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Paperback - 352 pages |
Bloody Heroes
Synopsis of Book | Story
Update| Where Are They Now
Story Behind The Story | Maps,
Graphics & Documents
Images | Readers
Reviews | Media
& Press | Excerpts
Bloody Heroes is published in May 2006 in hardback, as a Century imprint. This is a follow up story to Operation Certain Death in that it tells the dramatic story of a unit of SAS and SBS soldiers in action – hunting terrorists from the UK mainland to the fiercest ever battle in Afghanistan. Unique to this book, it is illustrated by dozens of revelatory photographs taken by the Special Forces soldiers themselves, and several original pictures of the Afghan battle painted for the book by an ex-SAS soldier (see Paintings Gallery). It is an exceptionally rich book both visually and in terms of the gripping true story told.
Synopsis
One team. One mission. The mother of all battles. Take eight of our Special Forces soldiers and pit them against 600 of the world’s most hardened terrorists. Set them to hunt each other down across the vast wild lands of Afghanistan. This is the thrilling, blood-soaked narrative of Bloody Heroes. The story starts in November 2001, when a unit of British SBS (Special Boat Service) and SAS (Special Air Service) soldiers are called upon to launch a top-secret mission. British intelligence has uncovered what they believed is a terrorist plot to attack London with a devastating weapon. A cargo ship is fast steaming up the English Channel. MI6 believes she is crewed by terrorists and carrying a deadly chemical bomb. At all costs she has to be stopped, and so the SBS and SAS are sent in.
This book follows one unit of SBS and SAS soldiers - from an action-packed assault on the high seas to the harsh wild lands of Afghanistan, as their hunt for the merchants of death continues. In the freezing Afghan mountains our band of warriors joined forces with American CIA operators – living, sleeping, eating and dying together as they took the fight to the terrorist enemy. Our team are sent in to take out the mother of all terror-training camps, a mission with the most unexpected of outcomes. The story culminates in the single greatest battle in the Afghan war – the bloody and brutal siege of Qala-I-Janghi, an ancient mud-walled fortress crammed full of hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. It focuses down onto the actions of our crack Special Forces team, when faced with bitter betrayal and drawn into a deadly duel that only one side could win. It follows this handful of men as they fight against overwhelming odds to lift the fort siege and rescue fellow soldiers trapped by the enemy.
The battle for Qala-I-Janghi would last a staggering eight days - from the moment of the initial uprising to the hour that the fort yielded up the last enemy fighters. It was a battle in which 500 terrorists would be killed - but at the cost of dozens of British, American and Afghan casualties. This book chronicles every twist and turn of that battle as it unfolds hour-by-hour, until the shocking, blood-soaked finale. Bloody Heroes is a tale of extraordinary comradeship and brotherhood; of honour and betrayal; of horrific medieval bloodshed amidst an ultra-high-tech war; of fanatical hatred, suicide attacks and a terrible collective death wish; of selfless heroism and the bitter tragedy of friendly fire; of close quarter battle at its most immediate, vicious and deadly. This book brings you closer to our secret warriors than you’ve ever been ever before.
Story update
After the siege of Qala-I-Janghi, things began moving very quickly for British Special Forces in the Afghan war. Some weeks later and back at their Bagram base, the SBS soldiers watched as ranks of US special forces personnel lined up to board a fleet of choppers heading out on Operation Anaconda. Anaconda was a US-led mission to flush out Al Qaeda elements from Eastern Afghanistan. It was supposed to be a12 hour mission, and Dutch and Norwegian Special Forces teams had been out on the high ridges for days, watching over the area for enemy forces. This was where Allied forces reckoned Osama Bin Laden was holding out. But when US Special Forces hit the ground, they found they were dropping from the choppers into snow up to their waist and were pinned down. The Al Qaeda and Taliban enemy had heavy machine gun nests hidden under rock outcrops, and the US troops started getting cut down as they were caught out there in the snow.
Back at Bagram Mat, Sam, Tony and the other SBS troops found themselves being pulled in to the field hospital, as the Americans urgently needed trained medics. US Rangers were coming in with arms and legs shot all to hell from where they’d been hit in the first few hours of Operation Anaconda. In the most intense firefight of the Operation – which has since become known as Robert’s Ridge - several US SEAL soldiers were killed and wounded and US choppers were shot down. For the SBS lads this action had a special resonance – and especially for Sam Brown, the US SEAL seconded to their unit.
