Fighting the War on Terror

Global Counter-Terrorist Units and their Actions

Judith Grohmann

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781526727466
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du 21ème siècle

SWAT teams, GSG9, EKO Cobra, SCO 19 these elite police units are used to dealing with dangerous situations, particularly in the fight against global terrorism. European political-economic journalist and author, Judith Grohmann, is the first outsider to be given access into the world of specialist counter-terrorism units in 16 countries around the globe, including the USA, Russia, Israel, the UK, and many more. Whether performing hostage rescues, subduing barricaded suspects, engaging with heavily-armed criminals or taking part in counter-terrorism operations, her interviews with the men and women concerned explain what their work really involves, their most dangerous missions, and the physical and mental training required for them to perform these high-risk operations, which fall outside the abilities of regular police officers.A truly intimate insight into a closed world.

Chapter 1

United Kingdom

Crime Scene on the Thames

Unit: SCO19 – Central Operation Specialist Firearms Command (formerly known as SO19 and CO19)

Motto: Legibus et Armis = By Using Laws and Arms

Raid on the Provisional IRA

It had been raining for hours; a typical April day in London. All parking places in the Lugard Road were occupied. In one of the many cars washed by the rain, the passenger’s side-window of a bright but insignificant small car was lowered. A man in a black leather jacket and black cap looked up cautiously, but with concentration, at a long brick two-storey building with a front garden in bloom. When a head suddenly appeared from the topmost window, the man aimed his camera and pressed the shutter button. “That’s it, we can go,” he told his driver. The car pulled away from 61 Lugard Road, Southwark, London SW1 and headed for Peckham. As they left, a dark, insignificant small car took the parking space.

For months, Scotland Yard and MI5 (the British Secret Service) had sent surveillance teams to this address to shadow the gang that was holding out there, and to gather as much intelligence on them as possible. On 14 April 1996 the watchers had completed their task and compiled a comprehensive file on the movements of the suspects in and around the location, and a good deal of information on the six men who lived there. The suspects were members of one of the most radical terrorist groups of the time and believed to be planning their next coup. Sixty-one Lugard Road had three bedrooms and a roof terrace, but the six men, all in their thirties, rarely left the house. They kept their heads down, which made surveillance work difficult. Nevertheless, there were ways and means for the surveillance teams to find out what the six men were up to behind closed doors.

Special unit SCO19 had been co-opted into the surveillance, and coordinated on a roster with colleagues from ‘central’, after it had been determined that the next attack by the Provisional IRA (the paramilitary organization which came into being in 1969 from the split with the IRA) was intended to paralyse the entire energy infrastructure of southern England through a bombing campaign, and the planners lived at 61 Lugard Road.

SCO19’s plan was to invade the terrorists’ dwelling house and arrest the six men. Great caution was required during the operation since it was not known how much explosive was to be found at the crime scene and in what form. Furthermore, there was no information available as to whether or not the house was being used as a storage depot for the explosives.

The concrete preparations for the operation were made on the night of 14 April. Fifty SCO19 members got ready to arrest the six Provisional IRA terrorists, glorified by their supporters as ‘The Army’. The SCO19 team was made up of an advance and intervention party, explosives experts, technicians and dog-handlers. For safety reasons, SCO19 intended to enter the house via the windows, as it seemed probable that the front door would have been booby-trapped. The bomb experts gave very important advice to their colleagues not to use dazzle grenades, because it was not known if any unconventional explosives were stored in the house and to what extent the house might be prepared for, and protected against, entry. The leadership team therefore decided to surprise the terrorists in the early hours with tear gas.

At 4.00 am on 15 April 1996, the members of SCO19, wearing full working dress with face-masks and armed with Glock pistols and shotguns, climbed the outer walls of the house at 61 Lugard Road and then smashed the double-glazed windows. After tear gas grenades had been tossed inside, the men of SCO19 headed for the bedrooms with flanking cover while the house was surrounded and the street sealed off and guarded.

