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Chapter 71 20 minutes! (Third update!)

Al Asad Air Base.

Listening to the ringing of the phones around him, one louder than the other, Kolster seemed very irritated. When the phone rang again, he quickly picked up the phone and roared into the receiver:
"I know you need air support, but the problem is that many people have been drinking because they want to celebrate Christmas early."

"There are only a few people on duty who haven't drunk. We just put them together as a makeshift crew. The fighter jets are taking off. Stop shouting."

"Stop barking at me!"

"Think about your ancestors, think about your predecessors. Don't just think about requesting air support all the time. You need to exercise your own subjective initiative."

"Understand?"

After cursing loudly, he hung up the phone abruptly, turned around and walked out of the office and into the combat command center next door.

In the combat command center, the communicators, various staff officers, and those drunk pilots were all ready.

Seeing Corster appear, his orderly quickly handed him a document:
"According to reports from various outposts, more than a dozen military bases in Karbala, Najaf, Hassimiyah, and Diwaniyah have been attacked."

Hearing these names, Kolster easily found the corresponding cities on the map.

After staring at the map for a while, he turned back suddenly:

"Where's Sheila?"

"Sheila wasn't attacked." The orderly came over and handed over the newly acquired documents again.

"This is the message sent back from the Shila outpost a few minutes ago. Everything is normal."

Holding this information, Colster looked at it for a long time before finally confirming that the Shira outpost located on a major traffic route had not been attacked.

Seeing this, he breathed a sigh of relief, slapped the documents aside, and placed his hands on the map table. He looked at the staff officer opposite him and the drunk pilots, and said in a cold voice:

"All staff officers are responsible for contacting the intelligence department. I need to know within three hours which rebel group is so bold as to cause trouble for us on Christmas Day."

"And you bunch of drunks, sober up right now. I want to see the plane take off in half an hour."

Leaving these few words, Colster turned around gracefully, waved his sleeves, and left without a cloud.

Meanwhile, Sheila was not attacked.

It is a city slightly larger than Karbala, situated on the banks of the Euphrates River, with the capital Baghdad to the north and the Shiite holy city of Najaf to the south.

Sheila is in the middle, and her position is quite important.

Therefore, the outpost built by America here is larger than the outposts in other cities, with more personnel and better equipment.

The outpost is located in the northeast corner of Shila, sandwiched between two highways.

On the left are Highway 8 and Highway 70, which run north and south.

On the right, 11 kilometers east, is Highway 1 which runs through the north and south.

The location is very good. In special situations, only one or two hundred soldiers are needed to block the troops moving south and north with the support of air firepower.

In the fields at night, Khalid and little Sadr lay on the edge of the field, observing the outpost 3 kilometers away through binoculars.

Behind them were five cannons and 100 shells that were moved like ants.

There were five guns lined up in a row, with 10 men behind each gun and 20 shells.

After looking through the telescope for a long time, Khalid finally looked away and looked at the watch on his left hand.

The watch hands pointed to 1:32 in the morning.

At this point in time, people are not the most tired, so we still need to wait.

Khalid quietly stood up from the ridge of the field, turned around and looked at the group of people behind him. He walked over, called these people to him, and lowered his voice to order:
"Twenty minutes, we only have 20 minutes."

"The American F-15E Strike Eagle can reach a maximum speed of Mach 2.5 in an emergency."

"Baghdad International Airport was bombed, Karbala was bombed, Najaf was bombed, and the American pilots must have been exhausted."

"We receive the message, synchronize it with the pilot, and then the pilot arrives here from somewhere else. The whole process takes about 20 minutes, so we calculate it as 20 minutes."

"All 100 shells must be fired within 20 minutes."

"Then run away as fast as you can."

"This is my last reminder, so you must not make any mistakes later."

After giving his instructions, Khalid waved his hand and drove these people back to their respective artillery pieces.

3:15 am.

This is the most difficult time for a person.

Khalid didn't hesitate for a second, raised his right hand high, and then swung it down suddenly.

The moment he waved his hand, there was a uniform sound of "clapping" behind him.

