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11-07-2003, 08:39 AM
http://ww1.theherald.co.uk/news/4003.html
Spotlight on war in the shadows
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent November 06 2003
NEWS of the death of a corporal from the UK's Special Boat Service north of Mosul was a rare snapshot of the savage shadow war which has been raging unabated and unreported inside Iraq for the past seven months.
The Ministry of Defence announcement on Tuesday brings the British death toll since the war started to 52.
Hundreds of British, US, and Australian special forces, plus the CIA's "special affairs division" of hi-tech hitmen have been operating in small teams throughout the country, hunting the last fugitives from the ousted regime and the new leaders of the growing insurrection.
The biggest prize of all, Saddam Hussein, is the intended prey of Task Force 20, a composite group composed of US Delta troopers, members of Devgru – the unit formerly known as US Navy Seals – and picked squads from Britain's SAS and SBS.
The force operates in small surveillance teams trained to lie up for days at a time in "hides" near suspected enemy sanctuaries, watching for the movement of "known players" and logging those who come and go in the villages dotted throughout the Sunni Triangle area north and west of Baghdad.
It is lonely, dangerous work. Despite their state-of-the-art communications equipment, the watchers know they would be overrun and wiped out long before help could arrive if their presence was detected.
Corporal Ian Plank, the British soldier killed in a firefight last Friday, belonged to the SBS, the Royal Marines' equivalent of the Army's SAS. It is an organisation which lives up to its motto – "Not by strength, but by guile" – and shuns publicity to preserve security.
Candidates wishing to serve in its ranks must have been members of one of the three regular Royal Marine commando battalion groups for a minimum of two years.
They must also pass a selection course veterans claim is tougher than that for the better-known SAS.
In the opening days of the invasion of Iraq this year, a 10-man SBS patrol was ambushed by Iraqi troops near Mosul.
Forced to abandon its specially adapted Land Rovers in the face of vastly superior numbers and enemy tanks, the patrol fought its way clear and evaded pursuit until its men could be extracted by helicopter.
Britain's special forces exert an influence far out of proportion to their manpower. There are four, 72-man sabre squadrons in the SAS – fewer than 300 fighting troopers – based at Hereford. The SBS has only 232 officers and men in its headquarters at Poole in Dorset.
Both groups, commanded by an officer known as "director, special forces" who answers directly to the government's Cobra emergency cabinet committee, have been heavily involved in Af-ghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Balkans and Iraq.
Perhaps the ultimate secret of the undercover war in Iraq is an organisation known to insiders as "The Activity" and to others by the codename "Grey Fox".
A US military intelligence group established during the 1999 Kosovo campaign be-cause the Pentagon felt it was not being supplied with immediate tactical information by either the CIA or the National Security Agency, its operations were originally hidden from even the scrutiny of the US Congress.
It has since evolved into the nerve-centre for covert US action abroad, running its own human agents where even the CIA hesitates to venture. Drawing on the resources of the US special forces' community, it now has its own "shooters" to act promptly on real-time intelligence.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1222722003
Special forces given key defence duty
TIM RIPLEY
BRITAIN’S special forces have been given the job of defending key coalition buildings in the heart of Baghdad after the rash of recent attacks in the Iraqi capital, The Scotsman has learned.
Joint Special Air Service and Special Boat Service teams have been spotted in the heart of the "green zone" on the west bank of the Tigris, an area that contains several of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and the Al Rashid Hotel.
One observer said he saw one team near the Al Jumhariya Bridge entry point to the zone. The team was acting as a rapid reaction force for the US 1st Armoured Division.
Britain has now reassigned all its special forces in Iraq from helping to hunt for weapons of mass destruction to targeting resistance leaders and protecting key coalition installations.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence announced that an SBS trooper, Corporal Ian Plank, was killed in combat alongside US special forces in central Iraq.
The Scotsman understands that 50 to 100 SAS, SBS and Intelligence Corps personnel are operating alongside US special forces in the undercover campaign in the Sunni Triangle. The SAS and SBS are apparently operating as joint unit, under the command of a senior British officer posted to work in the US headquarters in Baghdad.