The six IRA terrorists were still asleep when SCO19 broke in. When they woke to the noise, the tear gas was having its effect and they could hardly see for the irritation. The gas also affected the nasal passages and lungs. It was an easy task for the SCO19 men to arrest the six men. They were led away immediately for interrogation at Metropolitan Police HQ.

Together with the Bomb Squad, the unit’s bomb experts and the sniffer dogs combed through the whole house and cellars in search of any explosives which were to have blown up southern England, according to the IRA’s plans. In the cellar directly below the house, the special unit discovered thirty-seven large wooden boxes containing material for bomb manufacturing, including batteries, electrical wires and detonators.

The police searched in vain in 7,000 closed garages and similar places of storage in South London for the 133 kg of plastic explosive to be used to paralyze London’s supply of energy and electricity, but it was never found. Instead, the police came across around forty stolen cars and drugs amounting to an estimated value of £1 million.

The trial took place in June 1997 when one of the IRA leaders charged, 38-year-old Gerard Hanratty, explained that it had been impossible for the police to find any explosives because there were none. The IRA plan was to make bomb mock-ups using icing sugar which looked like plastic explosive when a light was shone through it. The idea was that the British authorities themselves would shut off the power so that their bomb experts could investigate the mock-ups thinking they had to be disarmed. Hanratty declared that the IRA had no reason to prejudice the peace talks with Northern Ireland that were being held at that time by setting off a massive bomb.

Hanratty’s defensive ploy was not sufficiently convincing, and at the end of the fifty-six-day trial, an aggregate sentence of 210 years’ imprisonment was handed down.

The Theft of the Millennium Dome Diamonds – 2000

It was to have been the world’s greatest-ever diamond robbery with a perfect plan and a well-rehearsed team. But it turned out to be the greatest operation of the British special unit SCO19.

In the 1990s, the British Government, under the leadership of Prime Minister John Major, had signed a contract for the building of the biggest dome in the world in London. It was to be called the ‘Millennium Dome’ and its purpose was to create a worthy monument to celebrate the next 1,000 years.

Thus a structure resembling a UFO, which remains one of the world’s largest domes, came to be built on the Greenwich Peninsula, a spit of land south-east of London on a bend in the River Thames, with the river on three sides. On 1 January 2000, the modern building was opened with the ‘Millennium Experience Exhibition’. In fourteen different zones, numerous high-range sponsors displayed their products.

For this special occasion, De Beers, the greatest diamond dealer and producer in the world, had had a glass wall made, behind which many large and small diamonds were to be displayed. This included the Millennium Star which, at 203.4 karats, was the second largest diamond in the world, with an estimated value of £200 million. The glass wall was the most costly security measure ever envisaged and could withstand being hit by a blow of 60 tons force.

In the late summer of 2000, Scotland Yard received a tip-off from an informant that a very well-organised gang of thieves was planning to rob the Millennium Dome. A year before, the police had frustrated two major robberies at Nine Elms in South London and another in Kent. Each time brute force had been used by the robbers. They were heavily armed and used lorries in which they transported Christmas trees fitted with iron parts for use as battering rams. The gang escaped using speed boats to cross the Thames. A little later police found a lorry from which they were able to identify the would-be robbers, and they kept the plot of land where they had made their find under surveillance. The CID discussed this gang in connection with the tip-off. One of their colleagues had visited the Millennium Dome recently and suggested, “Perhaps they are after the Millennium Star.” Since it was a possibility, the CID began its investigations there.

On 1 September 2000, Kent CID identified their three suspects as Lee Wenham, Raymond Betson and William Cockram. They were seen at the exhibition making videos of the display. It was immediately clear to detectives that the exhibition – and particularly the De Beers glass wall – was the main attraction and would be the gang’s next target. From then on the three suspects and the Millennium Dome were placed under 24-hour surveillance while the CID requested De Beers to replace the diamonds with worthless imitations.

