End this official silence on the SAS

End this official silence on the SAS | Richard Norton-Taylor | Comment is free | The Guardian: "The letters SAS conjure up exotic, dangerous, and covert operations. This week the media had every reason to highlight the role played by Britain's special forces in supporting the missions by RAF Hercules aircraft to evacuate oil workers stranded deep in the Libyan desert. Armed SAS troops were in the Hercules on Saturday and Sunday as the planes landed at pre-arranged locations. Small-arms fire entered the cockpit of the last Hercules to land in the desert on Sunday and hit a pilot's helmet. He was unhurt, but it could have been serious. (The rebel group later apologised, saying they mistook the plane for a Gaddafi regime aircraft.)

The missions were meticulously planned and when there is no reliable or up-to-date intelligence, it is better to take precautions, defence officials say. And for the government it was a hugely welcome distraction from the criticism of delay and muddle over its initial handling of the crisis. Yet officially the Ministry of Defence has a policy of never commenting on the operations of Britain's special forces. The incident involving the helmet of the Hercules' pilot was not officially revealed, or even confirmed, but clearly was not going to be kept quiet for long. Officially, more can be said about MI5 and MI6 than the SAS or its naval equivalent, the SBS."

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