Embedded Enemy: The Insider Threat

Embedded Enemy is the true story of the unprecedented deadly attack against the men and women of Headquarters and Headquarters Company First Brigade, 101st Airborne Division. Shortly after deploying for the war in Iraq, the Bastogne Brigade was staged at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait where they prepared for combat against Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime. During the eerie, pitch-black, early morning hours of 23 March 2003, a fellow American soldier, Sergeant Hasan Akbar, executed the unthinkable and unlikeliest of scenarios by throwing hand grenades into his Chain of Command’s tents. He then followed up with small-arms fire while his Commanding Officers slept in preparation for war.The wicked aftermath killed two officers and wounded 12 others. Six soldiers were evacuated, never to return—all were vital to the unit’s arduous mission. Despite the tragic deaths in the most unfathomable way, the Bastogne Brigade received movement orders to cross the border into Iraq just 48 hours after the attack.This story is about how the soldiers bonded together to rescue, treat, and evacuate their brothers at arms in the midst of the shadows of darkness, massive explosions, rapid gun fire, suffocating smoke, body ripping shrapnel, and complete and total chaos and confusion. All of this was accomplished while simultaneously searching for a ruthless killer that had taken the same oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against foreign enemies. Little did they realize they would meet the most improbable of adversaries—one of their very own—an “Embedded Enemy.”This event shocked the Armed Forces, America, and people around the world. It forced everyone to more carefully consider whom we really trust and to begin to digest the idea that threats to our personal safety might now come “from the inside.”