It soon became clear that Neil Roberts, a SEAL from Sam’s parent unit, SEAL Team 6, had been captured and killed by Al Qaeda in horrifying circumstances. SEAL Team 6 was recognised as the cream of the SEAL operational units. It specialises in Operations other Than War (OTW), or black operations. Neil Roberts had been in the vanguard of Operation Anaconda. He had survived a fall from a MH-47 Chinook helicopter that was hit by an enemy RPG, but then he had been surrounded by Al Qaeda fighters.
Neil Roberts had fought them off for 30 minutes, as his colleagues desperately tried to mount a rescue mission. But finally, his heavy machine gun had jammed, and the enemy had closed in on him. He had been tortured and then executed by the mob, the whole grisly scene being captured on video by a US Predator unmanned aircraft. A six-man rescue team sent in to retrieve the body came under fire, and a second US soldier was killed. A further rescue attempt resulted in three more US deaths, and the area was only declared clear of enemy forces after US gunships destroyed the enemy mortar and machinegun positions. The five American bodies, including that of the SEAL, were retrieved - and the US troops gave the battle location the name of ‘Robert’s Ridge’, in memory of their fallen comrade.
After the wounded had been treated, the SBS soldiers were shown scenes from the video shot by the Predator, and it was clear that Neil Roberts had suffered terribly before being executed by the Al Qaeda fighters. This news was especially disturbing for Sam. It turned out that Neil Roberts was the SEAL who was originally supposed to have been sent on secondment to the SBS in Poole, England. Sam had only gone to Poole in his place at the last minute, when it turned out that Neil Roberts couldn’t go, for personal reasons.
Shortly after the debacle of Robert’s Ridge, a revenge mission went in to punish Al Qaeda. US Delta Force troops led the payback mission, and invited several men from SEAL Team 6 to join them, as it was one of their guys who had died. An SBS lad on exchange with SEAL Team Six – Sam’s opposite number - was one of those who went in on this assault. The team were flown into an area where they knew that an Al Qaeda convoy was passing through, because a US Predator aircraft was unknowingly tailing the convoy. The ambush team were dropped on the ridgeline, and when they spotted the five-vehicle convoy in the valley below them they opened up with everything they had. Those enemy fighters who managed to get out of the vehicles were hardly able to raise their weapons and return fire, before they too were taken out.
Once the firefight was over, the Delta and SEAL ambush force descended to the valley floor. As they searched through the 20-odd bodies, they noticed that most were Arabs or Chechens, with few Afghans amongst them. Several of the dead were sporting US Army webbing kits, and the troops angrily ripped these off the bodies. But one of the men lying on the ground was still just alive, and as a US soldier turned him over the wounded enemy fighter released a grenade. Luckily, his body took the brunt of the blast, and it caused few injuries to the ambush force. In addition to the US military webbing, a US army GPS and night sight were retrieved from the dead. The serial numbers were subsequently traced, and these pieces of kit turned out to be from US soldiers killed or captured in Somalia, during the US military intervention in Mogadishu - immortalised in the book and then movie Black Hawk Down. This was clear proof that the enemy that British and US Special Forces were fighting in Afghanistan had been waging their Jihad for many years.
Since the events portrayed in Bloody Heroes, the SBS has gone through a re-branding exercise, to try to raise the unit’s profile with potential recruits. The SBS cap badge has been completely redesigned, with a dagger rising up through the waves of the sea as the main image. The old SBS motto, “Not by strength, by guile”, has been replaced with the more proactive “By strength and guile.” The new regimental badge is based upon a design of World War Two vintage, that of the No. 2 Special Boat Section, whose motto was “United we conquer”. This army commando unit was credited with the very first ever canoe/demolition raid, when in June 1941 they landed on the Sicilian coast from the submarine HMS Urge to blow up a railway tunnel. See the Maps, graphics, documents section of this website for a fuller explanation of the SBS re-branding exercise and accompanying pictures.
