Free Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) by John Schettler Page A

active in politics as Minister of
Justice, and eventually Prime Minister in 1933. A staunch nationalist, he
resisted British efforts to make Iraq an oil protectorate, again becoming Prime
Minister in 1940, where he defied the pro-British Regent Abdul Illah, and
secretly began to negotiate with both Italy and Germany. Forced to resign, he
soon staged a coup to regain power in 1941, and again attempted to rid Iraq of
the British pestilence.
    Seeking military support, his
vision was to now create a combined Islamic state that comprised both Syria and
Iraq, wiping out the artificial boundaries Britain had imposed after WWI in the
Sykes–Picot agreement. It was that declaration, which drew national boundaries
for Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq without regard to ethnic, religious or
tribal loyalties, that would lead to a century of conflict in the Middle East.
After the Arab Spring in 2010 and beyond, groups like the radical Islamic
fighters of ISIS would again reach for this vision, a Grand Caliphate embracing
both Syria and Iraq. Now Rashid Ali hoped to achieve that with the support of
the Axis powers, and he thought to trade access to Syrian ports at Tartus and
Latakia as part of the deal he was brokering.
    For their part, the British
Petroleum concerns near Basra had to be protected. And so even as Brigadier
Kinlan had been sent to Sultan Apache in 2020, the British already had
established bases in Iraq to protect their oil interests there, and guard the
facilities and pipelines. It was an experiment put forward by Churchill to hold
the country through the application of air power alone. The British had no
permanent forces in Iraq, except two R.A.F bases and small detachments of local
Assyrian troops to guard them. Yet now they had lost control of the long
pipelines extending from the oil fields at Kirkuk, through Syria to Tripoli and
Lebanon, and they intended to get them back.
    The Anglo-Iraq war that resulted
now would not be the last time Western military forces fought for the black
gold beneath the sands of a hostile desert. One of the ancestors of a most
troublesome man was even now numbered among the conspirators—Talifah
Khairailah, the uncle of Saddam Hussein, who was then only a young four year
old boy. He and his clan would continue to bedevil the Western thirst for Iraqi
oil for decades to come.
    The French had already closed the
pipelines through their territory, except for local use. Only the long line
through the Trans-Jordan, known as the ‘Haifa Line,’ was still bringing oil to
the British in Palestine. It was there, at one of the pumping stations labeled
H4, (Haifa 4) that the makings of a relief column was being assembled. It was
going to cross 300 miles of desert to the Euphrates, a Flying Column of British
Cavalry, the 1st Essex Battalion, and some Royal Air Force armored cars that
came to be known as Kingcol after its irascible, Brigadier Joe Kingstone. A
tall, stocky officer with a burly build and rough disposition, Kingstone was
the perfect man for the job. He would drive his force through relentless heat,
over barely marked desert tracks, to reach his beleaguered British comrades,
but he was about to get some very unexpected help.
    The chief British base projecting
air power in the central area was at Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi,
northwest of Baghdad. As such it was also an important air link on the route to
British India. Fedorov knew these events were happening a few months earlier
than they did in his history, as the whole war seemed slightly off its kilter.
He wanted to brief Troyak and the Marines, and let them know what they might be
facing.
    “The air base is just south of
the Euphrates River,” he said, and it is overlooked by a high plateau where the
Iraqi army has taken up positions. They have a large force, at least a brigade
in strength, and artillery. The base itself is now being held by no more than
2200 men, mostly RAF service personnel, with some British troops and