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Wanted: swarthy soldiers for ‘interesting employment’ in far off places The British Army is making a new regiment operational with a dedicated anti-terrorist mission in mind, called the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. Much of the manpower will come from 2 Para bn and 14 Intelligence coy:
CGS statement 1st April
The SRR will draw personnel from existing capabilities and recruit new volunteers, both male and female, from serving members of the Armed Forces where necessary. Officers are keen to recruit those of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance, as well as Muslims and members of ethnic minorities. Priority at recruitment must be given to those able to infiltrate or blend in with Islamic terror groups, rather than to their fitness or fighting capabilities.
There has been chatter about the unit from irrepressible insiders since the middle of last year (the name Reconnaissance and Surveillance Regiment was mooted) but the firm news is hitting the mainstream media now that the unit is going operational.
The badge seems to me to be referencing the Artists’ Rifles insignia, which seems appropriate give the Artists’ Rifles special forces lineage.
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British ‘Brandenburgers’? Interesting!
Merely announcing this will make the terrorists be more suspicious of new recruits, make them look over their shoulders more. Good.
Merely announcing this will make the terrorists be more suspicious of new recruits, make them look over their shoulders more. Good.
So Blair creates a new platoon of killbots for his silly war. Face it Mr Blair, you’re not going to be elected as a “security prime-minister” because we’re not a bunch of hysterical cry-babies hanging onto mommy goverment skirts when shit happens.
Hm. Dunno. Looks a bit like he’s shoved a short-sword through his own chin-strap to me. Shades of Phineas Gage.
Nice site! I love your photography and clean design. Keep up the good work!
Nice site! I love your photography and clean design. Keep up the good work!
I love:
Priority at recruitment must be given to those able to infiltrate or blend in with Islamic terror groups, rather than to their fitness or fighting capabilities.
So fat boys with power fantasies with a strong attachment to flashy mobile phones will be preferred? How very New Britain. Or am I thinking of the CSO?
Actually Guy, it sounds pretty smart to me. For once this appears to be the ghastly Blair government doing something right.
…and presumably not announced publically there will have been a serious recruitment effort for similar types to be spies, spy masters / spy runners, traitors, anyone capable of providing HUMINT to MI5/MI6/CIA etc…
This is a good thing. If we can get people into the decision making levels of Syria, Iran, Al Qaeda, PLO, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, North Korea, etc we will have done well.
Maybe it’s just that I study ancient arms and armor in my free time — but I don’t see a terribly strong evocation of the Artists’ Rifles’ badge in that quite good drawing of a Corinthian helmet. As a subtle invocation of the Trojan Horse — US military invocations of this idea run to chess knights, viz., the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOMM) — it’s quite good. The short sword so inescapably suggests an unfortunate sword-cleaning accident, however, that I’d hesitate to take bets they won’t start calling it the “Dead Trojan” badge.
Maybe it’s just that I study ancient arms and armor in my free time — but I don’t see a terribly strong evocation of the Artists’ Rifles’ badge in that quite good drawing of a Corinthian helmet. As a subtle invocation of the Trojan Horse — US military invocations of this idea run to chess knights, viz., the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOMM) — it’s quite good. The short sword so inescapably suggests an unfortunate sword-cleaning accident, however, that I’d hesitate to take bets they won’t start calling it the “Dead Trojan” badge.
Della, you are the most wonderful example of a Reverse Chicken Little I’ve ever seens. “Islamacist problem? There’s no Islamacist problem. Ain’t nobody in this here suicide bomb vest but us chickens, boss.”
And Guy, if you are trying to infiltrate somebody into a middle eastern terror group, a thickly muscled lad who can run a mile in 5:00 minutes, with a taste for Tenants and Def Leppard, probably isn’t the right guy for it. So most Paras and SAS are prolly out. Somebody a bit on the weedy, swarthy and underfed side is probably a better bet, if you don’t want them to be immediately spotted, tortured and killed.
