pokel
08-24-2004, 12:59 PM
The Forgotten 'Elite' Units
Source: Tempo, No. 13/IV, Desember 02 - 08, 2003
AFTER the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, Indonesian Military (TNI) commander General Endriartono Sutarto announced he would reactivate the Special Anti-Terror Task Force. Two months later, Defense Minister Matori Abdul Djalil visited TNI's "elite of elites". The following are details of the various units within the TNI.
Group 5/Terror Prevention, Army Special Forces (Kopassus)
This group had its origins in the establishment of Kopassus Detachment 81 in 1997. The group is battalion strength and has special fighting abilities. The name of the detachment is taken from the incident when hostages on a hijacked Garuda plane at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport were freed in Operation Woyla in April 1981. It was subsequently named the 81 Anti-Terror Unit.
The group is divided into small units with specific skills such as climbing attack troops (dakibu). This unit can climb buildings using ways the enemy will not suspect such as climbing sanitation pipes and can carry out short range attacks inside buildings or in city streets to anticipate sabotage and hostage taking. This ability to climb steep slopes was tested when Kopassus dakibu scaled the Sigura-gura waterfall in North Sumatra in 1985.
Special Tracking Unit (Sanjak)
This special unit was set up by Major Prabowo Subianto, commander of the Kopassus Special Education Center in Batujajar, West Java, who went on to be Kopassus general. The primitive war techniques instructors were taken from Dayak tribe scouts from the interior of Kalimantan. This unit was tested when Kopassus freed 13 Lorents Park researchers who had been taken hostage by the Free Papua Organization (OPM) led by Kelly Kwalik in Mapanduma, Kerom, Jayawijaya in May 1996.
All Kopassus troops can be dropped into buildings, jungles or the sea using techniques such as fast trooping, fast raffling or stabo from a helicopter. They include snipers armed with international standard anti-terrorist weapons such as short-range weapons for close-in fighting like the MP-5, Steyr, SS1 attack rifle, H&K P-7 automatic pistol and special boots that leave footprints as if the wearer was walking in the opposite direction.
After liberating the hostages in Mapanduma, The Times of Britain called Kopassus one of the world's best special forces units, after the British Special Air Service and the Israeli Special Forces. But Kopassus' image suffered after 1998, when several of its members were found guilty of kidnapping student activists and murdering Papuan Presidium chairman Theys Hiyo Eluay. The current Kopassus commander is on trial for human rights violations in the 1984 Tanjung Priok case.
Detachment Bravo 90, Indonesian Air Force Special Forces
This special forces unit from the Indonesian Air Force is based at Hussein Sastranegara Airbase, Bandung, West Java and specializes in protecting primary defense equipment and vital objects against air attack. Formed in 1990, it also has the ability to prevent the sabotage of air control towers.
Even if the control tower is destroyed by an enemy, they can quickly bring a shadow control tower into operation using their equipment. "They will control traffic in the flight lanes just like a cop directing traffic," says a former Bravo Detachment training instructor who did not want to give his name. The 200-strong detachment has an Anti-Terror and Hijacking team which is trained in preventing hijacks and become expert, quick reacting shooters in control towers as well as in confined aircraft cabins.
Jala Mangkara Detachment, Indonesian Navy Marines
The Marines special forces, often called the "frog troops" have their HQ at Bumi Marinir, Cilandak, South Jakarta and are led by a lieutenant colonel. It has an anti-terror and piracy unit whose members are skilled at clandestine entrances via the water and can swim carrying weapons for tens of kilometers.
This unit carried out acts of sabotage against Malaysian and Singaporean ports during the 1964-1964 Konfrontasi. The unit specializes in combating seized warships, commercial vessels and tankers. It also prevents sabotage of oil rigs. The unit's members can land from helicopters by stabo, slide down ropes from large ships, and can deploy using fast rafting all while carrying their Kalashnikov assault weapons.
Source: Tempo, No. 13/IV, Desember 02 - 08, 2003
AFTER the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002, Indonesian Military (TNI) commander General Endriartono Sutarto announced he would reactivate the Special Anti-Terror Task Force. Two months later, Defense Minister Matori Abdul Djalil visited TNI's "elite of elites". The following are details of the various units within the TNI.
Group 5/Terror Prevention, Army Special Forces (Kopassus)
This group had its origins in the establishment of Kopassus Detachment 81 in 1997. The group is battalion strength and has special fighting abilities. The name of the detachment is taken from the incident when hostages on a hijacked Garuda plane at Bangkok's Don Muang Airport were freed in Operation Woyla in April 1981. It was subsequently named the 81 Anti-Terror Unit.
The group is divided into small units with specific skills such as climbing attack troops (dakibu). This unit can climb buildings using ways the enemy will not suspect such as climbing sanitation pipes and can carry out short range attacks inside buildings or in city streets to anticipate sabotage and hostage taking. This ability to climb steep slopes was tested when Kopassus dakibu scaled the Sigura-gura waterfall in North Sumatra in 1985.
Special Tracking Unit (Sanjak)
This special unit was set up by Major Prabowo Subianto, commander of the Kopassus Special Education Center in Batujajar, West Java, who went on to be Kopassus general. The primitive war techniques instructors were taken from Dayak tribe scouts from the interior of Kalimantan. This unit was tested when Kopassus freed 13 Lorents Park researchers who had been taken hostage by the Free Papua Organization (OPM) led by Kelly Kwalik in Mapanduma, Kerom, Jayawijaya in May 1996.
All Kopassus troops can be dropped into buildings, jungles or the sea using techniques such as fast trooping, fast raffling or stabo from a helicopter. They include snipers armed with international standard anti-terrorist weapons such as short-range weapons for close-in fighting like the MP-5, Steyr, SS1 attack rifle, H&K P-7 automatic pistol and special boots that leave footprints as if the wearer was walking in the opposite direction.
After liberating the hostages in Mapanduma, The Times of Britain called Kopassus one of the world's best special forces units, after the British Special Air Service and the Israeli Special Forces. But Kopassus' image suffered after 1998, when several of its members were found guilty of kidnapping student activists and murdering Papuan Presidium chairman Theys Hiyo Eluay. The current Kopassus commander is on trial for human rights violations in the 1984 Tanjung Priok case.
Detachment Bravo 90, Indonesian Air Force Special Forces
This special forces unit from the Indonesian Air Force is based at Hussein Sastranegara Airbase, Bandung, West Java and specializes in protecting primary defense equipment and vital objects against air attack. Formed in 1990, it also has the ability to prevent the sabotage of air control towers.
Even if the control tower is destroyed by an enemy, they can quickly bring a shadow control tower into operation using their equipment. "They will control traffic in the flight lanes just like a cop directing traffic," says a former Bravo Detachment training instructor who did not want to give his name. The 200-strong detachment has an Anti-Terror and Hijacking team which is trained in preventing hijacks and become expert, quick reacting shooters in control towers as well as in confined aircraft cabins.
Jala Mangkara Detachment, Indonesian Navy Marines
The Marines special forces, often called the "frog troops" have their HQ at Bumi Marinir, Cilandak, South Jakarta and are led by a lieutenant colonel. It has an anti-terror and piracy unit whose members are skilled at clandestine entrances via the water and can swim carrying weapons for tens of kilometers.
This unit carried out acts of sabotage against Malaysian and Singaporean ports during the 1964-1964 Konfrontasi. The unit specializes in combating seized warships, commercial vessels and tankers. It also prevents sabotage of oil rigs. The unit's members can land from helicopters by stabo, slide down ropes from large ships, and can deploy using fast rafting all while carrying their Kalashnikov assault weapons.