was just like,
when will this end?

And how will it end?

Narrator:
Al-zarqawi seems to have
the power to strike at will,

and yet somehow,
he remains completely hidden.

We really didn't know
what he was doing in Iraq,

and we didn't know, like,
did he have wives there?

Did he have kids there?
Where was he moving?

What was his support network?

Narrator: No one even has
a recent photo of Al-zarqawi,

let alone any idea where he is.

He doesn't use a cellphone
for fear it will be tracked.

He only meets with a select
group of trusted advisors

whose own whereabouts
are unknown.

He really was kind of a ghost
for a long time.

And you would get
bits and pieces here,

but usually by the time you
got them, they were outdated.

Narrator: In September 2003,
a new general arrives in Iraq.

His name is Stanley mcchrystal.

He has radical new ideas

for hunting down Al-zarqawi
and destroying a.Q.I.

General mcchrystal is one of
the most dedicated individuals

I've ever met.

He is a driven, driven warrior.

He artfully looked at where
he could make the most impact.

Narrator: Mcchrystal
is the newly-appointed commander

of the joint
special operations command,

or jsoc.

Zinke:
Certainly in every conflict,
the jsoc has been there.

They were in Grenada.

They were in Panama,
Gulf I, Gulf ii, Kosovo.

Pretty much
where there's a conflict,

you can depend that jsoc
has been there first...

...and they're always
the last to leave.

[ Machine-gun fire ]

Narrator:
Formed in the late 1980s

to coordinate the work
of America's elite troops,

jsoc controls
the best of the best

from across the U.S. military.

These are the so-called
special mission units --

Navy seal team 6...

Army delta force...

...and the air force
24th special tactics squadron.

Active in every corner
of the world,

usually on
highly-classified missions,

the men of jsoc are experts
in precise targeted strikes

against hard-to-reach enemies.

Urban: It was a very secret
organization,

and it was tasked with fighting

the most sensitive types
of mission against U.S. enemies,

obviously in the context
post 9/11 terrorist enemies,

counterterrorism.

Narrator:
At the start of the war,

jsoc's mission had been
to find and arrest

the leaders
of the old Iraqi regime.

The men famously depicted
on the deck of cards

with Saddam Hussein
as the ace of spades.

Ladies and gentlemen,
we got him.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Narrator: Within a year,

even Saddam himself
was in custody.

But this creates a power vacuum,

and Al-zarqawi
is ready and waiting

to step into the breech.

In decapitating what some called
the baathist

or nationalist leadership,

they probably assisted
the growth of Al-qaeda in Iraq,

because by taking away
the leadership figures,

the sheiks, the former generals,

the key people,
the key baathists,

they left quite a lot
of angry young militant sunnis

with nowhere to go.

Narrator: Mcchrystal makes
a strategic decision

to abandon the hunt

for ex-members
of the old Saddam regime.

Instead, he will focus
almost all of his resources

on just one man --

abu musab Al-zarqawi.

Alexander: Our commander gave us
a big speech.

The point of the speech was

the only way to win the Iraq war

and to stop the violence
between sunni and shia

is to find and kill or capture
abu musab Al-zarqawi.

Narrator: To get to know
Al-zarqawi himself,

mcchrystal knows he needs
to build a complete picture

of his terror network, a.Q.I.

He sets up
a large command center

at an old Iraqi air base
in the town of belat,

north of Baghdad.

Then he invites all of America's
many competing spy agencies

to set up camp there.

From now on, interagency
turf wars are banned,

and everything will be shared.

Mudd: When we started working
with special forces --

and I remember
general mcchrystal,

who's a real hero in this war --

I remember him coming in
to CIA headquarters and saying,

you know,
"we need some of your people."

And as any bureaucrat will,
you sit back there and say,

"all right,
is this dog gonna hunt?

What are we trying to do here?"

Narrator: The idea is
that every piece of information,

however insignificant,

will be brought here
and fed into a massive database.

If mcchrystal and his men

learn everything they can
about a.Q.I.,

they may be able to quickly find
its weakest points

and strike.

Zinke:
Senior leadership understood

that in order to win
a counterinsurgency,

you could not win it
by being on the defensive.