From what I have initially read, this is not a regiment of soldiers per say, but a regiment of Spies. Usually a job left to British Intelligence (MI5 and MI6). I find the idea of major recruitment for this new regiment will come mainly from the elite Paras a little far fetched. Anglo Saxons… I don’t think so. They will want “Ethnic” types who can “fit in” and probably speak Arabic, Farsi, Urdu or North African languages like Somali. Ideally, they will want people who are accustomed to Islamic culture and are knowledgeable in Sharia and Koranic scripture. Tall blonde haired blue-eyed lads from Leeds need not apply. Paras or no Paras.
To my knowledge, over the past 10/12 years due to persecution and the concept of ‘Dhimmitude’, some TEN MILLION Christian Arabs have left the Middle East and migrated to the West. There is a ready made supply of recruits for this new regiment. It’s just a thought.
yes, much of the muscle will come from 2 para but the ‘eyes’ will come from specialist recruits who look the part.
The ‘Suicidal Greek’ capbadge looks quite appropriate really, given that we’re talking about a unit specifically tasked with infiltration of Islamic terror groups.
As for “thickly muscled lads who can run a mile in 5:00 minutes” that would most certainly not cover the SAS – most of them bear more resemblence to stockbrokers than the Tom Clancy fantasy ideal.
Al Maviva,
I would prefer to think of myself as acting to counter chicken littles, and the biggest chicken little we have is Mr Blair. He alternately tells us the sky is falling because asteroids will kill us, the seas are going to rise up and we’ll be drowned either by a tsunami or global warming, that we’ll be boiled alive by global warming or burned to death by an ozone hole. Imaginary terrorist supermen fit in pretty well to his cataclysmic world view and he’s been warning us about various illisioury threats from Saddams non existant WMD to killer terrorists with their deadly castor oil beans. He’s also gone into a panic recently about the threat of deadly diseases and how they could wipe out humanity.
Now lets look at what he’s done to combat these things, he has introduced house arrest without trial, abolished trial by jury in most cases, introduced a carbon rationing system which is pretty much a tax on air, gone into a war that killed 100,000 people for no real result, introduced a piece of legislation (the civil contingencies bill) that allows him to take dictatorial powers at the drop of a hat, he plans to introduce ID cards, and has done so many other stupid things that would take too long to list.
I don’t thing that guy can tell the difference between his sleeping nightmares and reality, he should really take a chill pill and retire.
So pardon me if I’m not frightened by my shadow and other illusionary threats like certain other people.
Er, not sure if anyone’s noticed, but the rear inside surface of the helmet (black) appears in front of the sword. If the sword were IN the helmet, this wouldn’t be visible, so it is in fact a helmet in front of a sword.
So no worries, everyone. No “Accidental Thrusts” appear to have taken place.
I must be missing something here; what are these guys going to do that the SAS can’t do? It seems like the MoD is reinventing the wheel here
Akaky asks a good question – why is this group necessary?
In reality its probably not necessary at all. It reeks of Phoney’s cabinet desperate to impress their master by doing anything that involves the words “countering Islamic terrorism”.
Since the mid 1970’s there has been a rather select unit of the Intelligence Corps – 14 Coy – that deals with infiltration and intelligence gathering and is, in so far as I can recall, a tri-service unit. I would presume that they could be called upon to do this task, instead of founding a whole new regiment to do it which is again rather odd when you consider that under Hoon the Loon the government is trying to reduce the military. One theory for the reduction is that if they reduce the military below a certain limit they can claim we must have full EU integration since our armed forces can no longer defend us.
Er, not sure if anyone’s noticed, but the rear inside surface of the helmet (black) appears in front of the sword.
Well, yeah, that’s part of the problem — it looks more like the chin of the unfortunate guy wearing the helmet. It would help (and be more accurate) if that line were flatter. Do an images search to see what I mean.
Look like Arabs?
