When the SAS Went to War on a Police Station

Operation Hathor is the sort of story that sounds made up until you realize it is not. Two SAS troopers got snatched by the wrong people in Basra, and the British response involved armor, airborne surveillance, righteous fury, and all the subtlety of a bar fight with tanks.

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I’ve only known one member of the British 22d SAS well. Mike was a great bloke. He looked like a bulldog–short and stocky. Like all soldiers who operate in those rarefied spaces, he was also preternaturally calm. Not much rattled him. Those guys are natural problem solvers. It is simply that sometimes the problem is how to overthrow a modest nation-state.

DEVGRU, CAG operators, and SAS troopers are not superheroes. They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. They typically have families, bills, and a car note as do most normal people. It is simply that they are called upon to do some seriously tough things as part of their day jobs. They are also, in my experience at least, fiercely loyal. When they are getting busy downrange, you really don’t want to end up on their bad side.

In late 2005, the British 22d SAS kicked off Operation Hathor in Basra, Iraq. In the aftermath of the coalition invasion of that perennially screwed-up country, local police officials not infrequently quietly allied themselves with Islamist militias. In this case, a corrupt Iraqi police captain was aiding and abetting the local insurgents. The SAS was tasked with gathering intelligence on this guy and, when the time was right, either bringing him in or putting him down.

On 19 September, SAS Sergeants Campbell and Griffin were decked out in traditional Arab mufti and covertly monitoring Iraqi police activity. Their vehicle was stopped at a police roadblock, and their cover was blown. The Iraqi cops attempted to arrest the two British operators. These SAS guys did not wish to be arrested.

The Iraqis laid hands on one of the Englishmen, and things went all pear-shaped from there. A furious firefight ensued. One Iraqi cop was killed outright, and another seriously wounded. It was rumored that he died later. The SAS guys sped off with the rest of the local constabulary hot on their tail. Realizing they could not outrun their pursuers, the operators pulled over and attempted to talk their way out of their predicament.

Now appreciate the nature of the threat here. These Iraqi cops had not been whitewashing parking tickets or shaking down local drug dealers. These guys were some proper monsters, relics of the recently deconstructed Saddam regime. Their penchant for torture is what had put them on the SAS radar screen in the first place. By the time the two SAS men reached the Al Jameat Police Station, they had already been badly beaten.

These two operators were deep in the suck and alone. However, that doesn’t mean they didn’t have support. The British command group was watching everything. Word got out quickly that two of their own were being abused at the hands of the very scumbags they had been tasked to surveil. In response, the British accumulated twenty operators from A Squadron 22d SAS Regiment, a platoon of Paras from the Special Forces Support Group, an MQ-1 Predator armed drone, and a Lynx helicopter. This was shaping up to be a proper fight, and the Iraqis didn’t even know it yet.

As anyone who has worn the uniform will attest, overkill is a stupid hypothetical civilian concept that has no counterpart on the modern battlefield. Tactical overmatch is the term du jour. In this case, in addition to all of the aforementioned accumulated pain, Number 2 Company, 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, also showed up ready to party. They brought along their Warrior AFVs as well as a handful of Challenger 2 tanks.

This motley mob encircled the police station in short order. However, the natives were restless. An angry crowd congealed around the objective and began throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the British armored vehicles. At least one Warrior was set alight, and three British troopers were wounded. An unknown number of demonstrators were killed.

In classic British fashion, two officers from the 12th Brigade Headquarters approached the police station under a flag of truce and delivered an ultimatum. In response, the crooked Iraqi cops took these two emissaries hostage and bundled the captive SAS operators into the boot of a car before speeding through the cordon. They were relocated to a nearby militia safe house in the city. However, between the Predator feed and the orbiting Lynx, the British field commanders retained a god’s-eye view of the battlefield as it evolved.

