Secret Soldiers

Terrorism took the world stage in 1970, when the PLO hijacked three airliners in Jordan. It has not been out of the news since. From 'Black September' to the massacre of the Israeli athletes at Munich, from the IRA to ETA and Osama Bin Laden's attacks on America, terrorist organizations have waged a pitiless war that neither law enforcement agencies nor conventional armies can stop. This new type of war requires new, secret soldiers. Special Forces, above all the British SAS, have demonstrated their ability to take the war to the terrorists. At Mogadishu in 1977 and at the Iranian Embassy in London, hostages were rescued in split-second assaults. Intelligence and timely action defeated a succession of terrorist operations in northern Ireland. Only Special Forces can attack world terrorism with the lethal precision demanded. Peter Harclerode investigates counter-terrorist operations from the Middle East to Northern Ireland, from Germany to Columbia.