You had to go on the offensive.

Narrator: A key part of the plan

is to pump
each captured militant

for as much intelligence
as possible.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

So mcchrystal sets up
a special detention facility

right next door
to his command center.

Alexander:
The interrogation unit

essentially composed of
where we kept the prisoners

and also our interrogation rooms

and then our analysis room
and our desk,

which we called the gator pit.

Part of our facility was,
you know,

an old Saddam era
aircraft hangar,

and then the rest of it
was just kind of like

makeshift-built additions
to a warehouse, essentially.

Narrator:
Using his huge store of the
most up-to-date intelligence,

mcchrystal unleashes
the most dangerous weapon

in jsoc's arsenal --

the special mission units
of elite frontline soldiers.

These men will also now work
in an entirely new way.

Historically,

they ran only one or two
major operations per year.

Now they will conduct
multiple raids on a daily basis.

I can remember visiting Iraq
and watching them.

They didn't go out once
on a night.

They went out multiple times.

Oftentimes
the intelligence operators

would go
with the special forces.

Alexander:
It all starts by piling in
the back of a stryker vehicle

and sitting
in a very cramped space

that's very hot and very dark.

And then you're going through
the streets, you know,

and there's all types
of hazards --

roadside bombs and snipers,

and by the time
you get to the target,

you're usually already
like drenched in sweat

and your adrenaline's going.

Zinke: You're fired up.
You have your game face on.

You need to be intense,

because intensity and momentum
are critical,

you know,
as far as winning the day.

Nervous?

Not really nervous.

Alexander: You're jumping out
of the vehicle.

You're running down the street.

[ Gunshot ]

When it gets really exciting

is when you have
more than one house.

Oftentimes, these terrorists,
they would run out of one house,

jump a wall,
and into another house.

Then you'd have to raid
a second house.

And then sometimes it would end
up with a third or fourth house.

[ Gunshot ]

Don't move!

Narrator:
The critical factor is speed.

Every time
a militant is captured,

the members of a.Q.I. Around him
will try to cover their tracks

by reorganizing
the entire network.

You had information
that would perish.

It was time-sensitive.

That sometimes needed to be
run down to the ground,

and maybe that would be
the only chance

of preventing a catastrophe

or an act that would kill
a U.S. soldier of our ally.

Narrator:
It's a cat-and-mouse game.

The terrorists constantly change
their routines,

abandon safe houses,

and recruit new men to replace
those that have been lost.

But if mcchrystal's people can
work faster than their enemy,

they will destroy a.Q.I.
Before it can regenerate.

Mudd:
You take tactical information,

things like the stuff you get
off a captured cellphone

or a captured hard drive.

You take detainee operation --

what detainees are saying about
the network they just came from.

And you put them in a big hopper

and say, our software,
our analysis, our people

have to be good enough

so they can put together
a picture

of what that network looks like.

And not only
put that picture together,

do it well enough

so that an operator can conduct
a raid within 24 hours.

You're doing it for years on end

with people from every agency
in town.

Incredible.

In a way,
the most important idea

that general mcchrystal and jsoc
brought to this whole thing

was that if you hit
an organization fast enough,

accurately enough,
and repeatedly enough,

you could actually
cause them to collapse.

Narrator: Jsoc soon develops
into a well-oiled machine.

Every night, four black ops task
forces spread out through Iraq,

performing up to a dozen raids
at one time.

Go!

Go, go, go!

Each group is assigned
to take down targets

in a different part
of U.S.-occupied territory.

To the north is task force red,

formed from the army's
75th rangers brigade.

To the west, task force blue,
made up of U.S. Navy seals.

The center of Iraq

will be the responsibility
of task force green,

staffed by the U.S. army's
most elite unit,

delta force.

These soldiers are joined
by a team of elite troops

from britain's
special air service,

the s.A.S.,

operating under the code name
task force black.

[ Explosion ]

The s.A.S. Are the pioneers
in the art of black ops,

such as this daring hostage
rescue from the iranian embassy

in the heart of London in 1980.

[ Explosion ]

In particular,

they are masters of surveillance
and intelligence gathering.

