Twenty years ago Thursday, the British Army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment D-Squadron carried out a daring rescue operation in Sierra Leone. By the end of the battle which followed, all of the hostages were freed, and fighters from the West Side Boys, a gang of drug-addled criminals, would be dead, captured, or on the run.
While the Special Air Service’s 1980 Operation Nimrod rescue of hostages at the Iranian embassy is more famous, Operation Barras faced greater odds and complexity. The crisis began on Aug. 25, 2000, when a British Army patrol of 11 soldiers was ambushed by the West Side Boys. Supporting United Nations peacekeepers who had been deployed to help bring security to Sierra Leone, the patrol was lightly armed. It was a serious mistake because, after nine years of civil war, numerous armed gangs operated from hideouts within the country’s dense forests. Lawlessness was the rule in many areas.
Thus, the patrol was disarmed, taken prisoner, and relocated to the West Side Boys’ base at the forested village of Gberi Bana. West Side Boys leader Foday Kallay hoped to use his British hostages as a prize with which to extort concessions from the fledgling Freetown government and London. Britain quickly deployed diplomats and hostage negotiators in an effort to secure the soldiers’ release. While five were released a few days later, it soon became clear that Kallay was acting irrationally, believing he held all the cards. London grew concerned that the hostages might be executed or moved to a stronghold that would greatly complicate any rescue. More robust action was needed.
At the time, the Special Air Service’s D-Squadron was on crisis alert duty at its Stirling Lines barracks. As with Delta Force’s four assault squadrons (Delta being formed on the Special Air Service model), each of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment’s four assault squadrons rotate throughout crisis alert duty.
This alert status allows for their rapid deployment in the event of a national crisis situation involving a hostile adversary force. Where the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team has operational primacy for domestic situations (except for those involving weapons of mass destruction), the Special Air Service also provides Britain’s most advanced capability for domestic land-based crisis events. During this period of alert, Special Air Service squadrons engage in hostage rescue and assault exercises in a mixture of locales, including buildings, buses, and mock aircraft. The objective is to fine-tune their skills in preparation for operational deployment.
Anticipating the need for a rescue mission, D-Squadron was covertly deployed alongside a reinforced company from the British Army’s Parachute Regiment. By Sept. 6, the Special Air Service had established a series of forward observation posts on the camp’s periphery. The soldiers were ready. While less eye-catching than black camouflage-clad assaults on terrorist strongholds, forward reconnaissance has been a Special Air Service staple since its formative World War II operations in the North African desert.
Negotiations continued to stagnate, with the West Side Boys making increasingly absurd demands. Still, the assault had to be authorized by Prime Minister Tony Blair. Gen. Sir Charles Guthrie, who was chief of the Defence Staff (Britain’s equivalent of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs), later recalled that Blair was resolute in taking action. The assault was approved.
At dawn on Sept. 10, separate Special Air Service and Parachute Regiment forces launched on helicopters. The Special Air Service would rescue the hostages. The “Paras” would attack a nearby West Side Boys stronghold in a distraction effort and to prevent reinforcement of Gberi Bana. As the Special Air Service helicopters approached their target, the forward reconnaissance teams engaged those fighters closest to the hostage location. The main Special Air Service assault force then rope-lined into the village, immediately engaging in a firefight with the largely surprised, disorganized, and likely also drunk West Side Boys garrison. A young Special Air Service trooper, Bradley Tinion, was shot and would later die.
But the element of surprise and superior skill would make all the difference. Tinion was the only killed-in-action casualty, and the “Paras” also quickly dominated their target. All six hostages were safely released, including more than a dozen civilians who had been held as the West Side Boys’ slaves.
By any assessment, Operation Barras was a great success.
A little more than a year later, the Special Air Service would again be on the ground in a different fight — this time in Afghanistan, against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