EG
Huh? Sure, I agree with many of the points you make about the horrible things the dreadful Blair has done but a tyranny that lasted more than two decades was overthrown, one which was responsible for the death of millions in several external wars and various internal horrors that were ongoing at the time (seeing as you are the one who played the ‘look at the deaths’ card) and that is NO REAL RESULT? Welcome to the “barking moonbat” classification Della
As part of the reorganisation of British Special Forces, this move makes a lot of sense. All it is is an expansion on the existing No. 14 Intelligence Coy. & a new cap badge.
It should be viewed, in the light of other changes to Special Forces, such as the amalgamation of the SAS & SBS, due, in no small way, to the poor performance on the SBS on recent operations. Also, worth considering is the formation of the new ‘Ranger’ battalion primarily out of existing personnel from the Airborne Brigade.
Snide : what do you mean, “welcome”? Della’s occupied the category you mentioned in regards to Iraq for as long as I’ve been reading this blog…
Samsung: and a good thought it is.
UK Special Forces are indeed expanding but enough details on that count…just what particular unit is expanding i prefer to not say..The formation of the new unit makes perfect sense…Both SAS/SBS have had mainly anti terrorist capabilities developed through the seventies and beyond,specialising in anti terrorist operations such as the iranian embassy seige…very confined exact ops…the situation arises the special forces exact their anti terroist or counter terrorist capabilities…in order to deconflict between the two units there has been a new identity given to the SBS…but it hasn’t been merged with the SAS however it now comes under control of Dsf…..Now Special forces are employed all over the world but their intelligence comes from a multitude of sources and probably will continue to do so but the misconception that uksf are spies that infiltrate enemy units or have the time and manpower to do this is a misconception. I’m sure to some extent they can and do, but to have a dedicated unit in the uksf world to do this frees up manpower and allows SAS/SBS operators to concentrate more on the strike capabilities the kill….imagine going through weeks perhaps months of Recce on a target being tired and drained only to have to carry out the attack on the target too?And a continual cycle of this?surely this could only detract from the astounding capabilities of the UKSf?The formation of a “new”SF unit is common sense….but not ,maybe ,completely new..14 int or the det or whatever name it is called now will be the foundation of this unit im sure and bringing it under the special forces umbrella leads to seemless ops and greater security….as to the ethnenticity of the new unit who knows what the mix will be?And as long as it proves to be effective who cares….?
Admittedly, I’ve known some fairly chunky SAS’ers (I’m former U.S. military and trained and worked pretty extensively with several british units, including SAS). But whether or not they appear really fit depends, IMHE, on whether they are returning from the field, or if they’ve been fattening up in garrison for a few months. A good number of recently garrisoned SAS’ers appeared to me to be “fat but very fit.” Granted, they don’t look like gym rats, as some U.S. operators do, but they do tend to be extremely fit and better muscled (or at least more wirey, depending on genetics I suppose) than the average bear. I stand by my comment.
And from an American standpoint about low intensity conflict operations, it’s great to have high speed special ops troops who can sit in a hole for two weeks and watch a building, but it’s better if you can find intel troops (or troops you can co-opt, to infiltrate the building. This takes people who look like the locals, or who look like a familiar breed of foreigner – pretty tough for the average soldier to do in Basra or Baghdad, but not so tough for somebody born in the area, or in the Phillipines or Pakistan.
Within all this military ideal for recruiting “ethnic minorities”, as though the Army was one of the repulsive Ken Livingstone’s wet fantasies, are we perhaps forgetting that the UK already HAS a (albeit non-military) unit specifically tasked with the infiltration of overseas elements that might pose a threat to us – namely MI6?
At a time that Hoon The Loon and his employer are playing some twisted form of musical chairs with our national defences wouldn’t it be more suitable to allocating the funds for this regiment to something more worthwhile – like putting a cannon back on the new Typhoon fighter (removed in order to save money) which would at least give them the ability to shoot down an Al Queda-controlled 747 before it ploughed into Victoria station?
Well, yeah, that’s part of the problem — it looks more like the chin of the unfortunate guy wearing the helmet
I see what you mean, now. Awfully puny facial features if it is his chin 🙂