In October 2003, SBS soldier Corporal Ian ‘Planky’ Plank was killed in action in Iraq. Ian had served with the SBS in Sierra Leone and in Afghanistan. He had been in the forefront of the action to rescue the British soldiers held hostage in Sierra Leone, a joint SAS-SBS mission that I wrote about in the book Operation Certain Death. He had gone on to distinguish himself in action in the Balkans and Afghanistan. He was a close friend and colleague of the men featured in Bloody Heroes and they served alongside each other during the Afghan operations. “The Special Boat Service have lost an outstanding Marine, trusted comrade and true friend,” the Commanding Officer of the Special Boat Service said of Ian Plank’s death. “We shall miss and remember him always.”
Where Are They All Now?
Mat Morissey: shortly after the Afghan mission described in Bloody Heroes Mat left the SBS. He is now involved in private security work, which has taken him to the Iraq conflict, Africa and back to Afghanistan again.
Tom Knight: shortly after the Afghan mission described in Bloody Heroes Tom left the SBS. He is now involved in private security work.
Jamie Bryan: shortly after the Afghan mission described in Bloody Heroes Tom left the SBS. He is now involved in private security work.
Sam Brown: Sam has remained in the US Special Forces and continues to serve in various theatres around the world where their services are required.
Johnny Spann: Johnny Spann Senior, CIA agent Mike Spann’s father, has begun a campaign to seek atonement for his son’s death in Afghanistan. He believes that the US military failed in its duty to his son, because it did not deliver on its universal pledge to “leave no man behind.” He believes that much more could have been done by US forces to rescue his son – although he is full of gratitude for the efforts made by the SBS soldiers to do so.
John Walker Lindh: he is serving a 20-year prison term in the USA for his activities in Afghanistan. If he ever consorts with terrorists again that term will become life.
Al Qaeda and Taliban enemy: the survivors of the Qala-I-Janghi fort siege are incarcerated in the US-operated Guantanamo Bay detention centre. For more information on this see the FBI documents in the Maps, graphics and documents section of this website, showing censored transcripts of interrogations of some of those survivors.
The story behind the story
Just occasionally, a story appears from nowhere and is suddenly the one that you just have to write. Bloody Heroes was one of those. Some mates of mine working the security circuit in Iraq started discussing amongst themselves about the battle for Qala-I-Janghi fort – and how the media had credited the SAS as winning the battle, whereas it had really been SBS lads in the thick of the action. As I’d correctly detailed in my previous Special Forces book – Operation Certain Death - the SBS had made up 1/3 of the assault force (alongside the SAS) that went in to assault the rebel base in Sierra Leone, in 2000. But despite Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, this sister Special Forces regiment to the SAS continued to have a far lower profile. It seemed to me that here was a story just waiting to be told: a hellish and brutal siege at an ancient Afghan fortress which lasted eight terrible days, spearheaded by a little-known, elite unit of the British armed forces.
Research for Bloody Heroes took the best part of a year, and took me across Europe, to the USA and, eventually, to Afghanistan. As I looked into the nature and ethos of the SBS, it quickly became clear that they operate closely with their SAS brethren, deploying on joint missions together in the field. Where the SBS are deployed, so invariably are the SAS. They live, eat, fight and die alongside each other. What made the Afghan operations so special was the intimate nature in which both British units operated with their US, Aussie and New Zealand colleagues (the CIA paramilitaries, SEALS and Delta Force, and the New Zealand and Aussie SAS). Rarely had the elite military forces of these countries worked so closely together, and perhaps not since the Second World War.
Fairly quickly I realised that this was not just the story of one mission – the Qala-I-Janghi fort siege. It was obvious that I needed to tell the story of a series of missions – in order to capture the spirit of these soldiers, their breadth of operations and the challenges before them post 9/11. So Bloody Heroes then became the story of one unit of SBS and SAS soldiers, over three missions. It opened with a lightening assault on a suspected terrorist vessel steaming up the English Channel to attack London. This was the first ever assault of its kind – a Direct Action Assault on the high seas. Our cast of characters then moved on to deployment to Afghanistan, in November 2001, just as that war was beginning. Our small, eight-man team joined forces with US CIA agents and penetrated deep into the Afghan mountains in search of ‘the mother of all terrorist training camps’. Finally, they were thrown into the siege of Qala-I-Janghi fort – a brutal and bloody battle that lasted an eternity and resulted in hundreds killed and wounded.