During the surveillance of the suspects, the CID discovered a fourth accomplice; Terry Millman, who was responsible for obtaining the speedboat. When Cockram and Betson were seen filming the Thames and the boats travelling on it, the surveillance was intensified. The suspects were often seen by the CID touring the Millennium Dome and taking photographs and, at the end of September, they were also observed making a test run with a speedboat in a Kent harbour.

Soon after, the London CID discovered the date for the coup. The date in October was communicated to De Beers and the management of the Millennium Dome, but had to be postponed, however, when on the day in question the speedboat had engine trouble. The next date set was abandoned after the gang discovered that the tide at the planned hour would be too low for a fast getaway. The CID team were not idle during this time, and in view of the coup being imminent, as a precaution all Millennium Dome employees were replaced by armed undercover police officers. At the beginning of November, gang members were seen anchoring the speedboat at the chosen spot; an indication for the police that the robbery would soon be attempted. Furthermore, it was noted that the suspects were not only interested in the tides, but also the height of the water. The robbery of the century would have to take place when the tide and water level coincided with each other and were just right. The date would be 7 November 2000.

The CID operation was code-named Operation Magician and was led by Detective Superintendent Jon Shatford of the Metropolitan Police. Two hundred police officers were present in and around the Millennium Dome that day, including forty officers from special unit SCO19 and another sixty armed specialists from the Flying Squad, a branch of the Serious Organised Crime Command in the Metropolitan Police. Around twenty officers were positioned on the Thames to intervene should an attempt be made to escape across the river. Other officers were present in the Dome itself. The Dome control room had been taken over temporarily by the police as a tactical and strategic operations room.

The CID and SCO19 officers were briefed regarding the operation at 3.00 am on 7 November. Some of them posed as cleaners in the passageway that contained the imitation De Beers diamond collection behind the armoured glass wall, their arms hidden in cleaning buckets. Others were disguised as the Dome’s general staff. Each officer had a precise role, took up their place in a pre-determined position in the Dome, and observed. The team functioned perfectly, cooperating at every step and communicating the situation constantly through ear-microphones.

At 9.30 am the time was ripe for the greatest jewellery heist of all time. Four members of the gang, dressed in protective clothing and wearing gas masks, were aboard a JCB digger with smoke bombs, sledgehammer and nail guns. The digger was to break through the fence and doors into the Dome and penetrate towards the ‘money zone’ in which the De Beers collection was supposed to be located. The raiders threw smoke bombs to the ground ahead of themselves and spread an ammonia solution.

It was William Cockram’s job to fire at the glass wall with a Hilti nail pistol, after which his accomplice Robert Adams would use the hammer to smash the glass and steal the diamonds. They didn’t get this far as members of SCO19 surrounded the gang in the vault. “The game is over, gentlemen. Come up at once and surrender,” an SCO19 officer called out.

The four robbers were astonished to be confronted by twenty men dressed in dark blue overalls wearing protective helmets and carrying rifles. Within a few seconds they accepted the situation and gave in without resistance, laying on the ground covered by the armed officers. “Well, you reckoned without us, didn’t you?” a member of SCO19 said to the robbers. Robert Adams could not help saying, “I was only 12 inches away from payday. That would have been a very happy Christmas.”

“Hard luck, old man,” came the reply.

SCO19 arrested the four men and brought them away from the Millennium Dome. Two other accomplices were arrested, one aboard the getaway speedboat on the Thames and the other in a car waiting on the north side of the river listening to the police frequency. Terry Millman was stopped in his van and also brought in for questioning with the others. The Dome was re-opened to the public at midday. As a result of statements made by the men in custody, a further six accomplices aged between 38 and 62 were arrested in the small town of Collier Street, Kent, and at Horsmonden.

