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[javariscrittenton-blog]

tcb - love sosa

[javariscrittenton-blog]

Most SAS keep to themselves. They socialise together, are hard drinkers, and `watch each other’s backs’. They don’t talk freely about their work, which is why most of what they do remains secret In recent years SAS has received nearly $5m of new communications equipment, including compact satellite communications units and “special warfare equipment”. Special warfare, or “internal warfare”, generally refers to unconventional military operations within a country against a group of its citizens. This is warfare by sabotage, assassination and guerilla-style hunting of the enemy. The NZSAS has been involved in special warfare operations in many countries since its formation in 1955. The SIS was established a year later. Both were formed at the request and with the support of Britain as elements of a Cold War alliance fighting communism at home and abroad. On its first overseas tour in Malaya in 1955-57 the NZSAS was attached to the British 22nd SAS Regiment and spent weeks in the jungle fighting “communist terrorists”. In two 13-week operations in the Fort Brooke area they killed the opposition ASAL leader Ah Ming and his deputy, and in the mountainous Negri Sembilan area killed resistance leader Li Hak Chi. The deployment was regarded as a great success in a report from the time, with a total of 26 “terrorist eliminations” during a tour of 17 months. The NZSAS was disbanded when it returned from Malaya, but was re-established in 1959. It was sent to Borneo in 1965 and operated with Britain’s SAS and Royal Marines. Although officially stopping incursions into Malayasian Borneo, it is now known SAS teams were entering Indonesia, killing soldiers there. These were code-named “Claret” operations and occurred without the knowledge of the New Zealand or British parliaments. The SAS teams called them “shoot and scoot” excursions. The operation helped destabilise the Sukarno government and was followed by an internal bloodbath. Next was Vietnam. In late 1968 the first 26 NZSAS soldiers, from the 1st Ranger Squadron 10, arrived in Vietnam. They were based with Australian and New Zealand Army units at Nui Dat. During 26 months there the NZSAS undertook 155 patrols, usually lasting for 10 days, after being dropped in by helicopter. Their primary task was intelligence gathering, which was used to direct attacks, most often by US B52 bombers. According to "Dan", the close ties with the British SAS established in Malaya and Borneo continue today. His overseas deployments are usually with the British SAS. He has been sent to a South American country, to Papua New Guinea, and at least once to Indonesia. He also mentioned a short deployment to Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Other NZSAS members have fought with the British SAS in Northern Ireland, been part of the May 1980 British SAS storming of the Iranian embassy in London, fought beside President Ferdinand Marcos’ troops against Filipinos and helped to train forces and operated throughout Southeast Asia. Former British SAS officer David Mason is on the record saying “troops” of four NZSAS soldiers were regularly sent to Britain on secondment and that he had fought with two of them, who were on “extended secondment to the British SAS”, in Oman in 1974-76. This was the Dhofar War, in which since 1963 a revolutionary movement from Dhofar province had been trying to overthrow an autocratic sultan supported by Britain and the Shah of Iran. Few New Zealanders would have had the slightest understanding of the reasons behind this war, but still NZSAS members fought there. The movement in Dhofar was defeated in 1976, and the NZSAS is still providing support to the sultan. For example, an NZSAS parachute training officer went to Oman in 1990-91. Mason said the NZSAS had fought in combat roles with the British in “Northern Ireland and everywhere that Britain goes”. From another source I have information on NZSAS snipers working in Bosnia from the start of November 1994. [...] Defence sources quoted elsewhere say no New Zealand SAS died during the Gulf War but three were killed in an incident in another, unnamed, country shortly after. Army stories also tell of two others killed fighting “communist terrorists” in Southeast Asia - probably Malaysia - in the early 1980s. Dan and other NZSAS members “joined” the British SAS for the duration of the Gulf War by using a routine bureaucratic trick. During such overseas operations, SAS members are “seconded” to foreign special forces. They “officially leave” the New Zealand Defence Force, which allows New Zealand to be dissociated from such operations. This subterfuge also keeps the operations secret from the public and, often, from the Government. After a period of operations overseas the soldiers quietly “rejoin” the NZSAS. My 1990 list of past and present SAS members has numerous examples of individuals leaving and rejoining some months later.

Phantom Soldiers, Nicky Hager (originally published 22nd February 1998, Sunday Star Times)