In researching the story I also got to speak with some of those who had fought in Afghanistan against our special forces – though mostly through third parties. These included some fighters who were involved in the battle for Qala-Janghi itself. For the Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Qala-Janghi has attained something of a mythical status. I realised that the way they viewed things, they had fought a ferocious battle to the death against a vastly more technologically superior enemy. They viewed Qala-Janghi as a heroic Custer’s last stand for the Islamist forces in Afghanistan. For them, this was a story of die-hard martyrdom on behalf of the Islamic brotherhood worldwide. The more I looked into this, the more fascinating their mindset and perspective became.
As a war reporter and journalist, I’d spent considerable time in the past investigating Islamist terrorist networks – be it in the UK, America, Iraq or the Sudan. I had some experience and knowledge of how they tended to think and operate. It occurred to me that in the telling of the story of our Special Forces in action in Afghanistan, could I also not tell the story from the other side, that of the terrorist enemy? What I finally decided to do in Bloody Heroes is tell the two threads of the story – that of our band of Special Forces warriors and of the fanatical enemy they were up against. In this way the enemy are given a human face, one that is increasingly menacing as the action develops. And at the same time some of what drives them to fight and die in their Jihad becomes clearer.
The famous Chinese war strategist, Sun Tzu, wrote in The Art of War that one of the key principles to winning any battle was to “know your enemy.” An ex-SAS friend of mine always says, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.” By knowing what makes your enemy tick you may also discover his weaknesses and how best to attack and ultimately defeat him. In Bloody Heroes a reader should get a strong sense of the enemy mindset, whilst at the same time being brought closer to the raw and dramatic lives of our Special Forces warriors than ever before. As such the book details what drives both sides to fight to the death – and what finally makes one side able to emerge triumphant.
This was an immensely challenging book to write. It presented major difficulties – not least of which was to enter the mindset and understand the driving force behind militant and extremist Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan. Only by seeing the world through their eyes was it possible to accurately and forcefully portray what compelled these people to fight and die in Afghanistan, and in the wider terrorist world. Thankfully, I have a friend in London who converted to Islam many years ago and fought alongside the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Red Army (a battle then supported by the West). He has since mellowed considerably. He and other Muslim friends helped me to comprehend what drives such people to fight and actively seek death on behalf of their religion.
A few months prior to publication of Bloody Heroes, London was subjected to the 7/7 terror attacks, when the tube and bus services were bombed. The suspected terrorist attack on London portrayed at the start of Bloody Heroes, and the SBS/SAS mission to stop it, suddenly had far greater resonance. This was doubly so for me, as my cousin, who is herself a journalist and film maker, was badly injured in the Piccadilly line blast. She and I have worked together as reporters in war and conflict zones from the Sudan to Burma. It was the ultimate irony that she would survive all that unscathed, only to be so badly hurt in her hometown, London. It made Bloody Heroes all the more important for me – as the telling of stories such as this help us understand and deal with the terror threat more effectively.
Maps Graphics & Documents
Every non-fiction book requires months and months of painstaking research. Much of this involves speaking with and interviewing the people who make up the main characters in the book, and can tell the first hand stories of what happened on the ground. But there is also a great deal of background research involved, verifying stories and providing the context for the narrative. Some of the documents and other resources secured are available here, so that readers can examine some of the key background details.
The following are all available as pdf downloads. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer to view these. If you need to you can download the pdf viewer for FREE.
| Documents | Maps | Graphics | |
Images
I was provided with hundreds of photographs taken by the soldiers themselves of the operations portrayed in Bloody Heroes. A small selection of these were printed in the book. These images bring a reader closer to the reality of life as a Special Forces soldier than perhaps anything else is able to. They reflect the immense hardship and physical challenges these men fought and operated under, and the harsh beauty of the landscapes within which they operated. Sometimes, they give a sense of the brutal intensity of the battles, a feel for the loss of a wounded fellow soldier. Occasionally, they catch the unique humour of the moment – for a sense of humour is vital to what these men do. A selection of further images is available on this website, in the Photo Gallery section.
View Bloody Heroes Image Gallery
Niall Adams, an ex-SAS soldier and close friend, painted some images of the battle of Qala-I-Janghi itself. In the past, Niall had painted images of the SAS assaults in Sierra Leone under Operation Barras, and several other SAS missions. These paintings are included in Bloody Heroes and they show the British Special Forces soldiers and their Afghan allies – the soldiers of the Northern Alliance – in action during the first day of the fort siege, when they were fighting against overwhelming odds for their very survival. Much of the raw ferocity of that firefight comes through in these images, when some two-dozen British and US Special Forces soldiers had to stop 600 enemy breaking out of the Qala-I-Janghi fort. View these powerful images on this website under the Paintings Gallery section.