Liz Lynch, spokesperson for De Beers, later stated that the diamonds had been substituted by fakes made of crystal after the CID notified the owners of the intended robbery. She said it would have been very difficult to sell the real diamonds because the international diamond market was small, easily monitored and everybody knew everybody else. The jewels had the value of the Mona Lisa or a Van Gogh and nobody would have bought them, for the collection was beyond price.1

The Kidnapping of Victoria Beckham – 2002

It happened in the year when the British singer Victoria Beckham, former Spice Girl and better known under the name ‘Posh Spice’, signed her £1.5-million contract with Telstar Records in order to give her solo career a boost. 2002 was to have been a super year. She was working feverishly on her latest single Let Your Head Go/This Groove while her husband, footballer David Beckham, had his best season with Manchester United, scoring sixteen goals in forty-eight matches.

Following the death of Princess Diana, the married couple rose to be the most-photographed personalities in Great Britain. Their every step was followed by a host of paparazzi. The more successful they became, the more journalists wanted to know about them and finally followed them across the whole country. The two superstars had almost no free time to themselves. They hired two bodyguards, but continued to be pursued by the British media. They often received death threats and were constantly beset by admirers.

At the end of October 2002, Mazher Mahmood, investigative reporter for the tabloid newspaper News of the World, received a tip-off that a criminal gang from Eastern Europe was planning to kidnap a prominent British woman and her children. Mahmood, who researched under the cover name Sheikh Mahmood, had been behind the prosecution of around 100 arms and drug dealers, paedophiles and killers. He put his team of reporters on the story and also informed Scotland Yard. He was known to work closely with the police. It was agreed with his co-workers that they should pose as crooks in order to infiltrate the Eastern European criminal gang. This required a certain amount of preparation.

The reporters created fictitious personal histories in which they featured as criminals. In these histories, a man was mentioned serving a life sentence at Manchester high security prison who would serve as a reference. This prisoner, a contact of The News of the World, was in on the secret and in the case of an enquiry by the criminal gang he was to confirm the information requested. One of the reporters was alleged to be an experienced driver of getaway cars, while another reporter was said to be ‘a wealthy crook’.

Mazher Mahmood had been informed that a member of the criminal gang always carried a gun.

Therefore, any meeting with the gang might end in disaster for his colleagues. He told them of the danger and warned them emphatically to be watchful in the presence of the kidnappers and not allow the slightest suspicion to arise as to their true identities.

The gang consisted of two groups: four men and one woman from Romania, and three men with one woman from Albania. The ‘wealthy crook’ reporters met with the gang leaders, Albanian Luli Azem Krifsha and Romanian Jay Sorin, several times to discuss details of the kidnappings. It was immediately clear that these men were very serious about abducting the ex-Spice Girl: “We shall bring Victoria and her two sons, Brooklyn and Romeo, to a safe house in Brixton and wait there until the money arrives in our overseas account,” Luli Krifsha stated. Jay Sorin briefed the infiltrated reporters: “If the children are with you that will be much better, as then we can ask for £5 million immediately from the husband. He must pay the full amount and if he doesn’t, then he will never see his family again and Victoria will die.”

At these conspiratorial conferences the question repeatedly arose as to how far the gang wanted to go with the abduction. The difficult thing, so they said, was not kidnapping Victoria Beckham, but getting the ransom into their bank account. “What I don’t understand is why she has such poor security. One of my friends works for her hairdresser and he told me that she only has one bodyguard standing outside.” The plan was to ambush her as she was returning to her parking place after leaving the hairdressers, and to use a special chloroform spray they had bought in Italy which worked in three seconds. This was explained by Luli Krifsha to the others.

At a subsequent meeting with the kidnappers at the end of October, the Beckham’s house and its surroundings at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire were closely reconnoitered. This study was part of months-long surveillance of the couple. “We only have three seconds before she understands what’s happening,” Jay Sorin whispered to the others. A few days later the six men met again at a restaurant in Wandsworth, south-west London. “I’m going to relieve Beckham of £5 million, which is the same to him as paying fifty pence for a coffe...