The shell on the barrel disappeared, and the person guarding the shell immediately picked up the shell and ran quickly towards the mortar.

The person responsible for controlling the height of the gun barrel quickly adjusted the height of the gun barrel so that his companions could stuff the shells into the barrel.

The shell was loaded, the barrel was raised again, the rope was pulled, and another shell flew out.

As Christmas approached, in order to create a festive atmosphere, the soldiers of the Shila outpost decorated the entire outpost. They even asked for funds to ship several Christmas trees from Russia.

The green Christmas tree stands in the center of the lobby, shining brightly under the colorful lights.

Of course, in order to have a good Christmas, a group of people have started celebrating Christmas in advance.

Even though it was already early in the morning, the hundreds of people in the lobby did not feel tired at all, but rather very excited.

Men and women gathered together, holding drinks, and dancing various suggestive dances. Those who were impatient found a corner and started discussing life.

Just when everyone was in high spirits, a loud explosion suddenly sounded outside the window.

The flash of light from the explosion illuminated the enclosed hall for a moment.

Immediately afterwards, the shock wave generated by the explosion came towards them, shattering the glass on the lobby wall and then crashing into the people present.

Before the first explosion had stopped for half a second, several more explosions rang out.

After several explosions, in the corner of the lobby, Andawn, the head of the Shila outpost, struggled to push the woman in his arms away, shook his head vigorously, and struggled to get up.

After looking at his body, he could see the surrounding situation clearly.

When the Hilla outpost was being built, heavy firepower attacks from terrorists were taken into consideration. The core buildings of the entire outpost are all reinforced concrete shear wall structures, and some walls have been thickened.

In the face of such a structure, the 120mm mortar, the 107 rocket launcher most commonly used by terrorists, and the RPG rocket launcher are completely inadequate.

But now, the reinforced concrete buildings they were so proud of have been knocked down.

The thick reinforced concrete was blown apart.

They were like oysters hidden in their shells, their shells cracked open, and now they were destined to be devoured.

But fortunately, the building was strong enough. During the first wave of attacks, the building took most of the impact. Except for some unlucky people, most people were only injured.

As long as we get weapons, there is still room for counterattack.

Thinking of this, Andoin took a deep breath and prepared to organize a counterattack.

But with this breath, he inhaled dust and a strong smell.

The taste is indescribable.

Just one mouthful made him fall to his knees and vomit weakly.

Others who had just woken up from the explosion also smelled the odor, knelt on the ground, and began to vomit violently.

After finally finishing vomiting, Andoin stood up and was about to organize people when he heard a whistling sound above his head and raised his head.

A green 118-liter gas tank fell from the sky and hit Andon directly, and then the green gas tank turned into a golden light.

Under Khalid's strict supervision, 50 people fired all 100 shells in 20 minutes.

After firing the cannon, a group of people prepared to drag the cannon back, but before they could take action, they were kicked over one by one by Khalid:

"Put the time bomb in the barrel, and then run now, as fast as you can, run!"

After scolding loudly and kicking over another person, Khalid threw the bomb into the gun barrel, turned around and ran without hesitation or wandering for a second.

Before he ran away, little THAAD had already run away first.

The indicator light of the time bomb thrown over flickered in the barrel, ticking for a while, and then suddenly exploded.

None of the residents of Hira City slept well that night.

The violent explosion woke the entire city from its slumber. Those who woke up did not dare to speak, ask, or even cry.

They could only huddle in the corner of the house in the dark and wait quietly for dawn.

Fortunately, God did not keep them waiting for long, and dawn came around 7 a.m. local time.

The person who had been frightened all night walked out of the house and subconsciously asked people around him, wanting to know what happened last night.

But most people stayed at home last night and had no idea what was going on.

I wanted to delve deeper, but then I realized it was a new day and time to go to work.

In other words, it's time to find a job and earn some money to support the family.

So, those who had been frightened all night lost interest in the explosion and turned to busy themselves with their own lives.

