However, further seconds were lost because the stairways were barricaded shut, requiring more explosives before the SEALs could move upwards. All these hold-ups were allowing whoever was on the next floor to prepare their welcome, and the SEALs were not to be disappointed.
As they made their way to the first floor in total darkness, a figure suddenly darted behind a bannister, armed with an AK-47. Intelligence had suggested this could be Khalid, bin Laden’s son. A brief standoff ensued before a SEAL uttered the words, ‘Khalid, come here.’ Confused by this, Khalid glimpsed around the bannister only for the SEAL to shoot him in the head. A quick inspection confirmed that the dead man was indeed Khalid bin Laden. This only increased confidence that his father wouldn’t be too far away.
Progressing quickly to the third floor, clearing all the rooms, the team found two women hiding behind curtains. This was no time for niceties. For all the SEALs knew, they could have been wearing suicide vests. Acting quickly, the point man dragged them to the floor, intending to take the blast himself. Thankfully, they were unarmed. Robert O’Neill, now turned to a room and saw Osama bin Laden before him. He describes the moment in his book:
Osama bin Laden stood near the entrance at the foot of the bed, taller and thinner than I’d expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter. But it was the guy whose face I’d seen 10,000, 100,000 times. He had a woman in front of him, his hands on her shoulders. In less than a second, I aimed above the woman’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice. Bin Laden’s head split open, and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance.
Word soon reached Admiral McRaven via radio: ‘For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo, EKIA [Enemy Killed in Action].’ Following the crash-landing, the mission had been accomplished in just fifteen minutes. Watching a live stream of the raid in the White House Situation Room, President Obama smiled, ‘We got him.’ But the SEALs still needed to get out alive.
Before they left the compound, the SEALs quickly tried to grab as much evidence as possible, with computer hard drives particularly important. As they seized what they could, they also found a huge amount of opium and a sprinkling of pornographic magazines. While they left some of this behind, they made sure to take with them the most important evidence of all – bin Laden’s body.
They now had to move quickly. A neighbour had witnessed the raid and was proceeding to upload the latest developments to his Twitter account. Surely the Pakistani military would soon be on the case. The last thing the SEALs needed now was to engage with supposed allies.
Having taking photos of bin Laden’s body, the SEALs put him in a body bag and carried it outside. Yet, before they could leave, they had to blow up the Black Hawk that had crash-landed, so as not to allow such state-of-the-art technology to fall into the hands of the Pakistani military.
Bounding inside a waiting Chinook helicopter, they were soon rising above Abbottabad and heading back to Afghanistan. Despite the success of the mission, it was another tense ninety minutes on the return flight to Bagram. The Pakistani military was by now well aware of the operation within its borders and the Chinook was not a stealth bird. It could be tracked on all radars and wouldn’t be difficult to intercept or shoot down. Thankfully, the team made it back to base without further incident.
Once bin Laden’s body had been inspected by experts, McRaven confirmed to President Obama that the mission had been accomplished, with no SEAL casualties. In front of the world’s media, President Obama then said the words the nation had been waiting ten long years to hear:
Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children.
For the United States, bin Laden’s death finally symbolised some form of justice and retribution. And if SEAL Team Six had been shrouded in secrecy before the raid, it was now on the lips of everyone in the world, ensuring it would become the standard-bearer of elite military units for the current generation.
26
THE FUTURE
Although elite special forces continue to shape the world in which we live their roles have somewhat altered in recent years. There are of course situations that will always require specially trained soldiers putting their boots on the ground. However, nowadays, situations that once required such interventions seem increasingly to be dealt with at arm’s length.
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there has been a considerable rise in so-called ‘professional security companies’ (PSCs). This is just a fancy name for mercenaries who are governed by certain rules and regulations, such as only to engage with the enemy if fired upon first. With the aid of huge government contracts, and wealthy owners, companies such as Blackwater have managed to hoover up many of the world’s elite soldiers, provide them with the very best equipment, then offer them to the highest bidder. Such companies are of course very attractive to governments in this day and age, who can now access the best soldiers in the world, for a price.
Moreover, while they don’t have to employ these elite soldiers for any long period of time, thus cutting down on costs, they can also engage them on ‘unofficial missions’. If anything should go wrong, they can plead ignorance. As was the case in Iraq, governments also don’t have to include any PSC deaths in their official casualty lists, making going to war apparently more palatable to their citizens. As such, PSCs can often do a government’s dirty work for them, with the public none the wiser.
However, there have been occasions when this has backfired, most notably in Nisour Square, Baghdad, when in 2007 Blackwater soldiers allegedly opened fire on Iraqi civilians, killing seventeen and injuring twenty. Law suits regarding this incident are still ongoing but it was an affair that caused the US government immense embarrassment and proved that employing PSCs might not always be the best solution. Indeed, there are also questions to be asked about certain individuals having such elite private armies at their disposal.
