Tim Collins, late of the Royal Irish Regiment, was serving as operations officer under the DSF during Barras. Officers serving with special forces usually return to their parent regiment after their tour of duty, and Collins' next duty was as commanding officer of 1 R IRISH. Officially, the SAS mission was called Operation Barras. The men on the ground called it Operation Certain Death. A terrific start to a new series . . . Light the blue touch paper and retire to a comfortable chair’ The Times COBRA is a British government committee convened to handle national crises. The committee is named after the room in which it meets—the Cabinet Office Briefing Room—and usually known as "COBRA" or "Cobra" or sometimes "COBR". Similarly to the SAS, COBRA first became known to the public during the Iranian Embassy siege. [29] [30]

That night they were flown to Santiago and even invited to spend the night at the General's palace. Several members of A Company were new recruits who had only completed basic training two weeks prior. Lowe decided that replacing them with more experienced soldiers would risk undermining the cohesion and morale of the company, but several specialist units from elsewhere in 1 PARA were attached to A Company to bring the company group up to the required strength, including a signals group, snipers, heavy machine gun sections, and a mortar section. [18] [19] The additional firepower was included to maximise the options available to the planners, given that the West Side Boys had a numerical advantage and that additional resources would not be immediately available should the operation run into difficulties. [20] Fowler, William (2004). Operation Barras: The SAS Rescue Mission: Sierra Leone 2000. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 9780297846284.

Retailers:

The ground operation was conducted by D Squadron, 22 Regiment Special Air Service, reinforced with a Troop from C Squadron, Special Boat Service — who assaulted Gberi Bana in a bid to extract the Royal Irish—and elements of 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 PARA), who launched a diversionary assault on Magbeni. The operation freed the five soldiers and their SLA liaison officer, as well as twenty-one Sierra Leonean civilians who had been held prisoner by the West Side Boys. At least twenty-five West Side Boys were killed in the assault, as was one British soldier, while eighteen West Side Boys—including the gang's leader, Foday Kallay—were taken prisoner and later transferred to the custody of the Sierra Leone Police. Many West Side Boys fled the area during the assault, and over 300 surrendered to UNAMSIL forces within a fortnight. The capture of the Royal Irish patrol had undermined the confidence of the Sierra Leonean population in the British operation, which they hoped would help to bring an end to the country's civil war, and embarrassed the British government, which had been critical of similar previous incidents involving UNAMSIL personnel. [2] [15] Operation Barras restored confidence in the British forces, prompting military historian William Fowler to call the operation "a necessarily spectacular endorsement of the rule of law and the elected government of Sierra Leone". [53] I couldn't believe it, I said to him 'No, we're from the British ship in the port,' and he said, 'There is no British ship in the port, please get into my car,' and he drove us into base." MI6 safe-house Be strong. A people that is not ready to die for its liberties loses them … Believe passionately in the ideas and in the way of life for which one is fighting. Liberty deserves to be served with more passion than tyranny.’ André Maurois, Memoirs You're so focussed on what you had to do, you didn't have much time to think about the other aspects of war." Richard Hutchings, former RNAS Yeovilton pilot

Connaughton, Richard (September 2001). "Operation 'Barass' (sic)". Small Wars & Insurgencies. London: Routledge. 12 (2): 110–119. doi: 10.1080/714005388. S2CID 220390148. Memorial to 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery (Tinnion's unit prior to being attached to the SAS) in Plymouth, bearing Tinnion's nameConfirmed to have died in the operation were 25 West Side Boys, although the true figure is probably higher, possibly as many as 80. The gang's resistance was stronger than expected and there was speculation that more bodies lay undiscovered in the jungle. [47] [48] Several other West Side Boys were captured, while others fled into the jungle. Many of those who fled later surrendered to Jordanian peacekeepers. The Jordanians had received 30 by the end of the day, and 371—including 57 children—had surrendered within a fortnight of Operation Barras, to which Julius Spencer, Sierra Leone's Minister for Information, declared that the West Side boys were "finished as a military threat". [44] [49] The West Side Boys derived their name from New York gang culture and were known to themselves as the "West Side Soldiers" or sometimes the "West Side Niggaz", which they changed to "West Side Boys" as the latter would not be acceptable for use in news reports. [6] [2] Fowler, William (2010). Certain Death in Sierra Leone– The SAS and Operation Barras 2000. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781846038501.