The FV510 Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle is the rough counterpart to the American M2 Bradley. The Warrior is crewed by a driver and commander and can reasonably carry seven tooled-up grunts in the back. The vehicle is powered by a Perkins-Rolls-Royce V8 Condor engine and can reach a top road speed of 46 miles per hour, making it capable of keeping pace with its counterpart, the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank. The Warrior packs a coaxial 7.62mm L94A1 chain gun alongside an absolutely vicious rapid-firing 30mm RARDEN cannon.

The Challenger 2 is actually the third generation of the Challenger MBT series. Topping out at 75 tons with applique armor, ammunition, and fuel, the Challenger 2 carries a four-man crew along with an L30A1 120mm rifled main gun, an L94A1 7.62mm chain gun coax, and an L37A2 MG located externally for operation by the loader. The combat-proven Challenger 2 is one of the most capable MBTs in the world. In urban spaces against lightly armed insurgent forces, the Challenger 2 is an unstoppable force.

The safe house was not far from the police station, and the British commanders were rightfully concerned that the two SAS captives were about to be executed. Now late enough for hard dark, the order was given to seize both the police station and the safe house. A handful of A Squadron assaulters backed up by conventional forces staged around the police station. The preponderance of the SAS strike team focused on the safe house. At around 2100, the SAS force seized the domicile and found the two captives alive and unattended.

Meanwhile, the task force designated to take the police station seems to have somehow lost its sense of humor. Rather than attempt further negotiations or attempt a covert breach, the local commander just unleashed the armor. Warrior IFVs and Challenger tanks simply rolled over the walls, crushed the police vehicles, and pulverized anything that seemed even remotely threatening.

Keeping the peace among these sundry maniacs was a Gordian chore, to say the least. The line between Good Guys and Bad was so blurry as to be at times indistinguishable. At first, the British government denied ever attacking the police station. Upon further reflection, they later thought it had been a simply splendid idea.

Mohammed al-Walili, the local Iraqi Governor, got all butt-hurt about the situation. He alleged that the British had employed “More than ten tanks backed up by helicopters.” He claimed that some 150 prisoners had escaped amidst the chaos. He denounced the British attack as “Barbaric, savage, and irresponsible.”

Whatever. That was big talk from the guys who used chemical weapons on the Kurds and fed their enemies into industrial plastic shredders. For their part, the British SAS guys were not unduly torn up about it. They got their boys back intact and called it good.

Three months later, Shia militias were once again using the Al Jameat Police Station as a holding area for anybody with whom they disagreed. In late October, insurgents captured a bus carrying seventeen Iraqi military trainers and executed them all. Surveillance indicated that the political prisoners being held at the police station had been tortured and were at serious risk of execution. In response, the Brits launched Operation Sinbad.

This time, the 1st Battalion The Staffordshire Regiment staged a combined arms assault directed at this battered police station-cum-political prison/torture chamber. In comparison to the previous op, they were ready to put a bow on this foolishness. When the dust settled, seven hostile gunmen were headed towards room temperature, and 127 prisoners had been freed. Most showed signs of having been tortured. The British really had little interest in doing this a third time, so they blew up the building before going home.

We have discussed it in this space before, but I am fundamentally opposed to embedded reporters among combat units. What happens downrange does not have a ready analog to the sorts of stuff civilized folk deal with on a daily basis. It isn’t fair to sit comfortably in our living rooms and pass judgment on the boys and girls operating downrange. Modern war is an ugly, horrible thing to which most normal people are unable to relate.

When the monsters have your people, the answer is to get a little monstrous. That is the only language these people understand. Back in 2005, the goblins took a pair of British SAS operators hostage. In response, the Brits rolled hot with tanks and AFVs and eventually killed absolutely everybody before burning the place literally to the ground. In so doing, they got their people back intact and put the righteous smackdown on the Bad Guys. That seems like a pretty good day’s work to me.

• Pros: Wild real-world special operations story, heavy armor details, sharp pacing, dark humor, memorable battlefield color.
• Cons: Not a conventional firearm review, morally brutal subject matter, and absolutely not for readers looking for nuance wrapped in bubble wrap.