SASR Somalia 1994 (Operation Iguana)

Somalia, April 1994.

As other Western nations began to pull out of Somalia, and largely Third World countries under guidance of the UN took up security, the Australian Government, unwilling to commit further combat troops looked to the ADF for a security solution to bolster the Australian Service Contingent (tri-service Defence Force personnel).

That solution was to send members from the Special Air Service Regiment, making this deployment the first for SASR since Vietnam.

2 x 5 man Protection teams from J Troop, 3 Squadron SASR (Plus 2 Signallers from 152 Signals Squadron).

APCs are 'borrowed' M113A2, A-CAV from the US Army.

Standard weapons were taken, ie:F88 AusSteyrs and F89 Minimis, (along with Browning Hi-Powers and a couple of MP5s).

"The SAS team quickly got to work and dug in, transforming the comfy spy station (ex CIA position) into a relatively full-on defensive position, stocked with enough food and water to last for months and enough ammo to supply a brigade. During the manic digging, wiring and sandbagging the new position was unofficially dubbed the Eureka Stockade and the SAS were unofficially dubbed Gerbils - both names stuck."

On Tuesday 16th August 1994, during a routine run between the port and the airport, an ASC convoy consisting of two Toyotas and two APCs was approached by a Somali "technical". When a bandit shouldered his assault marcadora larga in the direction of one of the Toyotas the "Gerbils" reponded with an F-89 trooper riding shotgun firing a quick burst into both the gunman and driver killing both instantly, and in doing so scored the first SASR kills in 20 years.




















*The lion belonged to a company named Morris Catering, with the trooper in question trying to stop it from tearing up the their gym equipment and in the process becoming the first SASR member in history to be bitten by a lion...

Images and quotes belong to J.H Farrell and ASC members.
Do not reproduce the above, I have done so (after speaking with Chops) with the intent of showing people a little known chapter in ADF history & will probably cop a few PMs over it as it is. The last thing that needs to be done is have the above copy and pasted into someones crazy little website or Wikipedia etc.