View Niall Adams Gallery.
Reader’s Reviews
Soldiers and military figures on Bloody Heroes:
“In a word – wow! I just finished the last chapter this morning
and to be honest I didn’t want to put it down. You get stuck right into
it. It’s a great read. Bloody Heroes does an awesome job of telling the
story - and I can say that as one of the blokes who was there.”
- Mat Morrissey, Special Boat Service
“On man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter –
never so graphically revealed that in this courageously-written, unbiased account
of what happens when two cultures fight to defend their beliefs in a head on,
violent confrontation of force and faith. A story told from both perspectives,
this book is in a league of its own.”
- Niall Arden, 21-Special Air Service & Increment
“It’s a great read and Joe Public will love it. Action scenes are
awesome and the opening is slick. These guys don’t just bake cakes –
they eat ‘em as well.”
- Mike Matthews, 22 Special Air Service
“No one had any idea of the scale of the breakout in that fort unless
they were up to their nuts in it. It’s just indescribable to anyone who
wasn’t there.”
- Mat Morrisey, SBS soldier, on the battle for Qala-I-Janghi
“What everyone needs to understand is that these fellows hate you. They
hate you .. So support your Government and the military, especially when the
body bags start coming home.”
- Johnny Micheal Spann, CIA Agent, killed in action at Qala-I-Janghi, Afghanistan,
November 2001.
“Dat, Dat-Dat, Dat, Dat .. there was fire coming from all directions.
Iraq was fuck-all compared to what was going on here. It felt like WW3 had broken
out all around us – you could just feel the air expanding and contracting
with all the explosions.”
- Jamie Bryan, SBS soldier, on the Qala-I-Janghi uprising.
“As they were taking us one-by-one, some of the last people – again
I don’t know if they were afraid or whatever – they pulled out a
grenade and exploded it. And so the fighting began.”
- John Walker Lindh, the ‘American Taliban’ captured
at Qala-I-Janghi
“The CIA guys were good at hearts and minds – languages and schools
and stuff. But they saw us fighting and just couldn’t believe it .. They
weren’t keyed up for hard nosed aggressive combat, acting on your wits
like we were – for tough fighting thinking on your feet with no time for
an overall game plan.”
- Tom Knight, SBS soldier, on the battle for Qala-I-Janghi
“I’m glad the story for the battle for Qala-Janghi has been told
- and especially how those heroic British soldiers tried to rescue my son, Mike
Spann. The day my son died he gave his life capturing and punishing Al Qaeda
terrorists and saving the lives of good people. My son could have turned and
ran, but he elected to step forward and take a stand. If he’d run that
day he’d not have been able to live with himself. He gave his life fighting
Al Qaeda: let’s remember that the terrorists are still out there, they
haven’t changed.”
- Johnny Spann Senior, father of CIA Agent Johnny Mike Spann, killed in
action at Qala-I-Janghi, November 2001.
“Qala-I-Janghi was like Christmas for us. The word just went around like
wild fire: ‘The Brits are here and they kick arse – they just killed
500 Al Qaeda and Taliban.’ It was the single biggest event for the Brits
in Afghanistan and set us up for the war.”
- Jamie Bryan, SBS soldier
“Mike Spann was an American hero, a man who showed passion for his country
and his Agency through his selfless courage. Mike Spann will live forever in
our memories .. A precious life given in a noble cause, Mike fell bringing freedom
to a distant people while defending freedom for us all at home.”
- George J. Tenet, ex-Director, the CIA
Media & Press
Read Bloody Heroes serialisation in the News of the World
Excerpt
Chapter 10: Mission Impossible
With the SBS vehicles and the 5th SOF Humvees now parked up inside the entranceway tower, they were positioned in the only part of the fort that was known to be in friendly hands. With the 600-odd prisoners in full revolt, the whole southern end of the fort had already fallen to the enemy. They had seized RPG's and mortars, which meant they could put down devastating fire on to any section of the fort. It would only take one lucky mortar shell, or a grenade lobbed over the wall, and the SBS Land Rovers and 5th SOF Humvees could be blown to smithereens... Read More