Forgive me in advance. I will ruin every action sequence in every movie you will ever see again. However, I plan to do so by giving you the critical skills you need to be a successful Hollywood fight coordinator. Perhaps it’s a good trade.
The Fight Scene Template
The following template works for every action movie in the universe. It doesn’t matter if it is Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, John Wick, or Extraction. They are all the same.
The hero enters well-rested, usually kitted out, and sporting a sinister glint in his eye. He also has a weapon of some sort, which might be anything from a pistol to a submachine gun to an attack helicopter. From that point, the situation predictably deteriorates.
Eventually, the battered and bleeding star is disarmed. Sometimes he runs out of ammo. Other times he loses his weapon or has it taken from him. If the screenwriter is lazy, the star has a mechanical stoppage. At that point, he must face his mortal enemy alone and unarmed. This results in a desperate hand-to-hand exchange where the ultimate outcome teeters. Eventually, the Good Guy vanquishes the Bad. Fade to black either with or without the emotional reunion with the hot girl eye candy–predictable.
Fight Scene Mixed Combat
Sometimes, actors are able to successfully combine mixed armed and unarmed combat. Think Daniel Craig in Casino Royale. In others, that mix ends up cheesy. Think Roger Moore in almost anything. However, reality is never actually like that.
Like most humans, I’ve seen a few actual fights. As a physician, I’ve seen the aftermath lots of times. In the real world, real-life close combat is typically ugly, fast, and inelegant. One party gets the better of the other and either beats him into submission or kills him outright. Then the two pugilists face the consequences of their poor life choices.
One might think that in the rarefied world of modern Special Operations, hand-to-hand combat skills might finally have been rendered obsolete. We human beings have invested a truly breathtaking amount of time and treasure into contriving the most efficient ways of ripping the very life out of our brethren. Tier 1 Special Mission Units like the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s DevGru wield the most advanced killing technology mankind can devise. And yet there remains a place for knives, fists, feet, and teeth in the arena of Information Age combat. Now hold that thought…
The Villains
ISIS. Holy snap. In the sordid annals of human psychopathy, you would be hard pressed to find a more vile mob of reprobates. Everything about these guys is simply horrible. They torture, murder, steal, and enslave all in the name of their dark satanic god. Eventually, however, the entire world had just had about enough.
They go by a variety of monikers. Islamic State, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Da’ish, and Daesh are among them. The common denominator, however, is simply unbridled hatred of everything everywhere.
This transnational militant terrorist organization is a subset of the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam. Founded in 1999 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, ISIS seized a substantial portion of the nation of Iraq in 2014. By the end of 2015, ISIS ruled over more than 10 million people and commanded roughly 30,000 armed fighters. Their annual budget exceeded $1 billion.
Al-Zarqawi met his gory demise in 2006 on the receiving end of an American F-16C fighter plane. Eventually, another loser named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the reins. In 2019, Delta Force raided his compound. Al-Baghdadi fled into a tunnel, along with two small children. A military working dog named Conan pursued them. Al-Baghdadi then blew himself up along with the kids. I guess he just wasn’t a dog person. Conan was injured along with two of the Delta shooters. In the end, both human and K-9 “Good Guys” survived.
The Villain Du Jour – Abu Sayyaf
American forces discovered intel between those two events leading them to Abu Sayyaf. Abu Sayyaf was a nom de guerre. His real name was Fathi Ben Awn Jildi Murad al-Tunisi. Considering how hard that must be to write, I suppose I would have picked something simpler as well.
Abu Sayyaf was the money man responsible for oil and gas operations in the territories stolen by ISIS. They called him the Emir of Oil and Gas. Think of him like a CFO for a 30,000-employee corporation whose business is institutional rape, torture, and murder.
Serving dutifully alongside her Tunisian psycho husband was his wife Umm Sayyaf. Umm Sayyaf was Iraqi, though this was also not her real name. She was born Nasrin As’ad Ibrahim. Abu and Summ Sayyaf literally translate to “Father and Mother of Sayyaf.” Serving in a lofty leadership position in ISIS is stressful, and Umm Sayyaf understood this. As a result, she turned a blind eye to some of her husband’s more carnal pastimes.
Abu Sayyaf was indeed a proper piece of work. In addition to managing the finances of the most bloodthirsty terrorist group on the planet, he also had a penchant for sex slaves. He maintained seven that we know of. His “personal captive” was kidnapped American human rights worker Kayla Mueller. In the 21st century, who has a “personal captive”? For these sins, as well as a whole bunch of others, Abu Sayyaf got to meet Delta Force.