There was undoubtedly a feeling

among many of the American
intelligence operators

that they s.A.S. And
the other British special forces

had skills
that were quite unusual

and quite different

to the type of skills that
delta force or the seals had.

They drove around
in Baghdad taxis.

They disguised themselves.

And the American
intelligence people

saw some of this during
the early years in Baghdad,

and they liked it.

Narrator:
Mcchrystal and his team

work through their targets
night after night.

The supply lines of foreign
fighters are intercepted.

Bomb makers
are taken out of action.

Mountains of intelligence
are captured and analyzed.

Townsend: They would do a raid.

They would get what's called
pocket litter or hard drives --

you know, pieces of paper
out of people's pockets.

They'd come back,

they'd bring it to analysts back
on the base from the CIA

who would go through
that information.

That would lead
to another targeting package,

and the special forces
would go out again.

That sort of continuous feed,
continuous loop

is what made them
incredibly effective.

Narrator:
Despite two years of taking
Al-zarqawi's network apart,

the ultimate objective,
the man himself,

still eludes them.

But the task force is about to
find a crucial breakthrough --

one that could finally stop
Al-zarqawi for good.

Narrator:
Strike teams from jsoc,

the U.S. joint
special operations command,

are staging multiple raids
across Iraq every night.

This secretive organization

joins together
elite special forces

from across the U.S. military
and its allies.

They are under the command
of a single leader,

general Stanley mcchrystal.

By the start of 2006,

their system of rapid-fire raids

and sophisticated
intelligence gathering

is beginning to rip apart the
terror network known as a.Q.I.

They are also getting ever
closer to its feared leader,

abu musab Al-zarqawi.

I'm gonna target each discrete,
tiny, little element,

and if I can begin
to pull little elements away,

suddenly the whole thing
falls of its own weight.

Narrator: But whenever
they get close to Al-zarqawi,

he seems once again
to slip through their grasp.

Yet he still retains the ability

to perpetrate
devastating attacks,

especially against
so-called soft targets

like shia mosques,

killing hundreds at once.

[ Man speaking native language ]

In April,
Al-zarqawi releases a video

which for the first time
in years shows his face.

[ Speaking native language ]

Townsend: The fact that he was

a charismatic military
and tactical leader

lead to this larger-than-life
sort of myth about him.

I think it fed his ego, as well.

He kind of began believing
his own press, if you will.

Alexander: You had little kids
in the street, you know,

pretending to be abu Al-zarqawi

because he was essentially
invincible.

Narrator: The video urges
Al-zarqawi supporters

to show no mercy against
their so-called enemies --

Iraq shia Muslim community
and the U.S. forces.

Just as that video hits
the air waves,

one element
of the jsoc task force

is preparing the latest in their
long series of nightly raids.

It's a team
from the British s.A.S.

Operating under the code name
task force black.

They are now concentrating
on an area

to the South of the capital,

a militant heartland

that soldiers call
the triangle of death.

Urban: The British
special operations task force

conducted a series of operations
in the triangle of death

in early 2006.

And they planned an operation
in April 2006

which they called larchwood 4.

Narrator: Operation larchwood 4
is a dangerous and daring raid

to arrest a mid-ranking
Al-zarqawi henchman,

code named abu haider.

Mcchrystal's intelligence
machine has pinpointed him

to a safe house
in the town of yusufiyah.

Alexander: We put surveillance
on that safe house,

and we watched it continuously
for I think almost a month.

And then one day, you know,

we see this meeting happening
there.

These cars converge.

And so we quickly sent
a raid team to go out

and capture the members
in that safe house.

Narrator: The team know
that houses like this

are often well defended
with heavily armed men,

some wearing suicide vests.

But the house could also contain
a number of innocent civilians.

Zinke: If they're a threat,
then you engage.

If they're not a threat,
then you don't.

You have to be able
to make that decision in a snap.

That's what special operations
trains for.

That's what they're
really, really good at.

Narrator: Just after 2:00 A.M.,

task force black sets off
in their helicopters

for the target house.

Following them
is a support group

from the British parachute
regiment, the paras.

