Killer Elite
Publisher: Weidenfeld Military; Orion Publishing Group, Limited
Published: February 9, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780297846390
Subjects: Special & elite forces; USA
First sentence: SITTING IN THE forward operations centre in a filthy Egyptian Air Force hangar at the Wadi Qina air base, 300 miles south of Cairo, Colonel Jerry King was powerless to prevent the debacle at Desert One.
Description: "Sunday Times journalist Michael Smith reveals the 25-year history of a top-secret US Army special operations unit. 'The Activity', as it became known to insiders, has hidden behind a myriad of rapidly changing code names like Centra Spike and Grey Fox, and been publicly 'disbanded' and then secretly resurrected so often that it has achieved near mythical status, even among the world's special operations elite. Small wonder that its names and missions have been hijacked by thriller writers." "Its story begins with the 'total goat fuck' (to quote one survivor) that was the abortive attempt to rescue the American hostages from Iran in 1980. One of the main reasons Operation Eagle Claw failed was a chronic lack of 'intel' on the ground. So in January 1981, US military chiefs set up the 'Intelligence Support Activity', a cover-name for a secret army surveillance team that could operate undercover anywhere in the world.^

Hidden from the politicians and the government bean counters, it would carry out deniable operations preparing the way for Delta and SEAL Team Six." "Michael Smith has spoken to many former members of the Activity and we follow them on operations from the rescue of General James Dozier from the Italian Red Brigades to the capture of Saddam Hussein, and the assassination of key members of al Qa'eda. Along the way we discover the truth about US attempts to rescue missing servicemen from Laos after the Vietnam War, and the undercover ops in Beirut in the 1980s where the Activity's efforts to rescue US hostages were stymied by the Arms to Iran scandal." "The Activity's men - and women - were also busy in South America, spearheading the war on the drug barons and providing the electronic surveillance that led Colombian 'death squads' to the hideouts of Pablo Escobar and his men.^

More recent missions include snatching war criminals from their safe houses in the Balkans, at one time disguising themselves as French soldiers to lull a Serb warlord into a false sense of security, and operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Killer Elite reveals the truth behind the world's most secret Special Operations organisation: a unit that is at the forefront of the war on terror."--Jacket.