British SAS is world's oldest
special forces unit, model for others
By Ron Jensen, U.K.
bureau
RAF MILDENHALL, England — British troops may already be operating inside the
borders of Afghanistan.
News reports in recent days have claimed Special Air Service soldiers, the British
equivalent to the United States’ Delta Force, have been inside the country for days,
but military experts say no one really knows.
"Everything is speculation. The [Ministry of Defence] never acknowledges the SAS
is anywhere," said Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies and a veteran
of the British army, on Tuesday.
"It would not be unusual to expect that they are there. If you want a gut feeling
from me, I would think they were there about last Thursday."
Christopher Bellamy, associate editor of the Oxford Companion to Military History and a
professor of military science and doctrine, said, "I think they’re probably
there as reconnaissance. I don’t know for certain and wouldn’t say if I
did."
There is reason for the SAS to surface in any speculation. It is the world’s
oldest special forces unit and is the model for America’s elite Delta Force.
Heyman said he is often asked to assess the quality of the SAS.
"The answer is that they are the special forces outfit that has been around longer
than anyone else has," he said. "They have been engaged in operations almost
constantly for 60 years, almost on a daily basis."
The SAS was formed in 1941 to operate behind enemy lines in North Africa. Although it
was disbanded after the war, it was re-formed a few months later.
SAS troops have participated in operations from Malaysia and Borneo, to the Falkland
Islands and Northern Ireland to the Persian Gulf.
During Operation Desert Storm, SAS units slipped into Iraq to locate Scud missile
sites. One military analyst in England who asked not to be named said those operations
were successful despite public perceptions.
"The only operation that got reported was the patrol that went bad," the
analyst said.
In that eight-man patrol, all but one of the soldiers were killed or captured. In
keeping with the secrecy surrounding the unit, the successful missions have gone
unreported in detail.
When U.S. Army Col. Charles Beckwith formed Delta Force in the 1970s, he based the unit
on his experience as an exchange officer with the SAS one decade earlier.
The purpose of the SAS is less to engage the enemy than to provide reconnaissance and
intelligence for those that will. That makes it important they return from any mission to
offer what they have seen.
"They are looking for intelligent people, bright guys who can look at a situation
and size it up," Heyman said.
The mountains of Afghanistan, which are expected to pose a problem for any ground
operation by a U.S.-led coalition, may be familiar ground for the SAS.
"They have specially trained in Pakistan and India in recent years in
high-altitude mountains," said the analyst.
Plus, Heyman said, "A lot of them served in Afghanistan 10 years ago [training
Afghan fighters]. There’s a lot of expertise."
Any SAS effort now ongoing is but a precursor to a coming air war against the Taliban,
both Heyman and Bellamy speculated.
"We’re going to have an air war that’s a lot like Kosovo," Heyman
said, referring to Operation Allied Force in 1999, which stopped Serbian hostilities
against Kosovo’s Albanian population.
He said the aircraft would fly lower than in Kosovo, where the ultimate victory was
blunted by the discovery that bombs and rockets did little damage to Serbian hardware.
Heyman said "at the end of the day," the effort will require a ground
operation to destroy the tanks and artillery pieces held by the Taliban military.
The purpose would be to eliminate the Taliban military muscle, he said.
"That’s their punishment for having supported [Osama] bin Laden," he
said.
That would imply to other states that support terrorism, like Syria and Sudan, that the
same would happen to them if they don’t cooperate with the anti-terrorist effort.
"That’s a very powerful message to these people," who don’t have
the funds to replace the military gear given to them in the Cold War, he said.
Bellamy said the West should use the anti-Taliban forces for any ground effort while
providing air cover.
"I think the smart thing to do would be to let them do the ground fighting and
help them by doing what we did in Kosovo," he said, referring to NATO air support for
Kosovo Liberation Army efforts against the Serbian military on the ground.
The Taliban has aircraft and tanks, artillery and anti-aircraft weapons. But they are
probably few in number and in poor shape.
The strength of the Taliban, Bellamy said, is "terrain and determination."
Heyman said of the fighters any allied effort will face, "They’re very good
at lurking around the hills and taking potshots at people."
They wouldn’t stand a chance in a toe-to-toe struggle on the plains, he said, so
they will head for the hills in the face of any ground operation.
"Once you get them up in the hills, then you have a real problem," he said.
"They’re like lice in your underpants."
All of this has to happen soon, Heyman said. By mid-November the winter weather will
make any air operations nearly impossible and severely hamper efforts on the ground.
"The weather is going to turn on us," he said. "We have to get in and
get out."
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