RAF Jets Save Life Of Top Iraqi

RAF Jets Save Life Of Top Iraqi Police Commander.

An RAF Tornado GR4 crew have saved the life of an Iraqi Police Commander by "scaring the all living grace of god" out of rogue militias who had ambushed him.

The crew, Flight Lieutenant Ben Cable, on his first tour of Iraq, and Flight Lieutenant Mike Morgan are both serving with 12(Bomber) Squadron, based at RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland.

They were on a routine patrol mission over Baghdad when they were directed to provide air support to Iraqi Police Commander Brigadier General Ali Al-Maksusi.

The General and his men were surrounded and under intense fire from militias armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades. They had ambushed the General while he was visiting the Sadr City area of Baghdad.

They called on the Iraqi Police to lay down their arms so they could take the General prisoner. Before doing so, the General was able to contact US forces in the area, who responded immediately by calling in a pair of RAF Tornado GR4s.

The Iraqi Police heard the piercingly loud roar of the Tornados as they approached and on arrival at the scene Flight Lieutenant Ben Cable swooped in at low level over the incident, while shooting flares over the heads of the militia.

They flew their high speed Tornado GR4, armed with a 27mm cannon and 1000lb GPS and laser guided bombs, so low that the rogue militia who had surrounded the police commander and his men fled the scene.

General Ali descibed afterwards how the aircraft had "scared the all living grace of god out of the insurgents and they did not want to continue the fight". He also personally thanked the two aircrew for saving his life.

Flight Lieutenant Ben Cable said:

"When something like this happens you know that lives are at stake and you can’t hang around. We could tell from the ground controller’s voice that this was a serious situation and we made sure they understood we meant business.

"It was only afterwards we found out that we had probably saved the General’s life. He made sure we knew how grateful he was and looking back, we are extremely proud of what we did."