Soon political outrage in the UN (United Nations) led to a great build up of personnel and material into Saudi Arabia as an alliance of Western and Middle Eastern nations launched a military operation to expel the Iraqis from Kuwait. As troops and equipment for the American-led UN force began to flood into Saudi Arabia by air and sea, US and British Special forces were also deployed, the latter including elements of the SAS Regiment.


The Landrover formed the basis of the fighting columns.

The Gulf War, as it came to be called, saw the greatest concentration of SAS troops in an operational theatre since World War II. The men of the Regiment were originally tasked with the exceptionally difficult task of rescuing British citizens held as hostages by the Iraqis. Some 800 Britons in Kuwait and another 1000 in Iraq were under threat as 'human shields', around vital Iraqi military, government and industrial targets, whose loss to allied air attack would otherwise have severely damaged Iraq's ability to wage war.

With hindsight, the task of rescuing the hostages would clearly have been impossible, for these men women and children had been scattered to many locations all over Iraq, making the establishment of there whereabouts, let alone their simultaneous rescues, impossible by any rational thinking. Although the SAS would have used all its resources, both human and technical, in the task of trying to reach as many of the hostages as possible, many more would have possibly been killed by the Iraqi guards at the first suggestion of a rescue effort, and others would have been killed as they were evacuated across the desert. For all concerned, therefore, it was fortunate that matters did not come to this because Saddam Hussein, in a rare moment of humanity, or more probably political pragmatism, let most of the hostages go before the outbreak of hostilities with the allies.

The Americans also considered a similar type of operation with their own special forces. Fortunately, the resolution of the problem by Saddam himself meant the British and US special forces could now concentrate there efforts on other tasks offering a greater chance of success. All special forces elements in the Gulf region were under the control of the Special Operations Command of Central Command (SOCCENT), which was an Allied organisation coordinated by the Americans.

FIRST DEPLOYMENT

In August 1990, D and G squadron of 22 SAS were present in the Gulf region, and using their time profitability in the perfection of their desert warfare skills. One of those SAS soldiers remembers:

'We had been operating in Oman with a batch of our new four-wheel drive vehicles called Light Strike Vehicles (LSVs), which were designed specifically for rough terrain. We had spent weeks putting them through a series of punishing tests. They were good, although their suspension could not survive a fall from a Chinook helicopter from an altitude of 100m, which we discovered when one was accidentally dropped. Still, there isn't much kit that can survive that kind of treatment. We were roughly acclimatised by the time we touched down in Saudi, though none of us were prepared for the piss-poor weather we would encounter later on operations.

'So there we were, a motley crew with bergens and weapons walking across the tarmac to a group of waiting trucks. Around us, an army of multi-national air force personnel worked feverishly on there aircraft. We didn't know what the high command had in store for us, so all we could do was train for any likely operation that might crop up. By late December 1990, the majority of the Regiment had been deployed in the Gulf including some blokes from R Squadron, the reserve. However, because no specific role had been assigned to us patience began to wear a little thin'

The British special forces group in the Gulf finally numbered some 700 men, and included some elements of the special boat section (SBS) and RAF special forces aircrew. Of this total, the SAS contributed 300 men in the forms of A, B, D and G Squadrons and 15 men of R Squadron (G Squadron was not used in the end).

Fighting Column

Even though the build-up of British and American special forces in Saudi Arabia was rapid, opening the possibility of their extensive use well before the main ground forces were ready for offensive action, the high command seemed to have no task for them in the short term except for a number of 'penny packet' operations.

This was because General Norman Schwarzkopf, the Allied commander, had gained a poor impression of special forces in Vietnam and still harboured considerable distrust over them. General Sir Peter de la Billiére, the ex-SAS commander of the British special forces in Saudi Arabia, certainly thought so:

'At first Norman Schwarzkopf had opposed the idea of deploying special forces behind enemy lines, on the grounds that there was no task that could not be carried out by the Allies' overwhelming air power or, later, by the conventional armoured forces. I myself was not prepared to recommend special forces unless two conditions were fulfilled: one was that there must be a real, worthwhile role for the SAS to perform, and the other that we must have means of extricating our men in an emergency.'

Peter de la Billiére finally succeeded in persuading Schwarzkopf that special forces should be given a chance to prove themselves. The task now was to find a worthwhile mission for them to undertake.

By mid January 1991, General Sir Peter de la Billiére decided the SAS could be effective in creating diversions ahead of the main attack, destroying Irqi communications facilities and tracking down the mobile Scud missile launchers which, so far, had eluded both satellite reconnaissance and air strikes. The SAS were to undertake these operations on the night of the 22/23 of January, six days prior to the anticipated start of the main hostilities. In the event, the speed of events took most people by surprise. Just before dawn on 17 January, eight Apache attack helicopters destroyed the Iraqi air defence radars, creating safe corridors in which allied aircraft could fly. The air war had begun.

Iraq completely unprepared for such an attack, suffered a substantial damage to its infrastructure and a devastating blow to its morale. In a desperate move to retaliate, Saddam turned his Scuds to Israel and launched 12 missiles onto the suburbs of Tel Aviv. Miraculously most inhabitants avoided injury, but the consequences could have been devastating.

Above: Andy McNab of the ill-fated Bravo 2 Zero patrol

The missile that targeted Israel carried conventional warheads but the realisation of what could have happened caused widespread panic. Israel threatened to invade Iraq and destroy the Scud sites. It also declared it would respond with a nuclear strike on Baghdad if Iraq used unconventional warheads. For United Nations commanders this posed a nightmare situation. If Israel became involved in the war, it would cause massive disagreements between the Coalition's Arab allies and the whole war plan would be destroyed - something with Saddam Hussein was acutely aware of, which was the reason behind the Scud attack.
TROOPER WITH VENERABLE M16 RIFLE

The SAS were immediately ordered to find and destroy the mobile Scud launchers, and set about there task with road watch patrols and mobile fighting columns. As a result Israel backed down. The road watch patrols, positioned far behind the enemy lines by helicopter, consisted of eight-man teams who set up static observation post to observe the main supply routes (MSRs) for the movement of Scud launchers. They would then call for air strikes to destroy them.

The first patrol wanted to survey their surroundings and requested a helicopter wait on landing. They decided that the flat terrain offered too little cover, making it dangerous to continue their mission and they returned to the waiting helicopter. The second patrol did not ask their helicopter to wait, but again, surveying the surroundings, decided it too risky to continue and decided to drive back to the Saudi border in the only vehicle they had with them. Just before they departed they requested an air strike on a nearby mobile radar station. The US A10 aircraft mistook them for the target; however, realizing his mistake, the pilot managed to pull away just in time to destroy the intended target.

The area the SAS were working in was suffering in its most severe weather ever, with freezing temperatures, snow, sleet and rain. The men had only been supplied with desert attire and consequently suffered badly from frostbite and hypothermia. The bitter cold also affected the mobile fighting columns. Each column consisted of 30 men, 12 heavily armed four-wheel drive vehicles, and motorcycle outriders, There were four columns in total - two drawn from A Squadron and two from D Squadron.

By the end of the war, both the SAS and the SBS had been involved in the destruction of many communications facilities and, is estimated, about a third of the mobile Scud launchers. High casualties had been expected. Despite the dangerous terrain, dreadful weather, intelligence mistakes and radio problems only four soldiers were lost from the SAS. In recognition of the important role they played the Regiment won 55 awards for gallantry. General Norman Schwarzkopf, who in the beginning doubted the role of the SAS also thanked them personally.