Posted on 06/22/2004 7:05:05 PM PDT by blam
SAS ordered into Saudi Arabia to shield embassy
By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 23/06/2004)
A 25-man SAS team has been sent to Saudi Arabia to bolster security at the British embassy and plan a possible mass evacuation of foreigners, defence sources said last night.
The squad is backed by many more special forces troopers in neighbouring Qatar. This force would be summoned if the 20,000 British citizens in Saudi had to be withdrawn in a hurry.
The members of the SAS team are counter-revolutionary warfare specialists and were deployed last week.
The larger SAS force has been given diplomatic clearance by the Saudi authorities to move straight into the country should any threat develop against the embassy, which is seen as a prime target for Saudi militants linked to al-Qa'eda.
The kingdom has been shaken by a series of attacks in recent months that culminated last week in the beheading of Paul Johnson, an American expatriate worker.
The Saudi leader of the terrorists was later killed as he attempted to dispose of the body.
The deployment is the clearest sign yet that Britain is extremely worried about the worsening security situation in Saudi Arabia, despite assurances from officials that they have the whip hand over home-grown religious zealots.
This month, a television cameraman was killed and a BBC journalist, Frank Gardner, was wounded in a terrorist attack in the Saudi capital.
Two Britons were killed and 15 injured in a bomb attack on a British compound in Riyadh in May last year.
Security agencies have noted that terrorists have been able to strike even in well-protected areas, such as the Riyadh compounds and in al-Khobar, where large numbers of foreign contractors work.
There is a growing sense that al-Qa'eda poses a major threat to the Saudi regime.
"There is very serious nervousness about the situation in Saudi Arabia," one British official said.
Last night the Ministry of Defence dismissed the suggestion that the SAS were protecting the British embassy but would not deny their presence in Saudi Arabia.
The SAS troops, armed with MP5 machineguns and Glock 17 pistols, wear civilian clothes. They have been given clearance by the Saudi authorities to shoot any attacker who tries to kidnap or ambush embassy staff.
They are working closely with Saudi special forces and have surveillance equipment and hi-tech sensors.
A TEAM of Arabic-speaking intelligence officers recruited from Britain's Muslim community will help the SAS.
A senior official said they would act as "eyes and ears" for the SAS team inside the local community. "They will provide vital feedback from the streets and will give us a major foothold in the war against al-Qa'eda," he said.
MI5 and MI6 made strenuous efforts to recruit Arabic-speaking officers from within the British community after the rise of Islamic terrorism and the September 11 attacks.
A room in the embassy has been turned into an operations centre for the SAS team. A Royal Military Police close-protection team has also deployed to the embassy and will act as bodyguards for the ambassador.
Since arriving in Riyadh, the SAS team has been studying the types of target that al-Qa'eda has hit so far in an attempt to identify a pattern of operation.
Members of the team are working around the clock to ensure the safety of diplomatic staff and their families.
They are shadowing British diplomats travelling outside the embassy compound and ensuring that routes used by embassy drivers are changed daily. Anyone who leaves the embassy is offered protection.
The SAS team is making daily security assessments and briefing staff about potential threats as well as identifying weaknesses in protection at the building.
Embassy staff have been advised not to use local buses, to avoid using taxis and not to go shopping on Friday, the Muslim holy day.
Despite the reputation of the SAS, one source expressed concern about the difficulties of tracking al-Qa'eda and working out what it was planning to attack.
"We are always several steps behind them," he said. "They have the initiative because they have been preparing for so long.
"It is clear that safe houses, weapons caches and targets are all pre-determined. There is very little left to chance with these people. Their attacks are ugly but very clinical."
The team has already recommended that stronger defences, including metal mesh netting such as that used to protect police stations in Northern Ireland, be installed to protect the embassy against rocket and mortar attacks.
The Foreign Office is considering that but is reluctant to make the embassy into a fortress and is also considering proposals to move its location.
Contingency plans have already been drawn up to pull out British nationals if al-Qa'eda launches a big attack. The SAS team will be responsible for putting them into practice.
The SAS will act as a forward co-ordination cell for any emergency evacuation. Despite Foreign Office warnings that non-essential staff should leave, more than 20,000 British nationals are still in Saudi Arabia.
A key task for the SAS will be to identify assembly points in the event of an incident.
So many aircraft would be needed to fly the Britons to safety that they would initially be taken to a nearby third country to keep an air bridge free.
A team of Arabic-speaking intelligence officers recruited from Britain's Muslim community will help the SAS.
A senior official said they would act as "eyes and ears" for the SAS team inside the local community. "They will provide vital feedback from the streets and will give us a major foothold in the war against al-Qa'eda," he said.
MI5 and MI6 made strenuous efforts to recruit Arabic-speaking officers from within the British community after the rise of Islamic terrorism and the September 11 attacks.
/sarcasm
heads up
Hopefully this is a message being sent to the mullahs of Iran.
Sounds to me like things are deteriorating out at the ol' oasis. The Saudis have obviously not said anything reassuring as to their capacity to protect those who toil to ensure their continued comfort and wealth.
Iraq - American and European Hostages Held Hostage: Company Head
Yonhap News (South Korea) ^ | June 21, 2004
Posted on 06/21/2004 2:03:00 AM CDT by HAL9000
(URGENT) American and European Hostages Held Hostage: Company Head
BAGHDAD, June 21 (Yonhap) -- European journalists and American workers are being held hostage along with the South Korean kidnap victim by an armed Arab insurgent group, the head of a South Korean trade company here said Monday.
In a telephone interview with the Yonhap News Agency, Kim Choon-ho, head of Gana General Trading Co., at which the South Korean kidnap victim Kim Sun-il has been working, said that there were some 10 other foreign figures being held hostage by the insurgent group.
The South Korean president of the Iraq-based foodstuff supplier claimed that some European journalists and American employees of a U.S.-based security firm were being held hostage along with his employee.
More going on than has been revealed perhaps?
What next...US bombers targets 'safe-house'...called in by SAS?
I have a hunch the house of Saud is balancing over the abyss, and all it will take is a gentle push.....course I have felt this for sveral years, so what do i know?
Hope we get all our civilians out of harms way when the glass breaks, ...now, if only we had some military forces nearby to secure the oilfields while jihadist and royalist fought it out in the desert...hmmmmm
nah, never happen.
What measures are the US taking?
Where are the Ghurkhas?
Good point, they don't hold ground they hunt and kill.
Slowly, it seems the balloon is going up in Saudi.
Saudi before Syria?
Kudos to the SAS, they're the best.
With no official announcement on this, it looks like the Telegraph is outing the forces.
Indeed.. :-)
If so, this is about to get unbelievably violent and very attritive for the terrorists. We may start to see some young cannon fodder thrown into the fray in the form of further suicide terror within the Kingdom. We are starting to see bodies pile up and no obvious clue as to where they're coming from (this has been true for the last year there) - and that, after all, is the sort of thing the SAS is very, very good at. It may also be that Prince Abdullah has called in a favor of his own to offset the obvious international support the terrorists are getting from a host of other Islamic countries. If all this is true we may be seeing Algeria all over again, and that one was nasty indeed.
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