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Welcome to Special Operations Report – Inside the World of Police and Military Tactical Units.
The global war on terrorism did not begin in the autumn of 2001. It has been simmering in the shadows for decades, as military and law enforcement special operators secretly battled a growing network of terrorists and guerrillas willing to use any and all means to further their fanatical ends. And as the danger to the Free World grew, and casualties among innocent civilians and non-combatants mounted, a curious thing happened: men whose forefathers had once shed each other’s blood in global warfare, began to join forces to combat this new threat.
In July of 1976, when Israeli Special Forces mounted a raid to Entebbe, Uganda, to free 103 hostages from the hands of terrorists, they invited along the commander of Germany’s then-fledgling GSG-9, a counterterrorist police unit forged in the aftermath of the Munich Olympic Massacre. And just one year later, that same elite German unit, preparing to mount a similar raid to free hostages in Mogadishu, Somalia, invited along the members of the British Army’s 22 Special Air Service Regiment. The war against international terror was not yet making many headlines, but it was already forging blood oaths and infrangible bonds. These bonds are now evident on the training fields of Europe and Asia, and they are facts on the ground on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and the Arabian Peninsula, where operators speaking a Tower of Babel of languages are fighting side-by-side.
For many years, we have been writing about counterterrorism, intelligence, low-intensity conflict, high-tech warfare and the global war on crime, while working alongside the members of law enforcement and military special operations units worldwide. Our travels have taken us to Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa and Asia, and in so doing we’ve become aware of the special operator’s search for knowledge. There are many components to what makes a special operations unit—or the missions they execute—successful: selection, training, equipment, leadership, daring, innovation and the political courage to deploy the specialists into harm’s way. Yet one of the most crucial ingredients to any special op is information: What are the enemy’s capabilities? What threats might be encountered? How have similar units dealt with similar assignments? Knowledge is often the most important tool in executing the mission and coming back alive.
As Editors-In-Chiefs of SOR, we’ve devised a geographic journal unlike anything else available to The Community. Every issue of SOR will take to you around the globe to visit first-hand the special operations and counterterrorist units whose history, skill and missions greatly impact the world around us. We’ll take you inside the world’s most effective intelligence agencies and profile the world’s most lethal terrorist groups. We will feature the ethos of leadership from frontline commanders around the world and profile stories from the new trenches of combat as told by the men and women who wage the fight.
We invite you to the world of Special Operations Report. It’s your world.
Samuel M. Katz and Steven Hartov
Editors-In-Chief
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