SAS Operation

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS survive the inferno of Operation Desert Storm? August 1990, and Iraqi tanks are rolling into Kuwait, putting one quarter of the world's oil reserves at risk. So begins Operation Desert Storm. As specialists in desert warfare, the legendary SAS are plunged into a maelstrom of covert operations, often deep inside enemy territory. Their mission: reconnaissance, espionage, sabotage, the capture of prisoners and rescue of hostages. Some are captured and tortured; others executed. But by the end of the conflict they will perform feats that are the stuff of legend. Join the adventure in this novel about the most daring soldiers in military history: the SAS! • A series of novels based on this extraordinary regiment - a thrilling 'factoid' adventure about the most daring soldiers in military history: the SAS! • Many are based on real episodes in the history of the regiment. e.g. the Bravo Two Zero-type raids in Iraq and the Falklands, plus missions set around the world, from the Second World War to modern-day Afghanistan • Well-researched, fast-paced, mass-market thrillers with a built-in 'collectability': read one, you'll want to read another • Published to lead up to the 75th anniversary of the SAS in 2016

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS prevent British Task Force being destroyed by missiles? It is 1982, and a brutal, bloody war is being waged as British forces try to battle the Argentinians into surrendering the Falkland Islands. As the fighting continues, it becomes clear to British Task Force commanders that they will need to call upon the help of the legendary Special Air Service - the SAS! Their mission, which must be shrouded in a veil of secrecy, is to infiltrate enemy territory by land and sea and from the air, performing tasks too dangerous for the average soldier. Surviving hunger, freezing cold and constant danger, they must gather vital intelligence, engage in espionage, disrupt enemy communications and, when necessary, engage and kill the enemy. A tall enough order for an army; when it's just a small unit of men, this may prove to be a one-way mission...

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS succeed in freeing Oman from the deadly grip of fanatical guerrillas? In the arid deserts and mountains of Arabia a 'secret' war is being fought. While Communist-backed Adoo guerrillas have been waging a campaign of terror against Oman, British Army Training Teams have been winning hearts and minds with medical aid and educational programmes. Now the time has come to rid the country of the guerrillas, not only to free Oman, but also to guarantee the safe passage of Arabian oil to the West. Only one group of men is capable of doing this job, and on the night of October 1, 1971, two squadrons of SAS troopers, backed by the Sultan's Armed Forces and fierce, unpredictable Firqat Arab fighters, start to clear the fanatical Adoo from the sun-scorched summit of the mighty Jebel Dhofar. In doing so, the men of the SAS embark on one of their most daring and unforgettable adventures.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS succeed in rescuing one of their own from a fearsome drug cartel? The end of 1980s sees the rise of the cocaine cartels of Colombia, criminal organisations as powerful as armies, whose malign reach stretches from the coca fields of Bolivia to the streets of London and New York. Needing help in the training of its elite Anti-Narcotics Unit, the Colombian Government turns to Britain and the legendary SAS. Two veterans are dispatched to Bogotá. When one of them is kidnapped and held for ransom by the cartels, the only hope of securing his release seems to lie with the rest of the regiment back in England. Getting into Colombia will be hard enough. Getting out more perilous still, as the men of the SAS face dangers in every corner of a violent land, as they are pursued from the streets of Bogotá, through the high mountains of the Andes, and on down into the Amazon rain forests. • A series of novels based on this extraordinary regiment - a thrilling 'factoid' adventure about the most daring soldiers in military history: the SAS! • Many are based on real episodes in the history of the regiment. e.g. the Bravo Two Zero-type raids in Iraq and the Falklands, plus missions set around the world, from the Second World War to modern-day Afghanistan.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS survive working deep undercover among the terrorists of Northern Ireland? It is the 1970s, and a mean and dirty war is being waged on British soil. Sectarian violence is an almost daily occurrence and the terrorist groups, who finance their operations through robbery, fraud and extortion, engage in torture, assassination and wholesale slaughter. To cope with the terrorists' activities the British Army need the support of exceptional soldiers who can operate deep undercover - the SAS. The regiment is soon embroiled in some of the most secretive, dangerous and controversial activities in its history. These include plain-clothes work in the towns and cities, the running of operational posts in rural areas, surveillance and intelligence gathering, ambushes and daring cross-border raids. Sniper Fire in Belfast is a nerve-jangling adventure about the most daring soldiers in military history, where friend and foe look the same and each encounter could be their last.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS patrol escape the deadly Malayan jungle alive? Malaya in the 1950s, and Communist terrorists wage a bloody war against the country's estates and rubber plantation owners. Chased into the interior by British Army units, the guerrillas soon became experts at survival and evasion, emerging from the jungle only to launch increasingly ferocious attacks. On the recommendation of Lieutenant-Colonel 'Mad' Mike Calvert, veteran of Burma's Chindit campaigns, 22 SAS is formed as a special counter-insurgency force. Three years later they begin their jungle patrols, learning how to survive for weeks at a time in hostile terrain, often waist-deep in water, and under attack from wild animals, leeches and poisonous insects. This extraordinary campaign climaxes in a nightmarish two weeks in the Telok Anson swamp tracking the troops of the notorious 'Baby Killer', Ah Hoi. What the regiment experiences in the Malayan jungle is both dreadful and unforgettable and will lay the foundations for the SAS's legendary survival skills...