On 29 August, Fordham demanded proof that the captive soldiers were still alive, and Kallay brought with him to that day's meeting the two officers from the group—Marshall, the company commander, and Captain Ed Flaherty, the regimental signals officer. During the meeting, Flaherty shook hands with Fordham and covertly passed him a sketch map of Gberi Bana which detailed the layout of the village and the building in which the soldiers were being held. [14] It's now or never,' exclaimed Pete, a poignant remark which was met with a muted response. In a way, Pete had hit the nail on the head. We had only four Sea Kings with which to insert the Special Forces patrols, if we lost any of them and/or the air, on day one of the operation, it would have had a devastating impact on the conduct of future operations."

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2009). Who Dares Wins: The SAS and the Iranian Embassy Siege 1980. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781846033957. The returning Chinook, carrying the remainder of the A Company group including second-in-command (2IC) Captain Danny Matthews, came under fire from a heavy machine gun in Magbeni. It then returned fire from its door-mounted M134 Miniguns before being promptly joined by one of the 657 Squadron Lynx helicopters which strafed the HMG until it ceased firing. The soldiers in Matthews' helicopter exited and joined the first half of the company group on the ground. As the company group moved forward, an explosion—possibly a mortar fired by the British fire support group—injured seven men, including company commander Major Matthew Lowe, one of the platoon commanders, a signaller, and two of Lowe's headquarters staff. [42] The two villages were to be assaulted simultaneously—Gberi Bana, where the Royal Irish were held, by the SAS and Magbeni by an SAS team and the paras. In addition to the remaining Royal Irish soldiers, the SAS were also tasked with extracting Lieutenant Musa Bangura—the patrol's SLA liaison, whose extraction was given the same priority as that of the Royal Irish—and a group of Sierra Leonean civilians who were being held by the West Side Boys. [34] Assault [ edit ] US Marines fast-roping from a Sea Knight—the same insertion technique used by the SAS at Gberi Bana On cue 'Flyco' delivered the navigation data as practised many times during our training sorties, but this time it was for real. I fixed our position in TANS and all three aircraft launched into the darkness. Operation Sutton was underway.' The night vision goggles enabled us to fly right down to ground level at high speed and enabled us to navigate very accurately." Richard Hutchings, former RNAS helicopter pilot

But our fate is in the hands of a man who has his own demons to face. And they might just push him over the edge . . .Two days later, on 31 August, five of the eleven hostages were released in exchange for a satellite telephone and medical supplies. [14] [15] The OC of the captured soldiers had originally decided to release the youngest first, but this was changed to the married men last minute. However, out of the married men the West Side Boys wanted two of them to remain due to their signals experience. The released soldiers included the Sergeant Major, two corporals and two rangers. The West Side Boys told the British negotiators that the remaining captured soldiers which included the OC, a Captain, a Sergeant, a Lance Corporal and two Rangers that they would not be released until the gang's remaining demands were met. The released soldiers were flown for debriefing to RFA Sir Percivale, of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, off the coast. [14] As the SAS operation concluded, the Chinooks ferried prisoners and bodies from Gberi Bana to the Jordanian battalion of UNAMSIL. From there, the bodies would be identified and buried, and those prisoners identified as West Side Boys would be handed over to the Sierra Leonean Police. [38] [39] Operation Barras also freed 22 Sierra Leonean civilians who had been held captive by the West Side Boys—the men were used as servants and put through crude military training by the West Side Boys, possibly with the intention of forcing them to fight in the future, while the women were used as sex slaves. Planners had been concerned that West Side Boys might try to conceal themselves among the civilians and so the civilians were also restrained and taken to the Jordanian peacekeepers' base to be identified. A 23rd civilian was caught in the crossfire and killed during the assault. [37] [40] Magbeni [ edit ] An RAF Chinook with underslung Land Rover, a procedure used to retrieve the Royal Irish patrol's vehicles from Magbeni Andrew M. Dorman of King's College London suggested that the fate of the wider British operation in Sierra Leone depended heavily on the success or failure of Operation Barras and that, had the British forces been defeated, the United Kingdom would have been forced to withdraw all its forces from Sierra Leone. Dorman also suggests that a defeat would have "raised questions" regarding Tony Blair's policy of using armed force for humanitarian intervention. [57] [58] His book is called "Special Forces Pilot: A Flying Memoir of the Falklands War" and is published by Pen and Sword Books.