They will form a cordon
around the house

to prevent
reinforcements arriving

and arrest so-called squirters,

targets trying
to make a run for it.

A short flight
of just 20 minutes

puts them within range
of the house.

Urban: The s.A.S. Men realized

it was not going to be
a typical sort of mission.

They thought they could hear
sounds inside the building.

They approached very gingerly,

and to their surprise
and satisfaction,

found that there was a door
just wide open.

Almost as soon as
they were through the door...

[ Gunfire ]

...they were hit
by a hail of bullets.

These people were heavily armed,

and they were prepared
to fight to the death

in order to prevent the s.A.S.
From getting in

and taking their man.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Narrator: The team quickly
withdraws to a safe distance.

They must decide whether or not
to resume their attack.

Urban: Some of these incidents

where heavy resistance
was encountered,

they simply pulled back

and dropped a bomb
on the building

and killed everybody inside.

For many different reasons,

the s.A.S. Commander on the
ground decided not to do that.

They wanted this person alive
for intelligence purposes.

They felt it was worth trying
to fight their way in,

and that's what they did.

[ Machine-gun fire ]

Zinke: When you raid compounds,

the objective is to keep
the opposition on the run,

keep him on the defensive.

Narrator: The team encountered
their worst nightmare --

a suicide bomber.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Urban: As one of the s.A.S. Men
went up the stairs,

he detonated.

[ Explosion ]

The s.A.S. Man
was blown down the stairs.

Fortunately for him,
he wasn't seriously wounded.

He had cuts and bruises.

But, of course, the suicide
bomber had blown himself up.

Narrator:
Meanwhile, outside the house,

more militants join the fight.

They rain fire
down on the special forces.

Urban: Another man wearing
a suicide vest, a squirter,

fled out the back
of the building

and hid under a car.

Narrator: The outer cordon of
paratroopers enters the fight.

Taking out the two militants
firing from the roof,

they turn their attention
to the suicide bomber

hiding under the car,

shooting him dead
before he can detonate his vest.

Urban: So, at the end of
a sort of terrifying 20 minutes,

there were a whole lot
of dead people.

Inside the house,

we captured five senior-ranking
members of Al-qaeda.

Narrator:
The operation is considered

another good day at the office
for task force black.

The main target of the raid,
abu haider, is in custody,

along with four other detainees.

In addition,

a treasure trove of intelligence
is recovered from the house.

Urban:
They sweep everything up they
think might be of relevance --

mobile phones...

...computers...

...everything else --
and they take it away.

As a result of larchwood 4

and subsequent operations
that it generated,

a huge amount
of actionable intelligence

came into jsoc's hands.

Narrator: When a jsoc analyst
starts to probe

one of the captured computers,

he discovers
something extraordinary --

raw footage
of Al-zarqawi himself

from his recent
propaganda video.

Urban: Through traces of DNA
that were found on it

when it was sent back
to the U.S. for analysis,

they would conclude
it was his laptop.

Narrator: The analysts realize

that Al-zarqawi must have
left the house

just hours before
the s.A.S. Arrived.

Alexander:
We actually started to get
excited that we were close,

because zarqawi
was in that house

the day before we raided it.

And that's when
we finally had the confidence

to think that we were
hot on his trail.

Narrator: They had narrowly
missed their target,

but the net is closing in fast.

Narrator: By the spring of 2006,

the hunt
for abu musab Al-zarqawi,

the leader of Al-qaeda in Iraq,

has reached a turning point.

An elite assault team

from the joint special
operations command, jsoc,

has secured a major breakthrough

following a daring raid
on a terrorist safe house.

[ Gunfire ]

The momentum had shifted.

The raids of his network

were getting faster and closer
to him,

and so you had the sense
"we're gonna get there."

Narrator: As well as capturing
several senior members

of Al-qaeda in the raid,

jsoc soldiers discover
a video of enemy number one --

Al-zarqawi.

Hoping to tarnish Al-zarqawi's
fearsome reputation,

the coalition releases the full,
unedited video to the media.

It contains the familiar footage

of the terrorist leader
parading through the desert,

confidently firing
a machine gun.

