Operation Barras was a British Army operation that took place in Sierra Leone on 10 September 2000, during the late stages of the Sierra Leone Civil War. The operation aimed to release six British soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment and their Sierra Leone Army (SLA) liaison officer, who were being held by a militia group known as the "West Side Boys". The soldiers were part of a patrol that was returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at Masiaka on 25 August 2000 when they turned off the main road and down a track towards the village of Magbeni. There the patrol of twelve men was overwhelmed by a large number of heavily armed rebels, taken prisoner, and transported to Gberi Bana on the opposite side of Rokel Creek.
Negotiators secured the release of five of the soldiers, but were unable to gain the freedom of the remaining six and their SLA liaison officer before the West Side Boys' demands became increasingly unrealistic. Negotiators concluded that these were delaying tactics rather than an effort to resolve the crisis. By 9 September, the soldiers had been held for more than two weeks. Fearing that the soldiers would be killed or moved to a location from which it would be more difficult to extract them, the British government authorised an assault on the West Side Boys' base, to take place at dawn the following day, 10 September.
The ground operation was conducted by D Squadron, 22 Regiment Special Air Service, reinforced with a Troop from C Squadron, Special Boat Service—who assaulted Gberi Bana in a bid to extract the Royal Irish—and elements of 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 PARA), who launched a diversionary assault on Magbeni. The operation freed the six soldiers and their SLA liaison officer, as well as twenty-one Sierra Leonean civilians who had been held prisoner by the West Side Boys. At least twenty-five West Side Boys were killed in the assault, as was one British soldier, while eighteen West Side Boys—including the gang's leader, Foday Kallay—were taken prisoner and later transferred to the custody of the Sierra Leone Police. Many West Side Boys fled the area during the assault, and over 300 surrendered to UNAMSIL forces within two weeks.
The operation restored confidence in the British forces operating in Sierra Leone, which had been undermined by the capture of the Royal Irish patrol. After the operation, the British government increased its support of UNAMSIL and its efforts to bring the civil war to an end, both politically, through the United Nations Security Council, and through the provision of staff officers to support UNAMSIL. The successful use of 1 PARA in Operation Barras influenced the creation of the Special Forces Support Group—a permanent unit, initially built around 1 PARA, whose role is to act as a force multiplier for British special forces on large or complex operations.
Background
Sierra Leone is a former British colony in West Africa, close to the equator, with an area of 71,740 square kilometres (27,700 square miles)—similar in size to South Carolina or Scotland, and a population of eight million. By 2000, the country had been consumed by a civil war which had begun in 1991. The West Side Boys were a militia group who had been involved in the civil war. They were initially loyal to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the rebel army opposing the government; they later fought for the government, against the RUF, and were involved in at least one operation directed by British officers in exchange for weapons and medical supplies. But the West Side Boys refused to integrate into the reconstituted Sierra Leone Army and began operating as bandits from the abandoned villages of Magbeni and Gberi Bana, on opposite sides of Rokel Creek in the Port Loko District.
British forces were deployed to Sierra Leone in May 2000, initially for a non-combatant evacuation operation under the codename Operation Palliser, in which they were tasked with evacuating foreign nationals—particularly those from the United Kingdom, other Commonwealth countries, and others for whom the British government had accepted consular responsibility. As part of the mission, British forces secured Sierra Leone's main airport, Lungi. Having secured Freetown and Lungi, and evacuated the foreign nationals who wished to leave, the initial forces left and were replaced by a "Short Term Training Team" (STTT), whose mission was to train and rebuild the Sierra Leone Army. The STTT was initially formed from a detachment from 2nd Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment, who were replaced in July 2000 by 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment (1 R IRISH).
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a corps of the British Army and part of the United Kingdom's special forces. It consists of three regiments, of which two are drawn from the Territorial Army and one regular regiment—22 Regiment, which was involved in Operation Barras. The SAS was formed by Colonel David Stirling in Africa in 1941, at the height of the Second World War's North African Campaign. Its original role was to penetrate enemy lines and strike at airfields and supply lines deep in enemy territory, first in North Africa and later around the Mediterranean and in occupied Europe. Stirling established the principle of using small teams—having realised that small, well-trained teams could sometimes prove much more effective than a unit of hundreds of soldiers. The SAS first entered the public eye after Operation Nimrod, the operation to end the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980.
The 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 PARA) is part of the British Army's infantry and, as in the SAS, applicants must undergo an additional level of scrutiny in order to be accepted. Unlike in the SAS, new recruits to the army can apply to join the Parachute Regiment directly from the Infantry Training Centre at Catterick in Yorkshire (in the case of soldiers) or the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (for officers). The regiment, whose personnel are commonly known as "paras", specialises in parachute and other types of airborne insertion, and has close ties to the SAS, providing more of its personnel than any other regiment.
Capture of the Royal Irish patrol
On 25 August 2000, a patrol led by Major Allan Marshall consisting of 11 men from the 1 R IRISH and an official from the Sierra Leone Army acting as interpreter, Lieutenant Musa Bangura, left their base in Waterloo to visit Jordanian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) and based at Masiaka. Over lunch, they were informed that the West Side Boys had begun to disarm, despite their initial reluctance, and Marshall decided to take the patrol to investigate en route back to their base.
The patrol turned off the main road onto a dirt track that led to the village of Magbeni, where the West Side Boys were based. As they approached the base, they were surrounded by a large group of West Side Boys, who used an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a Bedford truck to block the patrol's route. Marshall dismounted his vehicle, then resisted an attempt to grab his rifle and was beaten. He and the rest of the patrol were then forced into canoes at the bank of Rokel Creek and transported to Gberi Bana, a village on the other side of the river, just upstream from the point of the initial confrontation.
