Infantry: November 13, 2003

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British commandos (Army SAS and Navy SBS) have been reassigned to go after terrorists operating in Baghdad. The British commandos have a lot of experience with this kind of work, both in Northern Ireland and in the Persian Gulf. That latter experience, and the presence of many SAS members who can speak Arabic, is expected to help identify and destroy the Baath Party and al Qaeda organizations within Baghdad. In Northern Ireland, SAS operations prevented hundreds of terrorist operations. But you usually don't get credit for the attacks you stopped, and you don't want to talk about it anyway. The SAS infiltrated several terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland and were responsible for the arrest or killing of many key terrorist operatives. In the Persian Gulf, they were invited into several of the smaller Gulf States to help root out terrorist operations. These were successful, but, again, not much publicity was allowed. Part of this may be due to the ruthless methods SAS will sometimes employ. These are the guys who literally have a "license to kill," and special laws were passed in Britain to shield SAS members from prosecution in Britain for any messy missions they may have been involved in overseas. Less than a hundred British troops are involved in the Baghdad operation. Before this, the British troops were working with the task force searching for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

 

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