But it also shows another side
to Al-zarqawi --

a slightly overweight,
unimpressive figure of a man.

Man: Here's zarqawi,
the ultimate warrior,

trying to shoot
his machine gun.

It's supposed to be
automatic fire.

He's shooting
single shots.

No sooner does he figure out

how to switch his weapon
to fully automatic

when it jams,

and the self-styled holy warrior
can't get it going again.

[ Gun clicking ]

He looks down,
can't figure it out.

Calls his friend
to unblock the stoppage

and get the weapon firing
again.

[ Gunfire ]

He also appears
to be going into battle

wearing a nice pair
of white sneakers --

hardly the image of a man

threatening
the might of America.

It makes you wonder.

Narrator: Meanwhile, deep inside
jsoc's secret detention center,

the task forces interrogators
get to work on their captives.

Alexander:
The men that we brought in
we called the group of five,

and we knew that they were five
important members of Al-qaeda,

but we didn't know
what their roles were.

And they had
this very unbelievable story

that they were there
to attend a wedding,

even though
there was no bride or groom

and there were suicide bombers
in the house.

And little by little,

we would get information
from one of them,

and then we would take that

and turn around and use it
against the other four.

Narrator:
One member of the group,

the senior a.Q.I. Operative
known as abu haider,

refuses to say anything.

He was interrogated
for about 20 days,

and during that time,
he just maintained this story

that he was just there
to videotape a wedding,

even though it was
completely unbelievable.

Narrator: For weeks,
rotating teams of interrogators

try psychological pressure,
pleas for cooperation,

subtle threats,
and subtle promises.

Eventually,
they decide he will not talk

and arrange to have him sent to
Iraq's main detention facility,

abu ghraib prison.

Alexander: I decided that I
would go and interrogate him

one last time before he left.

And I didn't really have
permission to do that,

but I felt that he could provide
very important information

towards finding zarqawi.

And that conversation started
with nothing about Al-qaeda,

nothing about terrorism.

It just started
with a friendly conversation

about who he was,
what was his life story,

how did he come to be sitting
in a chair opposite me,

and getting to know each other.

Narrator: Over the course
of five and a half hours,

Matthew Alexander discovers

abu haider has
a fatal weakness --

his arrogance.

He believes he has beaten
the mighty American machine

and should be recognized for it.

Alexander obliges him.

Alexander: I would constantly
stroke his ego,

constantly make him believe
in this fallacy in his head

that he was
a very important man,

that he could affect the future
of Iraq.

And then in the last 15 minutes,

what I did was essentially
offer him a deal.

I offered him the chance to work
with us instead of Al-qaeda

in a secret program
that didn't exist

in which he could be a person

who could influence
the future of Iraq.

And he decided to work with me.

Narrator:
During the next few weeks,

Alexander visits abu haider
in his cell at night

and coaxes more and more
information out of him

about Al-zarqawi's whereabouts,

all on the pretext
of proving his worth

for the nonexistent
secret program.

I said, "you're so close
to getting in this program.

All we need is that
one last piece of information

that'll convince my bosses."

And he said

every month zarqawi would meet
with his spiritual advisor,

who was our detainee's
best friend.

Narrator:
It's the piece of intelligence

that everyone
has been waiting for.

For years, Al-zarqawi has been
a ghost striking with impunity.

Now at last,

jsoc has what it needs
to find him and take him out.

The intelligence
and military effort

that had been put together

was beginning to close the noose
around his neck.

We knew that zarqawi had
a spiritual advisor.

We knew that he was
going to visit him.

It was just a matter
of being patient.

Narrator:
Using this information,

jsoc quickly traces
the spiritual advisor

and begins following him
day and night.

Using high-tech systems
like predator drones

as well as old-fashioned
undercover operatives,

they create what mcchrystal
calls the unblinking eye.

Their target
is never out of sight.

Abu haider tells Alexander that
if they want to find Al-zarqawi,

they need to look
for one particular sign.

We would know when
he was gonna meet with zarqawi

because he would change cars
from a white car to a blue car.

And whenever he got in
this blue car,

that meant
he was going to meet zarqawi.