The Mission to get Abu Sayyaf
As the money guy, Abu Sayyaf had his fingers in everything. He communicated regularly with the rest of the ISIS leadership and was consulted on military operations. Allied spies rightfully suspected that getting into his head would yield a treasure trove of actionable intel.
It’s tough to hide from Uncle Sam these days. Once we had reliable information on Abu Sayyaf’s whereabouts in Syria, the intelligence community put together a proposal to kill or capture him. The President’s closest advisors were unanimous in their recommendation to proceed, and Obama agreed. An unidentified individual in attendance later said, “It was risky, but not high risk. This is what these guys do.” Um, wow.
Delta Force
The unit tasked to undertake the first direct action mission into Syria to neutralize a high-value ISIS target was the US Army’s Special Forces Operational Detachment—Delta. Delta Force traces its roots back to the 1970’s and is, alongside DevGru, the world’s premier counterterrorist unit. On the night of 15 May 2015, Delta went on the hunt.
Abu Sayyaf’s compound was in al-Amir in southeastern Syria. The MV22 Ospreys from the US Air Force Special Operations Command inserted the 100-man strike package, along with MH60 Blackhawks from the Army’s Task Force 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. We will probably never know the specific details of the assault. The Delta guys I have known are notoriously tight-lipped regarding the details of their day jobs. However, we know enough to understand the gravity of the situation.
A couple of dozen Delta shooters blew a hole in the wall of the compound and encountered armed resistance, which they expeditiously addressed. Abu Sayyaf and other members of the ISIS leadership purportedly sought refuge behind the women in the facility. Osama bin Laden used the same MO when he met the US Navy SEALs face-to-face in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011.
These operations are most commonly undertaken in the dark. American night vision systems define the state of the art, and the D-boys are trained to live and fight comfortably in that space. I suspect things were pretty chaotic.
READ MORE HERE: Dr. Dabbs – Genocide: The Etymology of Mass Murder
Delta Improvise to Get Abu Sayyaf
At some point, things went truly sideways. The sketchy details that came to light simply said that the Delta operators had to shoot around the female human shields to get to the brave ISIS warriors. At some point, they were too close for firearms and had to take care of business the old-fashioned way. The official government report stated that the Delta boys went hand-to-hand with the Bad Guys before it was over. It’s a crying shame Abu Sayyaf didn’t have a Ring camera or something similar. I suspect that would have been something to behold.
The original mission was to capture and interrogate Abu Sayyaf. That obviously didn’t work, so the D-boys just blew him away along with some 12 to 18 of his closest mates. They did make off with his wife Umm Sayyaf, an 18-year-old female Yazidi sex slave, and a buttload of electronic intelligence. The information harvested from Aby Sayyaf’s phones and computer drives went on to inform the rest of the operation to deconstruct ISIS.
Like the Nazis before them, ISIS was known for keeping meticulous records. In addition to the computer drives laden with data and the sex slaves, the American strike team also discovered a trove of priceless antiquities pilfered from their occupied lands. It seems that in addition to murder and human trafficking, ISIS is not beyond a little good old-fashioned looting when it suits them.
The Gun
I obviously wasn’t there, but Delta Force operators of this era most commonly wielded HK416 assault rifles. The HK416 was a collaborative effort between Larry Vickers and the rest of the Delta gun guys alongside Heckler and Koch back in the 1990’s. The original plan was to call the new rifle the HK M4, but Colt threatened a lawsuit.
The HK416 was a gas piston-driven version of the M4 carbine based upon the action of the HK XM8, which was loosely based upon that of the Armalite AR180. The HK416, though a bit heavy, has been wildly successful. France, Germany, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Norway, and the US Marine Corps have all adopted it as their standard infantry rifle. The Jarheads use a modified form designated the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle today.
Ruminations
Nowadays, ISIS is but a shell of its former self. Every time one of those scumbags sticks his head above the sand, some freedom-loving warrior is standing by to blow it off. Allied troops undoubtedly returned the unfortunate Yazidi slave girl to her people and then introduced Abu Sayyaf’s grief-stricken wife, Umm, to her brave new world.
Some wanted to see Umm Sayyaf tried in American courts. Others felt she might be a good fit at Gitmo. Officials never released the details of her ultimate fate, though it was reported that she was cooperating with American authorities. That simple observation might make it a bit awkward should she ever be released back onto the block.
The most reliable report I could find stated that she was eventually handed over to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government. However, the Kurds have a notoriously efficient justice system. Somebody likely ate her for dinner. Regardless, I doubt she had long to regret those poor life choices.
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