Looking for footage of anti-terrorism operations

[Adrian II]

I hope some of you can help me.

Since 2006 The Neds have a new anti-terror unit and I have been offered a guided tour cum demonstration some time later this year. So I have started up some research into recent developments in police and military anti-terrorism operations, particularly the special units trained for same.

I have some reports, I am talking to people, etcetera. Good autobiographical material (interviews, memoirs, etcetera) is not that hard to find.

Much harder to find is video footage of actual anti-terror unit operations. There is no shortage of crappy YouTube vids of all sorts of units wearing black moon suits and adopting action poses to the accompaniment of phat rhythms. I am not interested in that. I want the real stuff, warts and all.

I found some footage of historical actions such as the SAS assault on the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 and the GIGN assault on the dynamite-ridden plane in Marseille in 1994, but it doesn't amount to much. Can you guys point me to vids? Websites with good material? Museums?

[Lemur]

Dude, all you need to do is play Rainbow Six. That will teach you everything you need to know about taking terrorists out of planes, museums, casinos, etc. It's quite educational.

[Adrian II]

Dude, all you need to do is play Rainbow Six. That will teach you everything you need to know about taking terrorists out of planes, museums, casinos, etc. It's quite educational.

[spmetla]

Military Photos forum

LiveLeak

Just use the search function in the pictures and videos subforum and you should get plenty of hits for all sorts of operations. Sometimes it is just short clips sometimes tv documentaries about special ops.

Liveleak has a lot of various videos but is much more variable in its results but has a lot more.

EDIT:
To help you on your way here are some more specific pages of the forum and while I think these are not the type of videos you are looking for(more about ongoing operations in chad, afghanistan, hopefully they are useful.)
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...d.php?t=129891
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...d.php?t=130963

Though this is the backroom, I'm not sure whether it'd be alright to post direct links to videos with bloodshed and such should I find some for you.

[Adrian II]

Military Photos forum

LiveLeak

Just use the search function in the pictures and videos subforum and you should get plenty of hits for all sorts of operations. Sometimes it is just short clips sometimes tv documentaries about special ops.

Liveleak has a lot of various videos but is much more variable in its results but has a lot more.

EDIT:
To help you on your way here are some more specific pages of the forum and while I think these are not the type of videos you are looking for(more about ongoing operations in chad, afghanistan, hopefully they are useful.)
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...d.php?t=129891
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums...d.php?t=130963

Though this is the backroom, I'm not sure whether it'd be alright to post direct links to videos with bloodshed and such should I find some for you.

Fantastic. Thanks to you I have already found footage I had been looking for in vain, and I am sure I will find lots more. Great links!

Thank you.

[Pannonian]

Can't you find footage of Americans bombing Ay-rabs in Eye-raq? That does count as anti-terrorism, doesn't it?

[Spartan198]

Footage of actual CT teams like SEALs,Delta,& SAS is hard to come by since what they do is highly classified,but room-clearing and house-to-house fighting is an integral part of it,and this is a video of US Special Forces and Iraqi commandos in action under those circumstances.
Don't worry,it's legit.
http://shock.military.com/Shock/vide...Content=132298

[Banquo's Ghost]

Though this is the backroom, I'm not sure whether it'd be alright to post direct links to videos with bloodshed and such should I find some for you.

No, it's not. You can of course, PM your sources but please don't post them.

Spartan198's video is at the extreme end of the allowable spectrum.

[Fragony]

GO DUTCHIES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX01...eature=related

^-- good one

[Adrian II]

Thanks but no thanks guys. I didn't mean Special Forces in war. I meant anti-terrorist interventions such as hostage freeing, prevention or neutralisation of bomb attacks and similar threats, like the SAS and GIGN operations I referred to. Spmetla has been most helpful because both sites he mentioned contain real gems in this department. Some new stuff on the GSG9 assault in Mogadishu airport in 1977 for instance.

Thanks again, Spmetla.

I think it’s fascinating stuff, though not, I suspect, for some of the same reasons why others find it fascinating. I’m not impressed at all by the talk of ‘surgical operations’, ‘split second decisions’ and all that. Behind the masks and suits, designed to impress as much as provide safety and flexibility, are real people who make mistakes and whose particular skills should really be used as a last resort only.

First of all, what strikes me in the videos of operations of this type is how slowly they unroll compared to the movie/videogame representations, and how much sheer guts is required to dare and pull it off. In nearly all videos you typically see some special agent hovering behind a pillar or a crate for a minute or more, trying to find an angle and get a shot in at the bad guys without hitting a hostage or his own mates, all the while being exposed himself to fire from the hijackers who usually don’t give a rat’s behind where their bullets hit. No pension plan can ever outweigh such a harrowing, interminable minute of one’s life.

Secondly, major mistakes or mishaps always interfere with the plan, making it all the more dodgy to put your trust in these operations unless there is no other way out.

