Hidden Dangers Of Ambush Alley

It's about 3:30 in the morning, and the headquarters company of the 293rd Infantry Battalion is about to head out. The trip will take a little over eight hours, and it leads up a road that has become known as "Ambush Alley." Correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.

This is, without a doubt, the biggest and most perilous mission that these young reservists of the Indiana National Guard have been asked to undertake since they arrived in Kuwait in January.

They are going to South Central Iraq to guard an air base now controlled by coalition forces. But first they have to get there, and it's a long, hot ride through the Iraqi desert.

"The soldiers put another name on it," says Sergeant Cox of the 293rd Battalion. "That's Ambush Alley because that's where they've been getting hit."

They are arriving just in time.

When more resistance than expected slowed troops in southern Iraq, Russell and the rest of his reservist unit found themselves suddenly in demand.

There is a reason why so much security is needed here -– weapons. When the Iraqi military fled this area, they left behind huge stockpiles of weapons. Now, local paramilitary groups want them back to use against coalition forces.

"We figured that when we started attacking and coming north that we would start to find some stockpiles and caches or weapons," says the battalion intelligence officer, Captain Tim Denby.

But no one expected this much.

"I am most concerned about mortars and the artillery -- air defense platforms that they have that they can shoot down our aircraft with," added Denby.

Every day, the Army destroys what it can to keep it out of the hands of paramilitary groups. But an Army ordinance expert, who asked not to be identified, admitted they simply can't keep up with the work.

Russell agrees. His job is to secure the stockpiles until they can either be moved or destroyed. But every day, his men find new sites.

One such place may have been a former Iraqi Army training center. Here, they find no chemical or biological weapons. However, they find plenty of protective gear, like gas masks and a nerve gas antidote.

None of this is unusual, except for a big pile of crates made of light colored wood outside one of the buildings. The reservists don't want to speculate, but it looks like it could be mortars -– the biggest threat they could possibly encounter.

This will be one more job for the explosive demolition team.

A day later, Russell sees something that sends him immediately into high gear. The abandoned buildings of yesterday are suddenly filled with Iraqi men.

Russell and a platoon of soldiers rush to the scene. They check the cache to see if it's been touched. They are too late.

"Mortar rounds are gone," says Russell. "And the bad news is, we don't know who has them."

They lost the mortars, but they gained even more ammunition. They uncovered not one new stockpile, but five bunkers full. And there are tunnels where whomever removed the mortars may have hidden out.

"It's never ending. It's amazing to see how many weapons they have that they were willing to leave behind," says Russell. "Some of this could have been here for years –- I'm sure some of it has –- but it doesn't make it any less dangerous for us."

This is not the kind of battle Russell thought he'd be fighting – against an enemy who moves among civilians. It forces Russell and his fellow soldiers to distrust everyone.

But he thinks the fear is on both sides.

"They are, I'm sure, fearful of us, not knowing what we're going to do," adds Russell. He and his fellow soldiers fight those fears with thoughts of faith and family. "But we're fearful," he says, "not knowing if they are good or bad."