Death Before Dishonour - True Stories of The Special Forces Heroes Who Fight Global Terror

by Nicholas Davies

  The defenders were taken completely by surprise because they believed the Soviet paratroopers falling out of the sky above Kabul were friendly forces on an operation. They were unprepared for the ferocious onslaught that began as soon as the leading company of paratroopers landed in the palace grounds. The Soviet paras were taking no prisoners and the Afghan forces who stood their ground and fought back were wiped out within a couple of hours.

  Only when the ground was secure did the Spetsnaz, under the command of Colonel Boyarinov, Commander of the KGB sabotage school at Balashika, move in for the attack on the palace itself. The three hundred-strong Spetsnaz assault force, which included officers of GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence, met strong resistance.

  Boyarinov gave orders to the Spetsnaz that every single person in the palace, including President Amin, had to be liquidated. His instructions were that no one should be permitted to survive to tell the world what really happened that day. The KGB’s plan was that the world would be told that the President had died as a result of a palace revolution and that the Soviet Special Forces had arrived too late to save the lives of the President and his advisers.

  But Amin’s personal bodyguard of trusted loyal fighters proved no pushover. They realised what was happening as soon as the Soviet paratroopers began landing in the palace grounds, for they knew there was no planned exercise. When shooting began a few minutes later they were in no doubt that this was a planned attack on the President.

  But the two hours it took for the Soviet paratroopers to secure the grounds and kill or drive off the defenders gave those inside the palace time to throw up barricades, arm everyone in the palace capable of firing a rifle, stack ammunition in rooms surrounding the President’s office and prepare for the attack.

  The crack Spetsnaz force directed flame-throwers at the main doors in a bid to scare the defenders into throwing down their arms. One or two non-combatants did come out with their arms raised, only to be cut down by automatic fire as soon as they were sighted by the Spetsnaz forces. This initial shoot-to-kill order was noted by the defenders inside the palace, who now realised that the battle would be a fight to the death, and so they fought with incredible defiance and courage. The Spetsnaz forces knew the layout of the whole palace, but they had no idea there would be some fifty well-armed, highly disciplined tribal fighters prepared to lose their lives in defence of the President.

  As the Spetsnaz forces smashed through the fire-damaged main door they were met by a torrent of automatic fire which drove them back and left some ten of their number dead on the palace floor. They changed tactics, racing around the building, throwing grenades through windows in an effort to confuse the defenders as to where the next assault would come.

  During the next frontal assault some Spetsnaz soldiers succeeded in gaining access to not only the main hall but also one of the rooms. This enabled them to bring in more troops, so that the defenders were now having to fight on two fronts. Even so, the Spetsnaz found themselves pinned down, unable to press further into the palace. Every time they tried to gain access to another room they were met with a fusillade of automatic fire, making progress impossible.

  When the Spetsnaz brought up rocket grenades in addition to the flame-throwers, the defenders withdrew to the first-floor rooms where President Amin and his advisers had been placed for their own protection. The President and his close circle were now totally surrounded, with all phone links cut by the attackers.

  But the President’s loyal fighters were determined not to surrender and to kill as many Soviets as possible. As more Spetsnaz forces gained entry to the ground floor the defenders on the landing above kept up a barrage of automatic fire, making it impossible for the attackers to climb the stairs. Every onslaught by the Spetsnaz forces was beaten back and their casualties began to mount. The rocket grenades and flame-throwers, the second a favourite among Soviet forces for clearing houses, seemed not to be having the usual effect.

  Indeed the tribal fighters, armed with their new AK47s, began to pin down the Soviet troops inside the downstairs rooms. Their wide field of fire made it impossible for the Spetsnaz troops to break out of the rooms without taking serious casualties. And then the Spetsnaz attack seemed to falter and the blaze of gunfire became more like a trickle. The Spetsnaz were running out of ammunition.

  It seemed that the Soviet planners had seriously miscalculated the number of loyalist defenders and the amount of ammunition President Amin had stored in the palace for just such an eventuality. The miscalculation was to cost the lives of many Spetsnaz troops, who by now could only try to hold their positions and prevent the tribal fighters from launching an attack on their precarious positions on the ground floor.

  The Soviet airborne forces were still holding the palace grounds, but they had handed over all their spare ammunition to the Spetsnaz troops. It seemed that a stalemate had developed inside the palace and so Boyarinov decided the only way to break down the President’s defences was to bring in more Soviet troops and artillery to surround the palace and destroy the entire building and its occupants with heavy artillery fire.

  Boyarinov took an opportunity during a lull in the fighting to race out of the main door of the palace. He had not reached the bottom of the steps before he was shot dead by machine-gun fire from his own forces. He had forgotten the strict orders he had given personally to the airborne troops – to kill anyone they saw leaving the palace building.