Of course the mother of all botched interventions in the modern era is the Olympic village hijacking in Munich in 1972. They made so many mistakes it’s no use listing them in full. But you have to hand it to the Germans for thoroughly cleaning up their act. The newly established GSG9 performed a textbook operation on Mogadishu airport in 1977:

• They approached unseen (from the back of the plane)
• They distracted the hijackers (by lighting a huge bonfire half a mile to the front of the plane)
• They used surprise entry points (i.a. escape hatches under the fuselage)
• They brought along two SAS to explode recently developed flash grenades
• They managed to separate the hijackers from the hostages
• They got their men without seriously harming anyone else
• All the hostages got out safe

Even so, they couldn’t prevent the hijackers from detonating two hand grenades in the first class compartment. Fortunately no one was killed by the blasts and the plane did not blow up, but it was an extremely close call.

The SAS assault on the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 was another textbook operation, well rehearsed in the famous SAS ‘killing house’ (a special training facility at their base). They also met all the above criteria. Even so, one SAS set himself on fire with his own grenade, and some of the hijackers managed to shoot their hostages and even kill one before they could be taken out. And again, after everything seemed under control, one hijacker who was hiding among the hostages almost managed to detonate a hand grenade.

The 1994 GIGN storming of the hijacked plane in Marseille beggars description. The fuselage was laden with twenty dynamite sticks, the plain was being moved around the airport by the hijackers and the gendarmes who went in were almost certain that they were all going to die. The first guy to go in was hit unconscious as twelve bullets from the terrorists simultaneously hit him all across his body; some of them are still in his flesh today. Again, there were mistakes and mishaps. One guy missed when he tried to lob a flash grenade into the cockpit, another lost his fingers when an AK-47 bullet hit the magazine of his gun and caused it to explode in his face. Only after a frantic gunbattle-cum-search did it turn out that the dynamite hadn’t been wired yet.

Nothing is ever easy or self-evident in these operations. They all learn from each other, of course. In the 1994 assault for instance the GIGN managed to isolate the hijackers in the cockpit from where, unlike those in Mogadishu, they couldn’t throw grenades at the hostages. And they flung everyone coming out of the plane straight onto the tarmac and aggressively searched them, not nice, but necessary in light of what had transpired before in London. But when it comes to the dynamite they were just plain lucky.

Both the 1976 Entebbe raid by Israelis and the 2002 Moscow theatre siege are in categories of their own, of course. The Russians have been unduly criticised for their 'crude' handling of the 2002 crisis. The situation was unprecedented and I doubt any other country would have made a better job of it: 850 hostages were being held in a large, complex building with long halls and corridors (good shooting ranges) by about 40 well-armed Chechen militants; the building as such was booby-trapped and the militants themselves wore dynamite belts with sophisticated trigger mechanisms. It is still not known what anaesthetic gas was used to try and put those inside to sleep, but I believe rumours about irresponsibly high dosages or about the medical services outside not being informed of the nature of the gas are baseless. If the Russians made one big mistake, it was their decision to not accept the release of the 75 foreigners among the hostages, a release that had been offered by the terrorists on day 2. Their subsequent debriefing might have given the Oznaz commando crucial intel. This is what gave the Israelis the advantage in the Entebbe raid. The French hostages were released and flown to Paris, a move criticised at the time because the French had promised the Israelis not to negotiate separately with the hostage takers. In Paris however they were put at the disposal of the Mossad who debriefed them and obtained crucial intel on the situation in Entebbe without which Rabin would have had decided against the raid.

[Spartan198]

Spartan198's video is at the extreme end of the allowable spectrum.

Sorry. I though it would be okay since it's difficult to really see anything that constitutes bloodshed aside from bullets leaving the muzzle of an AR.

Thanks but no thanks guys. I didn't mean Special Forces in war. I meant anti-terrorist interventions such as hostage freeing, prevention or neutralisation of bomb attacks and similar threats, like the SAS and GIGN operations I referred to.

Counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, etc. is still war in my book.
But, like I said, that kind of thing is often highly-classified and never seen in the light of day.

Your best bet would probably be footage of police attack teams in action, in this case.

Just trying to help.

[Adrian II]

Counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, etc. is still war in my book.

I see. This clearly depends on one's personal view. I think counter-terrorism (not counter-insurgency) is law enforcement. Even if special military units or any other sort of specialised units are deployed in the course of it, they are (or should be) in the service of law enforcement.

I have some good stuff by now. Thanks for all the suggestions. I'd be delighted to discuss some of the incidents I mentioned above. Although I guess people would have already responded if they wanted.

[Husar]

Interesting topic, keep telling us more Adrian, I read your last post with great interest.

But you might not want to use the latin word for "with" anymore as it happens to interfere with an english word that is hard to get out of my head after hanging out with certain people for a while.
Nothing bad it just kinda pulls me out of your fascinating "stories".