SAS trains Libyan troops

The SAS has been ordered by the Government to train Libyan special forces despite the country having armed the IRA, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.


By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Published: 10:35PM BST 11 Sep 2009


Gordon Brown and Col Gadaffi Photo: PA

For the past six months Britains elite troops have been schooling soldiers working for Col Muammar Gaddafis regime, which for years provided Republican terrorists with the Semtex explosive, machine-guns and anti-aircraft missiles used against British troops during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Sources within the SAS have expressed distaste at the agreement, which they believe could be connected to the release of the Lockerbie bomber.

Britains relationship with Libya has been under the spotlight since Abdelbaset al Megrahi was freed from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds last month after being diagnosed as suffering from terminal prostate cancer and given three months to live.

Gordon Brown has faced claims that his Government helped engineer Megrahis release to promote Britains commercial interests, particularly energy, in Libya.

Downing Street has denied the allegations, but Jack Straw, the Justice Minister, has admitted that trade was a factor in deciding to include Megrahi in an earlier prisoner transfer agreement with Libya. Megrahi was the only person convicted for the murder of 270 people killed in the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am flight 103.

The disclosure that members of the SAS are training their Libyan counterparts will further raise suspicions about exactly what has been agreed behind the scenes between Tripoli and Britain.

It will also infuriate families of the Lockerbie victims and further sour relations with America. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama told the Prime Minister of his disappointment over Megrahis release.

Defence sources said the training arrangement must have been given high-level political approval.

Members of Britains elite regiment are angry at having to help train soldiers from a country that for years armed terrorists they fought against.

An SAS source said: A small SAS training team have been doing it for the last six months as part of this cosy deal with the Libyans.

From our perspective we cannot see it as part of anything else other than the Megrahi deal. Another SAS soldier said: The IRA was our greatest adversary now we are training their backers. There was a weary rolling of the eyes when we were told about this.

The Ministry of Defence refuses to comment on special forces activities, but sources have admitted that SAS reserves have bolstered the team that has been training Libyan infantry in basic skills.

A senior defence source admitted: This is a huge political embarrassment.

The first moves towards setting up the training agreement are believed to have begun after Tony Blair visited

Libya as Prime Minister in 2004. However, the deal was only finalised and signed off by Mr Brown earlier this year.

Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who took part in the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 and fought the IRA in Northern Ireland, said:

There is a long list of British soldiers who have died because of Gaddafi funding terrorists.

The SAS is being ordered to do something it knows is morally wrong.

The team a troop of between four and 14 men is training the Libyans in counter-terrorism techniques, including covert surveillance.

However, the full spectrum of techniques learned from fighting Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is not expected to be passed on.

Once an international pariah, Col Gaddafi agreed in 2003 to give up Libyas weapons of mass destruction and has since enjoyed steadily improving relations with the West.


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"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes..."

Government has sold its soul to the devil over SAS deal with Libya

If the latest information to surface about our Government supplying SAS soldiers to Libya is to be believed then our leaders have truly sold their souls to the devil.


By Robin Horsfall
Published: 9:11AM BST 12 Sep 2009

Lest we forget in the 1970s the main source of IRA arms was Libya and in the 1980s, the IRA obtained even larger quantities of weapons and explosives from Gaddafi's Libya. In addition there is strong evidence that IRA bombers and gunmen received training from Libya.

Therefore if British soldiers were sent to train Gaddafis people then it must have been with heavy hearts. The SAS has a history of fighting terrorism that goes all the way back to Malaya in the 1950s. Their collective memory of campaigns fought and won includes Borneo, Aden, Dohfar, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and of course Afghanistan.

One only has to go to a Regimental reunion to meet men who fought in campaigns all the way back to WWII. Although they are cynical about politics in general they are proud of the fact that they fought for what they believed was right. They remember their lost friends. They remember their names and where they died and who killed them. They remember who supplied the money and the bombs. They remember who was responsible for the IRA bombs in Aldershot, Birmingham, Guildford, Warrington, Warren Point, Hyde park, Knightsbridge to name but a few on a very long list. Of course none of us will forget Lockerbie!

One of the most telling reasons for the success of the SAS is in developing new tactics and then maintaining secrecy. They are always at the cutting edge of modern counter revolutionary and counter terrorist warfare.

Information is power. If these methods have been placed on the international market and sold to the highest bidder then one day in the future our soldiers will have to pay the price.

If the enemy knows our tactics then he knows how to develop counter measures. The price is always paid in blood, the blood of our young soldiers. A soldier doesnt see the big picture that diplomats lay claim to, but they do see the deaths and carnage at first hand.

If our special forces have been in Libya training Gaddafis troops they have this history firmly imprinted on their hearts. I believe they would not have been happy to carry out this task and that such a mission would have caused a great deal of soul searching.

Robin Horsfall was one of the SAS soldiers who stormed the Iranian Embassy in 1980


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"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat its mistakes..."