The base of the "Desert Falcon" Special Operations Battalion is located in a sand-eroded hilly area northeast of Mosul. From a distance, it looks more like an abandoned outpost than the residence of an elite special forces unit.
When Song Heping's convoy stopped at the entrance of the base, he carefully observed everything through the car window.
The walls were temporarily constructed with prefabricated concrete panels, and the seams between the panels were filled with rough, blackened cement. Several areas had already cracked, exposing the rusted rebar inside.
There were three spotlights on the watchtower, one of which had a broken lampshade, another was completely dark, and only the one on the far right was barely working, casting a circle of dim yellow light in the darkness before dawn.
The training ground was a compacted sandy surface with no plastic running track, nor standard obstacle training facilities.