  More ammunition, and many more rocket grenades and hand grenades, did arrive for the Spetsnaz forces and, with assistance from the paratroopers, they began to inflict serious losses on the defenders. The tribal fighters withdrew to the rooms immediately surrounding President Amin and his advisers as they sustained more casualties, and eventually they too began to run out of ammunition. The end was fast approaching but some half-dozen fighters made one last attempt to turn the tide. Armed with sub-machine guns and full magazines, they raced, screaming, down the central stairs, blasting away at the Soviets in the reception area below. Several Spetsnaz troops were killed and wounded in the ferocious attack but it was to no avail. The handful of brave tribal fighters were all killed.

  It was only then that the Spetsnaz forces began in earnest to move from room to room, searching for any defenders. Before entering each room they would throw in a couple of grenades, wait for any sound and then rush in, sub-machine guns firing. There was never any intention of arresting or detaining anyone found on the premises. Every single person they came across, man, woman or child, was gunned down in an appalling orgy of killing. In this way the Spetsnaz went through the entire palace until not a single person was left alive.

  When the Soviet troops entered the room where President Amin and his advisers were sheltering there was apparently no discussion and no questions were asked. The President and the seven men with him were simply gunned down, their bodies riddled with scores of bullets. Now the Soviet Union had almost total control of Afghanistan. But it would not last.

  Soviet troops began to target the warlords and their tribesmen with increasing ferocity as the KGB tried in vain to wrest control of the opium trade from the thousands of peasants who grew the poppies in both small patches and large areas of land wherever the seeds would flourish. But the peasant farmers, backed by the local tribesmen and their warlords, had no intention of letting their harvest be stolen by the Soviet forces.

  The KGB’s plan was to subdue great swathes of the rugged countryside with force of arms and a continued military presence. There was no attempt to win the hearts and minds of the local population and, as a result, the Soviet troops quickly became a hated and despised army of occupation. And then the warlords, supported by America’s Central Intelligence Agency, which saw a chance to humiliate the Soviet Union, went on the offensive.

  It was during the following seven years that the CIA encouraged, funded and gave arms and ammunition to all those Afghanis prepared to take up arms against the Soviet troops. The CIA threw its support behind the Muslim cle
rics of the Taliban and their political leaders, who seemed to be growing in power and influence. Indeed the Taliban leaders had stepped into the political vacuum caused by the overthrow of President Amin and his cabinet and slowly they became the centre of anti-Soviet activity. At one time during the middle 1980s, secret CIA flights were bringing in arms and ammunition to Taliban guerrillas three times a week. And, much to the CIA’s delight, the Taliban were knocking hell out of the dispirited Soviet forces.

  Throughout the 1980s the Soviet forces, mostly conscripts with no appetite for war in such a cold climate, found themselves facing a continuous guerrilla war being waged by tribesmen with far greater knowledge of the inhospitable terrain and a fierce determination to drive them out of the country. A total of fifteen thousand Soviet troops were sent home in body bags throughout an eight-year war in which the Soviet forces had been seen as brutal, cowardly and ineffective. Shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev became President of the Russian Republic, following the collapse of communism, he began talks to extricate the Soviet forces from Afghanistan. He signed a peace accord and by 1989 all Soviet forces had been withdrawn, leaving the devoutly Muslim Taliban authorities in complete control of most of the country.

  There was rejoicing throughout Afghanistan, but not for long. The strict mullahs were intent on turning the country into a model Muslim nation, living under strict Sharia law, which calls for the flogging of a woman for committing adultery or even revealing an ankle, and the amputation of a man’s hand for theft, a leg for robbery with violence. These laws were not received well by the Afghani tribesmen, who had always lived a more free and easy life. The Taliban also decreed that the growing of poppies was prohibited by Sharia law. Penalties for growing the crop and harvesting the opium included flogging, amputation and death. At a stroke the Taliban had taken away the peasant tribes’ main source of revenue.

  In an epilogue to this salutary story of the disastrous Soviet campaign in Afghanistan, the United States forces arrived in the country towards the end of 2002, intent on rooting out and killing those responsible for the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, in which some three thousand innocent people were killed. The United States sent its Special Forces in the vanguard, backed by an alliance of Special Forces from Britain, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. In fulfilment of the political element of the allies’ plans, the Taliban were removed and, overseen by the West, Afghanistan is presently emerging as a fledgling democracy. But it is too early to evaluate the success of the massive counter-terrorist mission initiated by the United States, which, by some estimates, could last for years. There is, however, no doubt that the role played by the Special Forces will be crucial.

  CHAPTER 12

  SPECIAL FORCES TRAINING

  AN IMPORTANT FACT about Special Forces personnel throughout the world is that, without exception, they are all volunteers. This immediately marks them out as remarkable and daring young men who have a deep love of adventure but who also display the determination, courage and discipline which are the making of a first-class soldier.

  Once a young man has taken that all-important decision to volunteer, the hard part follows almost immediately. From the moment he arrives at the Special Forces camp for training he quickly learns that this will entail tough discipline, shattering physical exercises and nerve-racking problems. But the volunteer will also discover an amazing esprit de corps, the remarkable extent of his own capabilities and a rightful pride in his own achievements.