Such has been the advancement in technology in recent years that hand-to-hand combat, or clandestine missions, often don’t need boots on the ground at all. Rather than highly trained pilots dropping bombs on enemy countries, as the Luftwaffe did in the Battle of Britain, unmanned drones now do so, controlled from the safety of an air-conditioned office. For instance, US drones have frequently bombed the Middle East in recent years, their pilots controlling them from a facility in the Nevada desert. Although the drones might be shot down, the pilots are now safe and sound, almost reducing warfare to a kind of computer game.
While the likes of Subotai and the Mongol Kheshig had to go on incredible reconnaissance missions to source information on a target, much of this work can now be done by computer hackers. With almost everything kept on computer, governments all over the world engage in cyberwarfare, frequently trying to access each other’s secret files, or infect them, without the risk of sending men behind enemy lines. With this, they can also target electricity grids, water networks, financial systems and even hospitals, potentially bringing a country to its knees without a shot being fired.
Spies are of course still in operation but a large part of their role no longer requires face-to-face contact, as most of what they are looking for is online. Intelligence agencies have become particularly adept at sourcing what they need, using programs such as PRISM, which as Edward Snowden, a former agent of the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed monitors everything on the internet. Thus the US is able to obtain virtually any information it desires if it is kept online. Moreover, the job of spying is far easier for agencies than it used to be. With most targets now storing confidential information on their computers or phones, these can be easily hacked, not only allowing the withdrawal of any information but also the tracking of the user. After all, it was by tracking the mobile phone of bin Laden’s courier that the CIA were able to pinpoint the terrorist’s Abbottabad compound.
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It has also been shown that government agencies are able to listen to conversations in homes by hacking into the microphones on items such as televisions. In 2017, Wikileaks claimed that the CIA had used a virus known as ‘Weeping Angel’ to access Samsung televisions for this very purpose. In 2018, Wired magazine also proved that smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo, which are known to store all conversations they record, can also be easily hacked by spy agencies if they so wished. The days of sneaking into a target’s home or office and planting bugging devices appear to be over. It seems we now unwittingly do the job for the spy agencies, and pay for the privilege.
In this day and age, many individuals also seem quite happy to put what was once private all over their social media profiles, making it especially easy for agencies to gather information. In 2013, Vice magazine revealed that the defence firm Raytheon had developed a computer program called ‘Riot’, which collated social media ‘check-ins’ to track a target’s movement over Google Maps. It could also collate social networking activity to see who a target was friends with, and what they spent their time doing. An algorithm would then add all of this information together to predict the behaviour of the target.
Rather than overthrowing governments through assassinating leaders, as the Praetorians had once done, all that seems to be required these days is a social media account. It is alleged that Russia influenced the 2016 US presidential election in favour of Donald Trump by utilising thousands of Twitter bots, and phony Facebook pages, to spread pro-Trump propaganda. In her book Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President – What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know, Kathleen Hall Jamieson states that material generated by the Kremlin had reached 126 million American Facebook users. Moreover, during the election, Wikileaks also published emails that had been hacked from the Democrat servers and were said to be prejudicial to Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton. Many believe that these two things in tandem helped swing the election Donald Trump’s way, and, in some people’s minds, Russia’s way.
Bots spreading propaganda continues to be a major issue on social media. In October 2017 alone, Twitter published more than 10 million tweets by around 4,600 Russian and Iranian-linked propaganda accounts. A 2018 investigation by the Daily Telegraph revealed that hundreds of Russian workers man these accounts from a modern four-storey office block in St Petersburg, as part of an ongoing disinformation campaign designed to fray the fabric of western society. It seems social media trolls are the new elite special forces in some circles. In 2018, Facebook tried to address this issue by deleting 583 million fake accounts. This huge number only serves to emphasise the problem we face.
Even as I write this, an AP investigation has apparently revealed that Russian spies have been generating photographs of fake faces to gather information on social media sites, such as LinkedIn. The users’ profile pictures are actually eerily realistic faces that have been generated by a computer. It is alleged that one of those who accepted a friend request from a fake Russian account like this was economist Paul Winfree, a former adviser to Donald Trump, who is currently being considered for a seat on the Federal Reserve. China has also been accused of conducting ‘mass scale’ spying on LinkedIn, with agents sending friend requests to thousands of targets.
While the likes of the Brandenburgers had to go behind enemy lines on hazardous missions, pretending to be the enemy, the rise of artificial intelligence and ‘deepfakes’ might also render such missions obsolete. This software can perfectly replicate an individual’s looks and voice, which can then be used for purposes of impersonation. In May 2019, a video of Donald Trump appeared, apparently offering advice to the people of Belgium on the issue of climate change. The video caused outrage, until it was revealed that the speech was a high-tech forgery. With it being almost impossible to tell the difference between the deepfake and the real thing, this technology could have huge consequences, as we may never know whether news is real or fake.