The Scotsman understands the decision to reassign the SAS and SBS to offensive operations was taken in September after the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, warned that the US and UK risked "strategic failure" if the growing insurgency in Iraq was not defeated.
Defence sources say the US has been pressing Britain since early summer to commit a brigade of troops to the Baghdad sector but London had resisted the move, fearing heavy casualties and "over stretch" problems for the hard-pressed British Army.
In its place the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, offered President George Bush teams of special forces troops that would mount an undercover campaign in co-operation with the US Delta Force and SEAL special forces.
US commanders were keen to secure the services of the SAS and SBS to augment their hard-pressed commando units, which also operate in Afghanistan and other fronts of the war on terror.
"The American army is not very good at gathering human intelligence and wanted our special forces to move around in areas still loyal to the former regime where US troops could not penetrate without being seen," a British military source said.
British special forces had originally been deployed to Iraq in the summer to work alongside the Iraq Survey Group, which was sent to hunt down Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
They acted as "enforcers" for the scientists and weapons experts who were trying to find out some of the most tightly held secrets of the old regime. They were spotted several times in Baghdad leading night raids on the homes of Iraqi weapons scientists and military officers. Prisoners were led away in hoods to the large US compound, where they were interrogated by Arab-speaking SAS officers.
The Iraq Survey Group headquarters in Saddam’s old "Perfume Palace" was a prime target for the Iraqi resistance fighters and over the summer it was hit by mortars, with six rounds hitting the small British compound inside.
The British operatives are spending three to four months in action before returning to the UK.
"Iraq is getting like Northern Ireland or the Balkans for the special forces," said one British officer. "They know they have plenty of work there for a long time to come."
The task force has also been sent to the main British sector around Basra in southern Iraq. In one mission members set up covert observation posts along the Iranian border to watch for gun smugglers. They also led the return to Al Majarr al Kabir by British troops after tribesmen killed six Royal Military Police in the town.
Spotlight on war in the shadows
IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent November 06 2003
NEWS of the death of a corporal from the UK's Special Boat Service north of Mosul was a rare snapshot of the savage shadow war which has been raging unabated and unreported inside Iraq for the past seven months.
The Ministry of Defence announcement on Tuesday brings the British death toll since the war started to 52.
Hundreds of British, US, and Australian special forces, plus the CIA's "special affairs division" of hi-tech hitmen have been operating in small teams throughout the country, hunting the last fugitives from the ousted regime and the new leaders of the growing insurrection.
The biggest prize of all, Saddam Hussein, is the intended prey of Task Force 20, a composite group composed of US Delta troopers, members of Devgru – the unit formerly known as US Navy Seals – and picked squads from Britain's SAS and SBS.
The force operates in small surveillance teams trained to lie up for days at a time in "hides" near suspected enemy sanctuaries, watching for the movement of "known players" and logging those who come and go in the villages dotted throughout the Sunni Triangle area north and west of Baghdad.
It is lonely, dangerous work. Despite their state-of-the-art communications equipment, the watchers know they would be overrun and wiped out long before help could arrive if their presence was detected.
Corporal Ian Plank, the British soldier killed in a firefight last Friday, belonged to the SBS, the Royal Marines' equivalent of the Army's SAS. It is an organisation which lives up to its motto – "Not by strength, but by guile" – and shuns publicity to preserve security.
Candidates wishing to serve in its ranks must have been members of one of the three regular Royal Marine commando battalion groups for a minimum of two years.
They must also pass a selection course veterans claim is tougher than that for the better-known SAS.
In the opening days of the invasion of Iraq this year, a 10-man SBS patrol was ambushed by Iraqi troops near Mosul.
Forced to abandon its specially adapted Land Rovers in the face of vastly superior numbers and enemy tanks, the patrol fought its way clear and evaded pursuit until its men could be extracted by helicopter.