  He will not have realised that he was accepted for training by reason of the fact that the officers and NCOs who interviewed him saw that he was a man of maturity, common sense, and ambition but also someone with intelligence and a sense of humour. All five qualities are essential if the volunteer is to make the grade as a Special Forces soldier. Without just one of them he would not be able to play a full role in an elite fighting force.

  Those in charge of recruiting are also looking for a characteristic which is not as immediately visible. When volunteers are being put through their paces before selection the recruiting personnel – all experienced Special Forces soldiers – are looking at a volunteer’s ‘attitude’. The volunteer must have the character to accept the toughest training schedules and to learn things about himself from the experience. It means finding reserves of energy and determination when he is on the point of exhaustion; never complaining, whatever the appalling circumstances he finds himself; and having the ability to smile and laugh at himself at the end of an horrendous exercise.

  The training of most Special Forces volunteers the world over is much the same. All will have been given some three months’ basic training with other military units. During this the recruit gets fit, learns to drill and obey orders, as well as receiving basic weapons training in grenades, rifles, sub and light machine guns and sometimes mortars and anti-tank weapons. He also learns basic field skills.

  And then he volunteers to join Special Forces and life takes on a very much tougher hue.

  Some of the world’s Special Forces units organise pre-recruit training, where the volunteers can sample the life they will lead if they complete their training. This gives those who will be training them a chance to weed out any young men who they believe not to be the right type of person for their specialist unit or who might not fit in with the spirit of the training school. It is during this pre-recruit training that a volunteer’s sense of humour can be judged. Those who have a distinct deficit in this area are often failed at this stage of recruitment but are not usually given the reasons. Most volunteers who don’t make the grade seem to know instinctively that they will fail, and sometimes they know the reasons too.

  The selection of volunteers for the famed 22nd Regiment, Special Air Service, is a prolonged business which tests the would-be recruits in many different ways. Volunteers for 22 SAS are split into groups of twenty and they begin with ten days’ fitness training, hard runs and lots of press-ups. They are then bussed to the Brecon Beacons, in Wales, for ten days of map reading and long, hard cross-country marches which end in a muscle-wrenching forty-mile endurance march that must be completed in twenty hours. Each volunteer carries a fifty-five-pound Bergen rucksack and a rifle. Those who don’t make the finishing line in twenty hours are RTU’d – returned to their unit – immediately.

  Two methods of discovering the faint-hearted recruit are often employed by the senior NCOs, both of which some recruits see as below-the-belt tactics. One is the offer of food from an army Land Rover towards the end of a gruelling hard march. If the hungry recruit even looks like accepting food he is immediately RTU’d. The other ploy is to tell recruits at the end of a long march with full pack that there is still another five miles to go. Anyone who as much as groans at the news meets the same fate. Of course, there are always some who reach the decision that the SAS is not for them, and they may leave at any stage.

  After this introduction the volunteers are launched into a fourteen-week intensive training course, but throughout this time they can still be sent back to their unit at any time if those in command believe they won’t make the grade. Those who pass this phase then take the British Army’s parachute course. Success here leads to combat survival training, which includes surviving interrogation and methods of escape. Only after passing this stage is the volunteer a fully-fledged member of the SAS and entitled to wear the famous sand-coloured beret and the SAS cap badge with its winged dagger and motto ‘Who Dares Wins’.

  But that is not the end of the affair.

  The new member must now learn more skills, including field medical care, various languages, Morse code, pistol shooting and the use of explosives. At the same time he will become skilled in climbing, long-range overland navigation in Land Rovers, free-fall parachuting and boat work. Only after he has passed in all these disciplines will he be capable of taking his part in any SAS operations. The training will have taken two long, hard years of application, discipline and physical endurance. But the look of p
ride on the faces of all those who pass the test to join 22 SAS shows why the men put themselves through such a living hell.

  Despite the vigorous selection procedure and the care taken to select only those who the recruiters believe will make the grade, the failure rate is still remarkably high. Most Special Forces training units demand the same basic high pass mark because they understand what will be demanded of the volunteer when he enters service with the unit and, as a result, between seventy and eighty per cent fail at some stage during the training process.

  There is, of course, no punishment for failing the training and being returned to one’s unit. However, those three letters, RTU, represent a most unwelcome outcome for any Special Forces volunteer. For they instil in him a feeling of deep humiliation, a realisation that he is not one of the select few whom he was dying to join, an understanding that he is a reject among those he admired and wished to emulate, and failure is often followed by a deep depression that can last weeks or months. Indeed some failed volunteers have gone on record as saying that being RTU’d from Special Forces training was the worst moment in their lives, an experience they have never been able to forget. Some go so far as to admit that their basic ambition to achieve something in life in which they could take pride has been stripped from their psyche.

  Once accepted into the SAS the recruit will concentrate on one of four specialist troops – the Boat Troop, Mountain Troop, Mobility Troop or Free Fall Troop. This means that the SAS can meet the demands of Special Forces operations in any terrain in the world. The specialisation also means that each troop contains individual specialists, radio men, first-aid and medical orderlies, snipers, signallers and linguists, the last of whom who may be proficient in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and Malay.