Free Republic

BRITAIN'S SAS is poised to lead an attack on the underground fortress in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden is thought to be preparing for a last stand.The 60-strong SAS Sabre squadron that captured a cave complex near the southern city of Kandahar last month has been told to prepare for the even tougher mission of hunting down Bin Laden in his Tora Bora stronghold.A senior British defence source said yesterday that the SAS soldiers had "honed and developed unique skills and experience" during the raid, in which 18 Afghans were killed and four Britons injured. ...

WHAT makes the Special Air Service elite may not be what you expect, reports Mark Dodd. While the memory of his Vietnam homecoming is unlikely to fade, this week -- the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Australian SAS -- the commander of the Australian Defence Force's Special Operations Command, Major General Mike Hindmarsh, pays Barnby and his fellow Vietnam SAS veterans the ultimate tribute: they were the best in the world. "The SAS Regiment, in an incredibly difficult operating environment in Indochina, quickly stamped itself as probably the finest exponents of clandestine reconnaissance and harassment in the world...

N Ireland SAS hero looks back  The Falls Road then ... In the summer of 1969, a young soldier warily patrols the troubled area of Belfast - the start of the Army's 38-year operation     August 01, 2007       SAS hero Andy McNab learnt his Army trade on the streets of Northern Ireland. During the 1970s it was one of the most dangerous places in the world.Today British troops officially pull out of Northern Ireland after 38 years.Operation Banner was the longest-running continuous campaign in Army history, with 300,000 soldiers serving and 763 killed by paramilitary terrorists.Here, as...

Terrorist sleeper cells said to be planning attacks in the UK have been unmasked after the bodies of Britons killed in US bombing raids in Somalia were identified by a top-secret SAS mission. The four British men were among an estimated 400 people killed in a series of American air raids on Al Qaeda training camps in the war-torn East African state in January. In March, British and US special-forces troops were secretly sent back into the region to take DNA samples from the exhumed remains of more than 50 of those killed during the attacks. The joint SAS and...

BLACK Hawk 221 was hovering only metres above the deck of HMAS Kanimbla, a few seconds from landing, when it became clear something was wrong. * Video: Black Hawk crash The helicopter's engines began screaming, its rotors seemed to droop, and the pilots were heard to swear. "It was either 'Oh shit' or 'Oh f..k, then I heard them start talking to each other really quickly and I could tell they were trying to sort it out," one of the Black Hawk's crew yesterday told the board of inquiry into last November's crash off Fiji, which claimed the lives of...

SAS on alert to rescue Baghdad Britons By Harry de Quetteville Damien McElroy and Nick Britten Last Updated: 2:21am BST 30/05/2007 The SAS was on standby to mount a rescue mission in Baghdad last night after five Britons were kidnapped in Baghdad in a raid by suspected Shia militants. Iraqi police security check motorists close to the finance ministry's information section in Baghdad Dozens of gunmen and vehicles apparently belonging to a paramilitary unit of the Iraqi interior ministry took part in an operation to snatch hostages from a government building in the heart of the Iraqi capital. The exact...

MEMBERS of the Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) have set off for operations in Afghanistan. Defence Minister Brendan Nelson and Opposition defence spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon wished the soldiers every success for a dangerous mission in a function at Perth's Campbell Barracks, home of the SASR. About 300 personnel will deploy to Afghanistan following the government's decision to increase the troop commitment with the addition of a special forces task group. That will comprise elements of the SASR, Commando Battalion, Incident Response Regiment and other support elements. "Australia's Special Forces have, through recent deployments, developed a wealth of experience and useful...

THOSE who knew Joshua Porter say he was a loving husband, son and brother. Those same people said he would also have been a wonderful father, but tragically his unborn child will never get the chance to know him. Almost four months after Trooper Porter was killed when the Black Hawk helicopter in which he was flying plunged to the bottom of the Pacific, hundreds of mourners - including his widow, Carinna, who is pregnant with the couple's first child - gathered yesterday to farewell him in his home town of Toukley on the NSW central coast. Trooper Porter, 28,...

<p>An SAS team has been sent to Africa to rescue five Britons kidnapped in Ethiopia should diplomatic efforts fail to secure their release, according to reports.</p> <p>Sixty soldiers have already arrived in neighbouring Dijibouti, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported this morning. The Ministry of Defence has refused to comment.</p>

SAS soldiers who ran out of camouflage cream have been on secret missions — smeared in GRAVY. Our elite troops found the meat sauce worked as a skin-darkener after one soldier spilt it on his arm in the mess room. They have nabbed 100 suspected insurgents during raids in the Iraq capital of Baghdad this month — while smelling like roast dinners. Bisto granules are now used regularly instead of MoD-issued Fast Tan. An SAS source said: “Surveillance is very difficult in Iraq. We go to great lengths to change our appearance. “We use cream to darken our face, dye...