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS face the might of Rommel's army and win? In the North African desert in 1941 the war is being won by the brilliant German commander General Rommel, and the British are in retreat on all fronts. A young British army lieutenant, David Stirling, believes that the only way to reverse this situation is to attack the enemy behind their own lines, using small groups of men who can insert by land, sea or air as required. The first of these men are dropped by parachute to attack enemy airfields in the Gazala area, but the raid is a disaster, with many lives lost. The following year, the survivors of that operation, now working hand in hand with the Long Range Desert Group, mount a series of spectacular raids in heavily armed jeeps against airfields in the Benghazi region, destroying nearly a hundred enemy aircraft, leaving the German army reeling, and reversing the course of the war. Desert Raiders is the colourful story of the birth of the SAS, the most renowned regiment in the history of the British Army - forged with fire and steel in the vast, sun-scorched plains of the North African desert, pitting themselves against the might of the formerly invincible German army, and gaining a reputation that will make them a legend in their own time.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS recruit primitive natives to help them thwart an invading rebel force? in the inhospitable, perilous terrain. Braving jungle and swamp, the SAS are dispatched to live with the primitive, headhunting natives, to try to win hearts and minds with medical aid and assistance, in the hope of recruiting them as Border Scout paramilitaries. As the training progresses, other SAS soldiers move even deeper into the unexplored jungle - 'the Gap' - to establish ambush sites and helicopter LZs. These 'Tiptoe Boys' conduct daring 'Claret' raids across the border, hitting hard and vanishing fast, ambushing enemy troops moving along the many jungle tracks and rivers. It will be a bloody, nightmarish war - and the SAS must win it.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to rid Yemen of its unstoppable guerrillas? Aden, 1964, and the British are waging two different kinds of war. Inhabitants of northern Yemen's forbidding mountainous region of Radfan are conducting guerrilla attacks against the British. Armed by the Egyptians and trained by the communist Yemenis, they seem an invincible fighting force. With only one hope of beating them, the British draft in an even more tenacious group of soldiers - the SAS! Their mission: to parachute into enemy territory at night, establish concealed observation posts high in the mountains, and direct air strikes on the rebels moving through the sunbaked passes. At the same time, in an even more dangerous campaign, two- or three-man SAS teams disguised as Arabs must infiltrate the souks and bazaars of the port of Aden in an attempt to 'neutralize' leading members of the National Liberation Front. But will their disguise allow them to get close enough to their targets, or get out again alive...?