Britain's special forces exert an influence far out of proportion to their manpower. There are four, 72-man sabre squadrons in the SAS – fewer than 300 fighting troopers – based at Hereford. The SBS has only 232 officers and men in its headquarters at Poole in Dorset.
Both groups, commanded by an officer known as "director, special forces" who answers directly to the government's Cobra emergency cabinet committee, have been heavily involved in Af-ghanistan, Sierra Leone, the Balkans and Iraq.
Perhaps the ultimate secret of the undercover war in Iraq is an organisation known to insiders as "The Activity" and to others by the codename "Grey Fox".
A US military intelligence group established during the 1999 Kosovo campaign be-cause the Pentagon felt it was not being supplied with immediate tactical information by either the CIA or the National Security Agency, its operations were originally hidden from even the scrutiny of the US Congress.
It has since evolved into the nerve-centre for covert US action abroad, running its own human agents where even the CIA hesitates to venture. Drawing on the resources of the US special forces' community, it now has its own "shooters" to act promptly on real-time intelligence.
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=1222722003
Special forces given key defence duty
TIM RIPLEY
BRITAIN’S special forces have been given the job of defending key coalition buildings in the heart of Baghdad after the rash of recent attacks in the Iraqi capital, The Scotsman has learned.
Joint Special Air Service and Special Boat Service teams have been spotted in the heart of the "green zone" on the west bank of the Tigris, an area that contains several of Saddam Hussein’s palaces and the Al Rashid Hotel.
One observer said he saw one team near the Al Jumhariya Bridge entry point to the zone. The team was acting as a rapid reaction force for the US 1st Armoured Division.
Britain has now reassigned all its special forces in Iraq from helping to hunt for weapons of mass destruction to targeting resistance leaders and protecting key coalition installations.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Defence announced that an SBS trooper, Corporal Ian Plank, was killed in combat alongside US special forces in central Iraq.
The Scotsman understands that 50 to 100 SAS, SBS and Intelligence Corps personnel are operating alongside US special forces in the undercover campaign in the Sunni Triangle. The SAS and SBS are apparently operating as joint unit, under the command of a senior British officer posted to work in the US headquarters in Baghdad.
The Scotsman understands the decision to reassign the SAS and SBS to offensive operations was taken in September after the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, warned that the US and UK risked "strategic failure" if the growing insurgency in Iraq was not defeated.
Defence sources say the US has been pressing Britain since early summer to commit a brigade of troops to the Baghdad sector but London had resisted the move, fearing heavy casualties and "over stretch" problems for the hard-pressed British Army.
In its place the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, offered President George Bush teams of special forces troops that would mount an undercover campaign in co-operation with the US Delta Force and SEAL special forces.
US commanders were keen to secure the services of the SAS and SBS to augment their hard-pressed commando units, which also operate in Afghanistan and other fronts of the war on terror.
"The American army is not very good at gathering human intelligence and wanted our special forces to move around in areas still loyal to the former regime where US troops could not penetrate without being seen," a British military source said.
British special forces had originally been deployed to Iraq in the summer to work alongside the Iraq Survey Group, which was sent to hunt down Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
They acted as "enforcers" for the scientists and weapons experts who were trying to find out some of the most tightly held secrets of the old regime. They were spotted several times in Baghdad leading night raids on the homes of Iraqi weapons scientists and military officers. Prisoners were led away in hoods to the large US compound, where they were interrogated by Arab-speaking SAS officers.
The Iraq Survey Group headquarters in Saddam’s old "Perfume Palace" was a prime target for the Iraqi resistance fighters and over the summer it was hit by mortars, with six rounds hitting the small British compound inside.
The British operatives are spending three to four months in action before returning to the UK.
"Iraq is getting like Northern Ireland or the Balkans for the special forces," said one British officer. "They know they have plenty of work there for a long time to come."
The task force has also been sent to the main British sector around Basra in southern Iraq. In one mission members set up covert observation posts along the Iranian border to watch for gun smugglers. They also led the return to Al Majarr al Kabir by British troops after tribesmen killed six Royal Military Police in the town.