Helicopter rescue bid for Marine L/Cpl Mathew Ford was killed in action on Monday The Royal Marine killed in action in Afghanistan on Monday was the subject of a dramatic rescue attempt by his colleagues, the MoD has revealed.L/Cpl Mathew Ford, of 45 Commando Royal Marines, died during an attack on a Taleban fort in the Helmand province. When his colleagues regrouped and found he was missing, they flew back. Four strapped themselves to two Apache helicopters which landed inside and outside the fort's wall. But they discovered he was already dead. UK Task Force spokesman, Lt Col Rory...

A team of SAS soldiers captured a key Taliban commander yesterday in a lightning raid on a heavily-fortified compound in southern Afghanistan. Without a shot being fired, the force of fewer than 30 elite soldiers, backed by Afghan troops, achieved "total surprise" and seized Mohammad Nabi in the early hours of the morning near Gereshk, in Helmand province. Nabi is believed to be a key commander in the Taliban insurgency in the neighbouring province of Kandahar. The compound, which had been under observation by Nato forces for around two weeks, was typical of the heavily-fortified homes favoured by the Pashtun...

AN SAS team is hunting down Al-Qaeda terror suspects as they try to flee war-torn Somalia after the crushing defeat of the country’s Islamist forces last week.The suspects are trapped between invading Ethiopian troops — assisted by US special forces and American mercenaries — and the Kenyan army and SAS troops who are acting as “training advisers” but have been leading operations along the border, providing a “screen” to trap terrorists. Somalia’s interim government yesterday claimed the last stronghold of the Islamic movement had been captured with the fall of Ras Kamboni, a coastal area less than two miles from...

A 70-year-old former British soldier who fought guerillas in Aden and Triad gangs in Hong Kong showed four muggers how it doesn't pay to mess with the SAS. Douglas O'Dell is past retirement age but the moves he learned as a volunteer in Britain's toughest regiment half-a-century ago stood him in good stead when he was ambushed near his home in Bielefeld, Germany, by four local toughs. The former Provost Sergeant put paid to the danger on the street like he once took out bandits in hotspots across the globe. THWACK! The first mistake came when one of the teenagers...

A SMALL team of about 20 Australian Special Air Service soldiers has been helping track down Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah terrorists in the southern Philippines. The soldiers have been notionally in joint patrols with Filipino military personnel but in truth the Australians are leading the efforts they are involved with. For the past couple of months a spasmodically ferocious effort has been waged in Mindanao, in particular on the island of Jolo, to eradicate the ASG, an al-Qa'ida affiliated terror group of extreme violence and cruelty. The SAS campaign is the nearest the Australian special forces have come to...

AUSTRALIANS should welcome home the Special Forces soldiers from Afghanistan with gratitude and admiration for the job they did there. Major-General Mike Hindmarsh, the Special Forces commander, has revealed a good deal of what the SAS did in Afghanistan: and it’s clear that they were among the most effective coalition soldiers deployed in the inhospitable former home of the Taliban. The allegation, once again aired on the ABC, that the SAS had needlessly killed civilians is utterly baseless and contemptuous. The allegation is made by the Taliban, which ranks with Al-Qa’ida, the nazis and the communists as one of the...

========================================= NEWS FROM THE SECOND AMENDMENT SISTERS 900 RR 620 S, Suite C-101, Box 228 Lakeway, TX 78734 Toll-free: 877-271-6216 World Wide Web: http://www.2asisters.org ========================================= FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ========================================= For additional information: Genie Jennings, Spokesperson E-Mail: saspress@2asisters.org ========================================= Second Amendment Sisters: As Goes the Second Amendment, So Goes the First LAKEWAY, TX. For decades Constitution-defenders have been warning that the Second Amendment provides the protection for all other amendments in the Bill of Rights; that it provides the ultimate protection of the Constitution of the United States, itself. Without the ability to forcibly defend ourselves and our way of life,...

Suspected terrorist Willie Brigitte was reportedly sent to Australia to help a local terror group prepare a terrorist act "of great size". Brigitte, 35, who was deported last October and is in French custody, was a link figure in the world terrorist network who had connections with the organisers of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the March 11 Madrid train blasts, Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported. It said his potential targets included the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and the Australian army's administrative compound at Victoria Barracks, both in Sydney, and the Perth headquarters of Australia's SAS regiment. French authorities...

  EXCLUSIVE How to deploy the SAS At MoD ... Sun's Veronica with file     By TOM NEWTON DUNN Defence Editor VERONICA LORRAINE and MIKE SULLIVAN A SECRET military file found in a roadside ditch reveals how SAS troops and bomb disposal experts would be deployed in the event of a terrorist blitz.The dynamite document — handed to us by the Sun reader who discovered it — tells how the elite forces would fly all over Britain in an emergency fleet of scrambled helicopters. It also:DETAILS how Cabinet ministers, top brass and intelligence chiefs meet to discuss national emergencies...

THE two special forces soldiers killed during an hour-long gunfight in southern Afghanistan were part of a daring raid on a Taleban stronghold in which four key commanders on the “Most Wanted” list were seized. The details of the “snatch” operation emerged as the next of kin were told of their deaths. The men’s names will not be released after a request from the families. The SAS, the Royal Marines’ Special Boat Service (SBS) and the newly formed Special Forces Support Group, consisting of troops from the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment, were all involved in the largest covert operation...