British forces in Sierra Leone were operating on the authority of the Sierra Leone government, but President Ahmad Kabbah allowed British forces to negotiate for the soldiers' release themselves, as his government lacked the requisite expertise. The negotiations were led by Lieutenant Colonel Simon Fordham, commanding officer of 1 R IRISH, who was assisted by a small team which included hostage negotiators from the Metropolitan Police.
The West Side Boys would not allow negotiators any closer to the village of Magbeni than the end of the track from the main road, so Fordham met there with the self-styled "Brigadier" Foday Kallay, the gang's leader, to negotiate for the soldiers' release.
On 29 August, Fordham demanded proof that the captive soldiers were still alive, and Kallay brought with him to that day's meeting the two officers from the group—Marshall, the company commander, and Captain John Laverty, the regimental signals officer. During the meeting, Laverty shook hands with Fordham and covertly passed him a sketch map of Gberi Bana which detailed the layout of the village and the building in which the soldiers were being held.
Two days later, on 31 August, five of the eleven hostages were released in exchange for a satellite telephone and medical supplies. The OC of the captured soldiers had originally decided to release the youngest first, but this was changed to the married men last minute. Out of the married men the West Side Boys wanted two of them to remain due to their signals experience. The released soldiers included the Sergeant Major, two corporals and two rangers. The West Side Boys told the British negotiators that the remaining captured soldiers which included the OC, a Captain, a Sergeant, a Lance Corporal and two Rangers that they would not be released until the gang's remaining demands were met. The released soldiers were flown for debriefing to RFA Sir Percivale, of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, off the coast.
After the release of the soldiers, the West Side Boys' spokesman, the self-styled "Colonel Cambodia", used the satellite telephone to contact the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for a lengthy interview in which they outlined a series of demands, including a re-negotiation of the Lomé Peace Accord and the release of prisoners held by the Sierra Leone authorities. The BBC had prior warning from the Foreign Office that the interview would take place. "Colonel Cambodia" quickly depleted the batteries in the telephone, but his call to the BBC enabled specialists from the Royal Corps of Signals to determine the exact position of the telephone.
Deterioration
The West Side Boys were unstable, possibly due to use of cannabis and cocaine, and their behaviour during the crisis was erratic. After their release, the five soldiers described an incident in which Kallay, dissatisfied with their explanation, conducted a mock execution in which he threatened to shoot the soldiers unless they told him why they had entered the West Side Boys' territory. Media reported that the gang's drug habits also posed a problem for the British negotiators as their cannabis use allegedly caused them to forget previous discussions and the cocaine made them distrustful.
During the negotiations, the relatives of several of the West Side Boys were brought to the gang's camp to ask them to release the British soldiers. The gang responded that they had nothing against the soldiers, but that holding them had brought attention to their demands—which now included immunity from prosecution, safe passage to the UK to take up university courses, and guaranteed acceptance to the re-formed Sierra Leone Army.
Military planning
Around the time that the five soldiers were released, two negotiators from the SAS joined Fordham's negotiating team. One of them joined Fordham in several meetings with the West Side Boys, posing as a Royal Irish major in order to provide reconnaissance and gather intelligence in case an assault was required. Shortly after the patrol's capture Surgeon Lieutenant Jon Carty RN, the medical officer on board HMS Argyll—which was operating off the coast—was brought ashore to assess the soldiers, should they be freed, or to provide immediate care in the event of an assault resulting in casualties. Argyll also served as a temporary base for two Army Air Corps Lynx attack helicopters from No. 657 Squadron which had been flown to Sierra Leone to support any direct action.
As planning for a potential military operation to release the captive soldiers progressed, it became clear that, given the number of West Side Boys and their separation between two locations (Gberi Bana as well as the village of Magbeni; see below), the operation could not be conducted by special forces alone. Thus, the headquarters of 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment (1 PARA) was ordered to assemble an enhanced company group, which would support special forces if such an operation was launched. The battalion's commanding officer selected A Company, led by Major Matthew Lowe, which had been on exercise in Jamaica at the time of the initial British deployment to Sierra Leone.
Several members of A Company were new recruits who had only completed basic training two weeks prior. Lowe decided that replacing them with more experienced soldiers would risk undermining the cohesion and morale of the company, but several specialist units from elsewhere in 1 PARA were attached to A Company to bring the company group up to the required strength, including a signals group, snipers, heavy machine gun sections, and a mortar section. The additional firepower was included to maximise the options available to the planners, given that the West Side Boys had a numerical advantage and that additional resources would not be immediately available should the operation run into difficulties.
On 31 August, the company group was ordered to move to South Cerney in Gloucestershire, under the cover story that they were conducting a "readiness to move" exercise. It was only at this point, and after all mobile telephones had been confiscated to ensure operational security, that the entire company was briefed on the operation that was being planned. With the operation becoming more likely to be launched, Lowe and his planning group flew to Dakar, Senegal, on 3 September to continue planning and to study intelligence gathered from SAS patrols operating near the West Side Boys' camp.
The British government feared that deployment of forces to Sierra Leone might precipitate an adverse reaction by the West Side Boys against the captive soldiers. They calculated that it would take 14 hours to launch an assault from the United Kingdom should it be required in an emergency, so the remainder of the company group was also moved to Dakar in order to reduce the response time.
In order to further reduce the response time, political authority to launch the assault in an emergency was delegated to the British High Commissioner in Freetown, Alan Jones, while the military decision was delegated to Brigadier David Richards, commander of British forces in Sierra Leone. Two days later, a pair of SAS observation teams (one on each side of Rokel Creek) were inserted near the villages by assault boats manned by the Special Boat Service (SBS)—the Royal Navy's special forces unit. They began monitoring the West Side Boys' movements and gathering intelligence, such as details of weapons, as well as identifying viable landing sites for helicopters.