Even if future conflicts do require elite soldiers to put their boots on the ground, there is no guarantee they will be human. In 2018, a Ministry of Defence report titled ‘The Future Starts Today’ stated: ‘While it is envisaged that humans will continue to be central to the decision-making process, conflicts fought increasingly by robots or autonomous systems could change the very nature of warfare, as there will be less emphasis on emotions, passion and chance.’
Governments have long held ambitions to build robot militaries but until recently it has been the stuff of science fiction. However, in 2018 it was announced that the Pentagon was spending $1 billion on robots to complement combat troops. Indeed, some experts believe that by 2025 the US military will have more combat robots than human soldiers. Russia has also claimed that it hopes to introduce robots to its armed forces as early as this year. It appears that robot soldiers will be with us sooner rather than later.
However, if elite human soldiers are still required, it might be in space rather than on earth. In February 2019, President Trump signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military, to go along with the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Its main goal is to secure and extend American dominance in space. This is truly the next frontier for elite special forces.
Whatever the future holds, I am certain that, in some capacity, the military will always require a specially trained team of elite human beings, who, with all of their guts and perseverance, are capable of staring danger in the face and pulling off the impossible. For, if men like my father can transfer from horse to tank, then I’m sure that today’s elite forces can also make the jump, going on to change the world and thrilling us with their escapades in the process.
PHOTOGRAPHS
1. My father, affectionately known as ‘Colonel Lugs’, alongside his fellow Royal Scots Greys following a famous victory at Alamein in 1942.
2. A portrait of my father shortly before he died in 1943. We were never to meet, but I always wanted to follow in his footsteps.
3. With my special force of Omanis, Baluchis and Zanzibaris and one of our specially equipped patrol vehicles, during the Dhofar Campaign.
4. The famed Panzer commander Erwin Rommel, also known as ‘Desert Fox’, finalising battle plans with his men.
5. Historical knowledge of the Immortals is somewhat limited, save for contemporary depictions such as this, showing them with spears and counterbalances.
6. While renowned warriors, it was the Immortals’ cunning that allowed them to take the town of Babylon in 539 BC.
7. The infamous Spartan phalanx, which frustrated the superior Persian forces at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
8. Pelopidas leading the Theban forces at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC.
9. A fragment from the Alexander Mosaic (c. 100 BC) depicting Alexander the Great in battle against the Persians.
10. Discovered in Lebanon in 1887, the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great may not contain his remains. It depicts the Macedonian leader during the Battle of Issus in 333 BC.
11. A Victorian engraving of a frieze of the Praetorian Guard of ancient Rome.
12. While the Praetorian Guard were meant to protect the Roman emperor, they have become a byword for treachery due to their many attempts to seize power.
13. Flocking to Europe from Scandinavia, the Varangians, with famed horn helmets and axes, defended and furthered the Byzantine Empire with ferocity and cunning.
14. The Knights Templar and Hospitallers helping to end the Siege of Acre in 1191.
15. The Hospitallers’ origins might have been charitable, but they evolved to become fearsome warriors during the Crusades.
16. The great Muslim warrior Saladin leading his Ayyubid forces to victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Pope Urban III died of shock upon hearing of the Crusaders’ defeat.
17. From humble beginnings, Genghis Khan would found the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
18. In 1221, Subotai led the Mongol Kheshig on one of the most remarkable reconnaissance missions in history, paving the way for the Mongols’ invasion of Europe.
19. From being captured as a slave, Baibars rose to become sultan of the Mamluk Empire, becoming known as the ‘Lion of Egypt’.
20. Their intense training in Cairo meant the Mamluks were renowned for their ability to wield weapons while riding their horses at high speed.
21. The Janissaries sporting their börk hats, which had a holding place in front for a spoon. This symbolised the so-called ‘brotherhood of the spoon’, which reflected a sense of comradeship among the Janissaries, who ate, slept, fought and died together.
22. Seen with their arquebusiers, the Janissaries were among the first armies to utilise gunpowder to great effect.
23. A mercenary army, the Landsknechts were renowned for their infamous pike block formation, aided by a wall of arquebusiers.
24. Georg von Frundsberg was known as the father of the Landsknechts. It was said he was capable of raising 20,000 men in a matter of weeks.
25. The Ninja of Iga played a vital role in ushering in the 265-year shogun dynasty, thanks to their ability to wage unconventional warfare.
26. Oliver Cromwell had no battle experience before the English Civil War erupted in 1642. A brilliant commander, he helped found the New Model Army, leading the Parliamentarian Roundheads to victory.
27. The New Model Army’s newfound professionalism helped Parliament record a decisive victory at the Battle of Naseby in 1645.
The Elite Page 33