TASK FORCE BLACK

[Rob1bureau]

About UKSF recent units, has someone information about the 5th Squadron the 22 SAS was supposed to create ?

I read that in a 2004 article : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wbin107.xml. It's the same author that revealed operation Marlborough in november 2005.

[Rob1bureau]

TF Black - operating chiefly in Southern Iraq - made up of an SAS sabre squadron, supported by a Company of SFSG (TF Red). Some SBS operators are thought to be attached to TF Black.
TF Blue - US Navy SEALs from DEVGRU (Seal Team 6)
TF Green - 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - or 'Delta Force'
TF Orange - electronic intelligence gathers

TF Green, Blue, Orange, Brown etc. are only codenames for permanents units in a general way, whatever is the area of operations. You can find references to TF Green and Blue in official US military reports about op Just Cause (Panama in 1989). The TFs operating in Iraq are made of a mix of these elements : a direct action unit (Delta or SEAL Team 6), a Ranger back-up force, air force special tactics teams, army aviation/air force special operations units aircrafts, CIA/NSA/TF Orange intel group etc.

Same for the British with SAS/SBS shooters, Paras and later SFSG support, SRR and JSG intel detachments, Army/RAF Special Forces aircrafts (or not so special maybe, I remember that several SAS troopers were killed in two Puma crashes in April and November 2007, while I have never heard of any Puma SF unit)

Much of what is known about black units in Iraq comes from a 2006 article by Sean Naylor, some month before Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed. At the time it was described as follows :

The job of hunting Zarqawi and rolling up his al-Qaida in Iraq network falls to Task Force 145, which is made up of the most elite U.S. and British special operations forces, and whose headquarters is in Balad.

The U.S. forces are drawn from units under Joint Special Operations Command at Pope Air Force Base, N.C. These include the military’s two “direct action” special mission units — the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, known as Delta Force, and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, sometimes known by its cover name, Naval Special Warfare Development Group; the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and 75th Ranger Regiment; and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.

After Saddam Hussein’s fall, the first order of business for the JSOC forces was capturing or killing the 55 individuals on the “deck of cards” that depicted the regime’s senior officials. Delta’s C Squadron was at the heart of the task force that captured Saddam in December 2003.

The emergence of Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group as a major threat to Iraq’s stability then gave JSOC a new priority. As the war in Iraq has ground on, and with Zarqawi still on the loose, the JSOC force in Iraq has grown steadily and undergone several name changes. TF 121 and TF 626 were two previous incarnations.

TF 145 is divided into four subordinate task forces in Iraq:

- Task Force West, organized around a SEAL Team 6 squadron with Rangers in support.
- Task Force Central, organized around a Delta squadron with Rangers in support.
- Task Force North, organized around a Ranger battalion combined with a small Delta element.
- Task Force Black, organized around a British Special Air Service “saber squadron,” with British paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group in support.

Although Army Lt. Gen. Stan McChrystal, JSOC commander, spends much of his time in Iraq, his job there is to coordinate with Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command, and other senior leaders. The man in charge of TF 145 is the Delta Force commander, a colonel Military Times agreed not to name.

Each TF 145 element operates largely autonomously.

The O-5 commander of each task force can authorize a raid without seeking TF 145 approval.

This freedom, combined with the amount of intelligence generated on missions, creates a furious operational tempo for the TF 145 elements, which average well over a mission per day.