Operation Southern Watch was established following the conclusion of the Gulf War where the U.N. imposed resolutions on the government of Iraq in response to Iraqi efforts suppress the Kurds in northern Iraq and Marsh Arabs in the south. Iraqi Brigade-sized ground and air forces, using combined arms tactics, carried out search and destroy operations on these refugees and their villages. Additionally, the Iraqi government started large-scale engineering efforts to divert waters away from the marshlands in these regions to facilitate their genocidal operations. To allow monitoring, an Iraqi no-fly zone south of the 32nd parallel was established. Named Operation Southern Watch, the coalition effort to enforce the no-fly zone, as well as banning any surface-to-air weapons presenting a threat to aircraft conducting the monitoring mission, was begun August 1992. Three times during the course of the operation, January 1996, July 1997, and October 1998, AV-8B Harriers from the 15th MEU(SOC) participated in Operation Southern Watch.
Send in your stories of your participation in support of Southern Watch, or any deployments you made with the 15th MEU.
|
