Britain's SAS reportedly aided in Irian Jaya rescue
Britain's SAS reportedly aided in Irian Jaya rescue
LONDON (AFP): Britain's crack SAS army regiment was involved in a 1996 mission to rescue hostages from rebels in Indonesia's Irian Jaya province during which eight civilians died, a London newspaper said Tuesday.
The Times cited unnamed sources close to the elite regiment as confirming a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on the participation of the Special Air Services (SAS).
The sources told the newspaper that between four and six of its members had helped to plan the operation, under an official arrangement authorized by the British Foreign Office.
The SAS experts did not take part in the rescue mission itself, but traced the hostages through surveillance techniques and worked out how the operation should be carried out by the Indonesian special forces.
The sources denied any mercenaries from South African company Executive Outcomes had been involved, and insisted no approval had been given for Indonesian soldiers to use a helicopter with International Red Cross markings.
Such a helicopter was claimed in the ABC report to have been used by soldiers who shot the eight villagers in the southern highlands of Irian Jaya in May 1996.
The ABC Four Corners program also alleged the SAS worked with mercenaries in planning the operation to rescue a team of European biologists and Indonesian researchers, including some from Executive Outcomes.
The ABC report, broadcast late Monday, said the truth about the mission had been concealed and the Indonesian military was credited with a rescue that triggered a crackdown in which many Irianese were massacred, raped, tortured or dispossessed.
Four Britons, a German, a Dutchman and his pregnant wife, and four Indonesians had been held for four months while the International Red Cross negotiated for their release.
Free Papua Movement (OPM) guerrillas had captured the team to draw international attention to their battle against Indonesia for independence in the western half of New Guinea.
Indonesia was accused in Monday's ABC report of bombing and strafing villages whose loyalties were regarded as suspect during a campaign that brought famine to the region.