Aussie elite force plays deadly game

By GREG ANSLEY Australia correspondent

CANBERRA - The Iraqi Army platoon, driving across the desert in a convoy of heavily armed vehicles, had no idea what had hit them.

Hundreds of kilometres inside western Iraq, a squad of Australian SAS soldiers had watched the enemy unit grind its way through country blighted by sandstorms, high winds and low visibility.

The Australians tracked its position, called in the coordinates to American commanders, and strike jets screamed down, pounding the Iraqis with precision bombs and rockets.

By the time the smoke had cleared, the SAS unit had vanished, racing back into the desert in a game of deadly hide-and-seek.

Another squad, intent on the SAS' primary role of finding Iraqi ballistic missile sites, directed bombers to a communications base and fought a brief firefight with enemy survivors.

The New York Times claimed 10 Iraqis had been killed during the destruction of a facility possibly linked to chemical or biological weapons, a claim dismissed as speculation by Australian Defence Force spokesman Brigadier Mike Hannan.

In Britain, other reports claimed the SAS had captured an airfield about 380km west of Baghdad, which is now being used to attack the Iraqi capital.

As fascination grows with operations deep behind enemy lines that have drawn fulsome praise from the Pentagon, chief of the Australian Army Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy yesterday lifted the veil slightly on Australia's shadowy and secret troops.

Most are in, or entering, their fourth decade - average age, 29 "plus" - three-quarters are married, and all are veterans hardened by similar operations in East Timor and Afghanistan.

"These aren't young soldiers. These have been through the mill."

All have survived a tough, intense selection and training course with a 75 per cent failure rate.

"This is not your Hollywood super-hero. This is a quiet, resolute, very intense man who can make intelligent assessments, a man who can operate as part of the team."

About 150 troopers are now operating in tiny groups, across inhospitable country.

Their arsenals are frightening: M4 rifles with a selection of day and night vision systems, a variety of sniper rifles, 7.62mm and 50mm Machineguns, Browning or Heckler and Koch pistols, long-range automatic grenade launchers and anti-tank weapons.

Secret force

* Australia has about 150 SAS soldiers in the war in deep reconnaissance operations to find Iraqi installations and track enemy movements.

* The elite troops work in patrols of up to five, travelling in special long-range Land Rovers laden with weapons, ration packs, water and communications gear.

* The veterans, many who served in Timor, also undertake what the Army calls "shoot and scoot" missions.

Herald Feature: Iraq