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS prevent the launch of Exocet missiles at the British Task Force? May 1982: as the British Task Force prepares to retake the Falkland Islands, a lone Sea King helicopter makes an apparently forced landing in the southernmost reaches of Chile. The only threat to the Task Force - and the enemy's only hope of ultimate victory - is Argentina's Super Etendard aircraft and their sea-skimming Exocet missiles. Since radar cannot be relied upon, the British must opt for a less conventional warning system. Before landing in Chile, the 'stray' Sea King drops a team of men into Argentina, where they are tasked with remaining hidden within sight of the airfields and within easy reach of the enemy's security patrols. Getting the men in is easy enough, but staying unobserved is another matter - and eventual escape will be next to impossible... Mission to Argentina tells the electrifying story of this SAS operation from the inside - a heart-stopping thriller about the regiment equalled by no other: the SAS!

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS assault team rescue the hostages from the terrorist-held Iranian embassy? 30 April 1980: six well-armed terrorists seize the Iranian Embassy in London. Nineteen Iranian nationals and four British citizens are captured. Subsequent negotiations see some hostages released, but when, on the fifth day of the siege, one of the hostages is shot dead, his body dumped outside, the time for negotiation is over. It is time to end the siege, and the only men with enough skill and daring for this dangerous task are the legendary SAS! In fact, convinced they will eventually be called in, they have already practiced a high-risk rescue operation in their top secret 'Killing House'. On the evening of 5 May - and in the full glare of the international media - twelve SAS soldiers, dressed in black and wielding a deadly arsenal, make their courageous assault on the Embassy...

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to defeat what awaits them inside a top secret Nazi research facility? In the 1990s, sketchy reports of an accident in a high-security research facility deep within the remote, mountainous region of Kazakhstan filter through to American intelligence. A Russian army team sent in to investigate disappears without trace. The Chinese, terrified that their territory might be threatened by the leak, turn to Britain, an unlikely ally, for help. Only one group of men is capable of discovering the truth behind the underground facility, and the SAS are sent in. In so doing they will have the chance to settle a score which goes back almost half a century but they will also face a new and terrifying enemy - one that will test their endurance, and their equipment, to the limit.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can just three members of the SAS quell a rebel uprising? July 1981: while Gambian President Jawara attends a royal wedding in London, Marxist rebels seize power. Fearing armed intervention from neighboring Senegal, they take hostages - including one of the president's wives and several of his children - and empty the prisons in a desperate search for allies in the coming struggle. As opposing factions of the police force wrestle for control, prisoners settle old scores, slaughtering almost two thousand Gambians. In tourist beach hotels hundreds of Europeans fear the worst. At Jawara's request, three men of SAS 22 Regiment are sent into this cauldron, supposedly to advise the President and his Senegalese allies. But within days, they have become the spearhead of the counter-revolution, embroiled in both the pursuit of heavily armed criminals and the dangerously delicate business of rescuing hostages.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS lead a civilian population out of war-ravaged Bosnia to safety? Bosnia, 1993. A small army of Serbs, Muslims and Croats, formed to defend the isolated mountain town of Zavik and under the command of Reeve, a renegade Briton, has begun mounting raids further afield in search of food, fuel and medical supplies. All sides in the civil war are enraged by its exploits; even UN mediators recognize the need for its suppression. But there are only two people Reeve will listen to: his ex-wife, and an ex-comrade in the SAS. The latter is willing to lead a team into Zavik; the former has first to be found - she is either trapped in Sarajevo or imprisoned in a Serbian concentration camp. Rescuing her is only the beginning. The SAS team will then have to traverse the mountainous war zone and force their way into the besieged town. This will be difficult enough. Fighting their way out of the war-ravaged territory with a convoy of the sick, the old and the very young will be next to impossible. • A series of novels based on this extraordinary regiment - a thrilling 'factoid' adventure about the most daring soldiers in military history: the SAS! • Many are based on real episodes in the history of the regiment. e.g. the Bravo Two Zero-type raids in Iraq and the Falklands, plus missions set around the world, from the Second World War to modern-day Afghanistan • Well-researched, fast-paced, mass-market thrillers with a built-in 'collectability': read one, you'll want to read another

