Combat· Iraq War (Op IRAQI FREEDOM)
TF Scorpion Raids
Task Force Scorpion was a Marine task force formed in the summer of 2003, after the fall of Baghdad, to respond to the emerging insurgency and conduct raids against hostile elements in the Marine area of responsibility.
Built around a light armored reconnaissance battalion and other elements, the task force carried out operations to disrupt the early insurgent and former-regime activity that was beginning to coalesce into the broader insurgency. The raids were part of the Marines' initial efforts to contend with the deteriorating security situation in the period between the conventional victory and the full-blown insurgency that followed. Task Force Scorpion's operations had limited success against an enemy that was still forming and elusive, an early sign of the difficult counterinsurgency war to come. The task force represented one of the first organized Marine responses to the violence that emerged in occupied Iraq, a transitional effort at the dawn of the long insurgency.
Record no. 864