At the same time, an Osprey helicopter and five Apache AH64D attack helicopters slowly landed in the square of the Hilla outpost.

The door of the Osprey helicopter opened, and a dozen fully armed American soldiers, accompanied by three people who looked like clerks, walked off the plane.

Looking at the outpost that looked like it had been plowed, looking at the broken corpses on the ground, and smelling the smell in the air, Peter Roones, who was walking in the center of the soldiers, vomited directly.

After vomiting, he stood up, took out the gloves from the box he was carrying, and carefully put them on his hands. After doing all this, he spoke to the soldier next to him:
"Please help me. You guys will be responsible for cleaning up the rubble. I will inspect it and my deputy will be responsible for recording it."

In this way, a group of people quickly got to work. The soldiers in front carefully moved the rubble away, and Peter Roones searched among these rubble and restored the situation during the attack.

"The attackers had powerful firepower, at least 150mm or heavier artillery. I suspect it was the Russian Tulip mortar."

"When checking, you can ask people around you if they have seen any tracked armored vehicles that are different from ours."

"Judging from the duration of the attack, these people are well-trained and very good at pushing the limits of human physiology."

"At 3 a.m., these people were able to use up all their artillery shells in a very short time and then evacuate quickly. This shows that these guys are not guerrillas from the Arab world, but the elite of the elite, the real elite. Even if our soldiers encounter them, they are likely to be defeated."

"I seriously suspect that Russia is involved!"

"Those damn Slavs! In terms of abstraction, only the Aryans in this world can compete with them."

Just as Peter Roanes was expressing his admiration for the ruins of the outpost, several trucks slowly drove out of the fields further north and stopped in front of him.

In the truck bed, there was a pile of messy scrap metal that was no longer recognizable.

At almost the same time, the dozen or so members of the Navy SEALs also picked up a lot of remaining fragments from the bomb explosion in the ruins.

These fragments, along with the mess of scrap metal in the truck bed, were placed in front of Peter Roones:
"Major Roans, we found some traces about 3 kilometers to the north, and then we found these broken objects around those traces."

"Based on preliminary evidence, these appear to be several mortars modified from low-pressure fluid transport pipes."

"And the most common shells are gas canisters."

"But the specific results still require professional technicians to repair them."

After listening to the soldier's explanation, this outstanding intelligence officer and traceologist from the CIA stared at the pile of scrap metal on the ground in a daze.

After being stunned for a while, he turned around, clasped his hands around the ruins, and turned back to look at the soldier, asking in surprise:
"Your gas tank has this much power!"

"Can you tell me how many gas tanks you would need to blow up this base covering hundreds of acres?"

"You served in Iraq for many years. You have experience. Come and tell me."

The soldier didn't say anything, but just lowered his head and fixed his eyes on his toes.

As a soldier, especially an American soldier in Iraq, he knows everything about bombs, especially roadside bombs. He even knows more about bombs than he knows his wives.

There's nothing you can do about it. If you don't understand your wife, the most you'll get is a few scoldings.

If they didn't know about the bomb, they would die tomorrow.

Without getting a response from the soldier, Peter Roones licked his cracked lips, waved his hands weakly, turned around and squatted down, picked up a piece of debris and looked at it carefully.

From noon to afternoon, Peter Roones squatted in front of the wreckage and studied it.

At night, when darkness fell, he finally gave up staring at the wreckage, stood up, walked to the tent not far away, sat down in the tent, and took out a notebook from his luggage, and wrote down everything he had seen today and all the possibilities he thought of.

When I finished writing, it was already late at night.

He picked up the phone, found Colster's number, and carefully sent a message.

If the other party replies, you can call them. If they don’t, go to bed and talk about it tomorrow.

Less than 10 seconds after the message was sent, Corst's phone rang.

He put the phone to his ear and listened for a while, his mouth opening wider and wider:
"What do you mean the scene was hit by at least one hundred 2,000-pound bombs, but you couldn't find any bomb debris at the explosion site?"

"What do you mean by suspecting Russian involvement?"

“Does Russia have that capability?”

(End of this chapter)