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS pull off a daring prison break and escape from Communist-run Ethiopia alive? In 1975, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, recently deposed in a Communist revolution, is declared dead. In the hands of the brutal army officer Mengitsu Haile Mariam, the country has descended into chaos and bloodshed. Then an astonishing truth emerges. The Emperor is being kept alive in prison by Mengitsu, but only until he reveals the location of his billion-pound fortune. The British and American governments will not tolerate a ruthless Communist regime's acquisition of such wealth: it will destabilize the Middle East and all East Africa. There is only one answer: kidnap the Emperor. Three SAS soldiers ¬are selected for this hazardous mission, which is like nothing the regiment has ever tackled before: to penetrate a remote desert fortress and then to escape through arid highlands with a frail old man in tow. Only extraordinary duplicity will get them in. Only acute tactical expertise and merciless improvisation will get them out. And if anything goes wrong, it will be as if they had never existed.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to outfox the IRA as they prepare a deadly reprisal? May 1987: a successful SAS ambush results in the deaths of eight IRA terrorists in Loughgall. Knowing that retaliation is certain, and that Gibraltar has been selected by the IRA as a 'soft' target associated with British imperialism, British intelligence goes on the alert. Then two IRA members arrive in southern Spain under false names, and an Irishwoman, also using a false identity, visits the changing of the guard ceremony outside the Governor of Gibraltar's residence. Intelligence believes the ceremony is likely to be attacked, and the British government sends in the SAS. Tasked with preventing the bombing, if necessary by killing the terrorists, the SAS team will need to call into play all their expertise and tenacity in what will become a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS storm a fortress prison held by Muslim terrorists to rescue a group of British tourists? In 1994, in the newly independent state of Uzbekistan, a party of mostly British tourists is on a day excursion from the fabled city of Samarkand when Muslim fundamentalists hijack their bus. Unknown to the hijackers, this particular group contains recently retired ex-SAS sergeant Jamie Docherty, and the rebellious daughter of the British Foreign Minister, already a tabloid favourite back home. Uncertain how to respond to the terrorists' demands, the Uzbekistan government accepts a British offer of assistance: two members of the SAS crack Counter Revolutionary Warfare wing are dispatched to Samarkand, with instructions to liaise with the local ex-KGB unit. As the negotiations drag on, in the mountain fortress prison Docherty must call on all his formidable expertise and ingenuity to keep his fellow hostages alive, and to prepare them for a prospective rescue mission. The only force likely to have any chance of successfully penetrating the fortress and liberating the prisoners will be a group led by men of the legendary Special Air Service - the SAS!

