Posted on 03/05/2011 10:11:55 PM PST by Doofer
Libyan rebels have captured a British special forces unit in the east of the country after a secret diplomatic mission to make contact with opposition leaders backfired, Britain's Sunday Times reported. The team, understood to number up to eight SAS soldiers, were intercepted as they escorted a junior diplomat through rebel-held territory, the newspaper said. The Foreign Office said in a brief statement it could neither "confirm or deny" the report. Earlier on Saturday the Geneva-based Human Rights Solidarity group, which employs a number of Libyan exiles, told Reuters by telephone that a team of "eight special forces personnel" had been seized by rebels. Both the Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office repeatedly declined to comment on the group's report. The SAS intervention apparently angered Libyan opposition figures, who ordered the soldiers locked up on a military base, according to the Sunday Times. Opponents of longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fear he could use any evidence of Western military intervention to rally patriotic support away from a two-week-old uprising against his 41-year autocratic rule. Citing Libyan sources, the Sunday Times said the special forces troops were taken by rebels to Benghazi, Libya's second largest city and epicentre of the insurrection, and hauled before one of its most senior politicians for questioning. The paper said the junior diplomat they were escorting was preparing the way for a visit by a more senior colleague ahead of establishing diplomatic relations with the rebels. The Sunday Times said Libyan opposition officials were said to be trying to hush up the incident for fear of a backlash from ordinary Libyans.
(Excerpt) Read more at af.reuters.com ...
UK diplomatic/political incompetence to send these brave men into a trap.
Given the nature of the mission, I'll bet they had ROEs that prevented them firing on the rebels.
“sooooo....this shows that the rebels are just as anti west as Kadafi. Take their oil and the hell with em.”
You have just summed up in ten words what the MSM is about to push as foreign policy. There is a special place in hell for hypocrites
I mean far left liberal loon trash stupid, as in educated by some public school system.
Sending good men into a war zone to talk.
Ever hear of preplanned discrete advance contact & mutual meetings in safe & neutral places?
This sounds like dreamy flower power hippy can't we all just get along thinking.
Public schools:
islands of liberal insanity surrounded by reality.
Personally, if I wanted to train the rebels in order to help them topple the gov’t, I would set this up. If the rebels were smart, they would get the Brits to help.
Listen closely you morons. Apparently they are trying to help you. If you're not smart enough to understand that, you deserve what you get. Jeez.
Where is Monte when they need him!!! Rather, Patton is needed with a division of tanks. That’d fix it quick.
Huh? If the reports are correct and these were members of 22 SAS Regiment, they were founded in the Libyan desert! I'd say Iraq hasn't been kind, considering Bravo Two Zero.
if this is true then you can be sure the SAS will go on and kill everyone of these people now.
so the Brits and even the Dutch have gone on and done something and OBAMA IS GOLFING
What a prize clown we have and even more sad is his cult who adore this muppet
What many forget is that Muslim forces can be willing to spend more men than an eight-man patrol has ammo for.
The Brits would have been better off dropping a satellite phone from a UAV on each rebel stronghold and chatting with them remotely. If they got somebody worth talking to, they could use another UAV to airdrop a small video conferencing system.
They have now been released.
Its the rebels who have siezed them. Not Gaddafi.
Give it a little while.
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