Urban: Once again, it was
a joint U.S.-u.K. Surveillance

on a building in Baghdad.

Lo and behold, they realize
by following his movements

that every few days,
this man got into his car.

They used predator
and other methods

to follow his car
as it went up the road

to this place in the palm groves
near tecrete,

where, indeed,
abu musab Al-zarqawi himself

was hiding.

Narrator: By now,
pictures from the drone

are being fed live
to jsoc's command center.

Everyone, including
general mcchrystal himself,

is watching in silence

as Al-zarqawi's spiritual
advisor gets out of his car.

Then abu musab Al-zarqawi
himself appears.

Once the blue car arrived
at the house,

helicopters took off immediately

to go to that house
and capture zarqawi.

And it was
about 20 minutes away.

Narrator: A discussion is held
in the command center.

Is it really worth trying
to capture Al-zarqawi alive

in broad daylight?

Or is it better to wait
until nightfall

and take him when he's asleep?

If they strike now,

they risk a heavy firefight
and numerous casualties.

Worse, Al-zarqawi is a master
of the last-minute escape.

If they wait, he could easily
slip through the net again.

This could be their one and only
chance to finish the job.

And there was a period of time
in which we were just waiting.

I was watching it live
on the video.

And we were just waiting.

Narrator: Mcchrystal believes
there's no time to lose.

He can't even wait 20 minutes

for the assault force to arrive
by helicopter.

He opts for another plan

designed to take Al-zarqawi
completely by surprise.

Narrator:
After years of hunting,

America's most elite
combat unit,

the joint special operations
command, jsoc,

has located one of the world's
most wanted terrorists --

abu musab Al-zarqawi,
the leader of Al-qaeda in Iraq.

Fearing he might escape,

jsoc's commander,
general Stanley mcchrystal,

decides that he can
leave nothing to chance.

He calls up two f-16 fighters
patrolling nearby.

We were expecting to watch the
helicopters land and the raid,

which we typically would watch.

And instead, after about
maybe a five-minute wait...

...the house just exploded.

Urban: They knew
he was in the building.

And they made the decision

without losing any time
to prosecute the target.

They didn't even feel
there was time

to get one of their special ops
task forces in the air

to go and raid the building.

They simply decided to hit it
with bombs from an f-16,

which is what they did.

[ Applause ]

Narrator:
Just minutes after the bombing,

special forces arrive
at the house.

Incredibly, they find Al-zarqawi
still alive in the wreckage.

A soldier grabbed him,
and then zarqawi died.

And it was sort of
a sweet justice if you will

that zarqawi's last image
was a U.S. soldier grabbing him.

Narrator:
The day following the raid,

the U.S. announces to the world

that they have their man
at last.

Good morning.

Now zarqawi has met his end,

and this violent man
will never murder again.

Narrator: Pictures are released
of his dead body

as grim confirmation.

Zarqawi could be responsible for
upwards of almost 100,000 deaths

by starting the civil war
in Iraq.

And so, I don't think
the world's gonna miss him.

Narrator: It's a devastating
blow to Al-qaeda in Iraq.

The man who was thought
to be invincible is dead.

But the work is not over.

With the intelligence
that was collected

from the smoldering remains
of Al-zarqawi's compound,

another series of raids
is launched...

And a.Q.I. Starts to fall
like a house of cards.

Townsend: There was, you know,

a good deal of chaos
inside the organization,

and what you do is, you know,
when you're targeting zarqawi,

you're also collecting
intelligence on the network.

And so what that allows you
to do is the minute he's dead,

they're far more vulnerable,
the people around him,

than they realize.

And so, you do a series of raids
that is devastating.

And they never really came back
from his death.

Narrator: Today, the joint
special operations command

is the group
of special forces operators

that is tasked
with planning and executing

dangerous and secretive missions
for the United States.

The black ops it conducts

have continued to strike
at the heart of Al-qaeda

and other terror groups
around the world.

In 2011,

it was jsoc that planned
and executed the mission

to take down
the world's most wanted man --

osama bin laden.

You have to win,

and at the end of the day
when the heat is on,

you're gonna do
whatever it takes to win.