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission, But can the SAS prevent Britain descending into war-torn anarchy? Great Britain, 1995: With terrorist bombs destroying town and city streets, rising crime and a teenage drug problem that is out of control, police forces are stretched beyond their limit. And now a new threat is looming. A fanatical right-wing movement is spreading into the UK. Using terrorism and crime to fund its undercover activities, and a frightening new drug to spur on its growing army to unprecedented extremes of violence, it is threatening to turn Britain's towns and inner cities into battlegrounds of anarchic brutality. In desperation, civil authorities turn to the only men who might be able to confront these fanatics on their own terms: the SAS. Guided by a maverick undercover drug cop, they will be pitted against an enemy as ruthless and deadly as any the regiment has faced. The SAS are at war, and that war is just outside the window - a war on the streets.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to find an IRA sniper, before he finds them...? 1989, South Armagh: cheering mobs stand over the body of a British soldier. He is the ninth to have been killed by the so-called Border Fox, an IRA sniper whose activities have helped make this area of the United Kingdom the most feared killing ground in Western Europe. The British government is determined to break the tightly-knit South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before more lives are lost. The SAS men of Ulster Troop are the best in the world at surveillance, unsurpassed in counter-insurgency techniques. And now, once again, they are going to have to prove it. Their hunt for the Border Fox and the terrorists of South Armagh will be a murderous, little-publicized war in which every encounter, whether in or out of uniform, is potentially a battle to the death.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS survive a nightmare journey into the tunnel lair of the Viet Cong? June 1966: 3 Squadron SAS (Australian Special Air Service) set up a Forward Operating Base in Vietnam's Phuoc Tuy province, a swampy hell of jungle and paddy-fields forty-five miles east of Saigon in the heart of enemy territory. The Viet Cong have bases throughout the jungle, and the Australians soon find themselves under constant attack. Enter three members of the legendary 22 SAS, to assist in a major assault against the Viet Cong: Sergeant Jimmy 'Jimbo' Ashman, founding member of the Regiment; Sergeant Richard 'Dead-eye Dick' Parker, veteran of previous SAS operations in Malaya, Borneo and Aden; and Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick 'Paddy' Callaghan, pulled out of administration specially for this secret mission. Working under appalling conditions, Brits and Aussies must try to forge themselves into a potent fighting machine, as they have been tasked with the fearsome job of rooting the Viet Cong out of their labyrinthine tunnel system. It will be a journey into hell, and some will never return.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS locate their target and make it out of the jungle alive? In the Central American republic of Guatemala, government-sponsored torture and mass murder has reduced the Mayan Indian population to a despairing acquiescence. After five hundred years of struggle it seems as if the conqueror's peace can at last be proclaimed in the capital. Then a guerrilla leader who the authorities have long believed dead springs mysteriously back to life. No loyal Guatemalan can identify him, and the government is compelled to seek help elsewhere, from one of the two SAS soldiers who helped mediate a hostage crisis with the guerrilla almost fifteen years earlier. To the government in Whitehall it appears a straightforward enough exercise, but for the soldier and his comrades the mission soon turns into a nightmare of impossible choices. The land of Guatemala, magical and cruel by turns, will prove much easier to enter than to escape...

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But can the SAS break in to a Colombian island prison and snatch an Argentine killer? 1996: a terminally ill father desperately seeks answers to what happened to his son, missing for twenty years. He has the names of two Argentine men - one in Mexico City, the other imprisoned on the Colombian island of Providencia - but no one to ask the questions. A missing girl's family have given her up for dead when they stumble upon a Miami newspaper story mentioning two of her friends. One has just died; the other, half-deranged, tells a garbled story of sexual slavery on a Caribbean island which sounds suspiciously like Providencia. MI6 and the British government are certain that a huge drug-trafficking empire is being run from the prison, and know that some of the profits are being funnelled by its Argentine 'guest' into financing a mercenary invasion of the Falklands. Ignored by the Colombian authorities and mysteriously obstructed by their American allies, the British have no choice but to send in their own elite force - the SAS.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS survive the Second World War, knowing that Hitler has torn up the rules of war? Early 1944, and with the tide of the war flowing steadily against the Germans, the SAS - born in North Africa as a strategic raiding force behind enemy lines - is performing a similar role in the Italian mountains and French forests. Here, after making common cause with local partisans, they are cutting rail and road links serving the frontline German armies. Hitler knows as much, and is determined that the SAS will pay a terrible price for their efforts. His infamous Commando Order decrees that any raiders captured behind enemy lines, whether in or out of uniform, will be summarily executed. Denied the safety net usually provided by the rules of war, the SAS embark on each new mission knowing that it will end either in success, or death.

Ultimate soldier. Ultimate mission. But will the SAS be able to storm a terrorist stronghold in the mountains of Pakistan? For Captain Don Headley of the SAS, the police anti-terrorist exercise on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport was to have been just another training job. But in the grey suburban sprawl on the edge of London another, far more sinister plot is about to unfold, a plot that sees him dispatched on a hostage-rescue mission to the Indian subcontinent. Under the patronage of inscrutable Intelligence chief Sir Anthony Briggs, the operation reunites him with some of the hardest troopers from Hereford, for only such a hand-picked team is capable of storming a terrorist stronghold in the mountains of Pakistan. And only the very best will have a chance of coming back alive. Central to the mission is the mysterious Mr. Sanji. It is at the cost of precious lives that Don and his men will learn the horrific secret of this world-weary old man - and understand that the roots of the kidnap plot lie buried in the dying days of the British Raj.