SAS mission to kill a Baghdad suicide squad

[Trip_Wire]

Revealed: SAS mission to kill a Baghdad suicide squad

By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent
20/11/2005 Sunday telegraph

The SAS killed three suicide bombers in Baghdad as part of an undercover, shoot-to-kill operation in Iraq, it can be revealed.

The three terrorists were all killed by SAS snipers armed with specialist rifles. Each terrorist was wearing a suicide vest laden with commercial explosives. It is understood that they were intending to target cafes and restaurants frequented by members of the Iraqi security forces.

A 16-man unit of the SAS, acting on intelligence obtained by an Iraqi agent working for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), shot dead the would-be bombers in a combined SAS and American operation in July this year.

Details of the mission codenamed Operation Marlborough have remained secret until now - primarily because it was launched in the same week that a Metropolitan Police firearms unit in London shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27-year-old Brazilian electrician, in the mistaken belief that he was a suicide bomber.

It marked one of the most successful counter-insurgency operations undertaken by British forces since the start of the Iraq conflict. It is the first time it has become clear that the SAS is working with American special forces on a permanent basis in Iraq...