On 16 March 2007, five soldiers of HQ (Westminster Dragoons) Squadron, The Royal Yeomanry were flown to Gibraltar to participate in a ten-day counter-terrorism exercise being run to test, enhance and rehearse the Royal Gibraltar Regiment’s (RG) standard operating procedures, command and control, and joint agency integration. Although it was run by the RG, the exercise also involved MoD Police, HMG Guard service, the Royal Navy, Royal Gibraltar Police and RAF bomb disposal teams. No such exercise had been undertaken for seven years and with recent terrorist activity in Spain and Morocco fresh in mind, as well as IRA activity from further back, the exercise was given a very high priority.
The WDs’ role was to play a recently-arrived terrorist active service unit and enact an escalating campaign of attacks in support of the exercise storyline. To lend credibility in a community as small as Gibraltar it was vital that unknown faces played the terrorists. Hence Ops Officer Capt Juri Williamson RG’s idea to ask the WDs (via Capt MacEvilly) to provide the ‘clean skins’ for the exercise. Throughout, we tried to maintain as non-military an appearance as possible, even not shaving for the duration.
Based out of a safe house (actually HMS Rooke, the Officers’ Mess – no participating personnel were based there), we kicked off the first stage of the exercise with three days of free play where we had to recce and probe as many military installations as possible. This was done round the clock, in two-man teams, usually using the tourist cover (enabling us to take ‘wrong turns’ into camps, wave large telephoto cameras around, and try to coax information from guards and security personnel etc.), though occasionally we resorted to good old-fashioned recce skullduggery. The aim of this stage was to see if our activity was picked up, acted on, and relayed up the chain of command. At the end of the three-day period we submitted a detailed report to the exercise Directing Staff (DS) detailing what we had observed and possible locations/methods for attack. This was used by the DS to identify areas that needed improving and in later debriefs to friendly forces.
At this point our terrorist activity went ‘hot’ and the next seven days were spent executing a variety of attacks and scenarios choreographed by the DS (often drawing on ideas submitted in our report) to simulate increasing terrorist action sufficient to culminate in the governor authorising troops to be deployed onto the streets of Gibraltar.
These scenarios included drive-by shootings, an amphibious raid on the nuclear sub Z-berths, sniper shoots on guard posts, running a car bomb onto the international runway (not often you get to do that in your Army career), a night raid on the airport fuel tanks, amphibious re-supply (testing the Navy/police launches), several camp infiltrations (with and without the use of hostages), testing police/army vehicle checkpoints, and flagrant night time recces of the airport perimeter via the city’s main graveyards (to test OPs on the Rock).
Again, these were all designed to test and improve the drills and command and control of the friendly forces, as well as their ability to conduct activities in accordance with civilian/peacetime laws and requirements. Whilst these activities unrolled, friendly forces also began to score successes (in order to maintain morale and progress the scenario). These included discovering arms caches, clearing terrorists (us) out of hides in some of Gibraltar’s 26 miles of tunnels, ambushes, ‘hard knock’ raids and arrests.
As the scenario progressed, friendly forces inevitably gained the upper hand and the exercise culminated with the RG’s undertaking a night-time clearance of terrorist strong-points from South to North along the entire Upper Rock. This climaxed (with sufficient flash and bang to wake all of Gibraltar) in a final assault on Princess Alexandra Battery where five years earlier the Westminster Dragoons had fired the British Army’s last six-pounder gun salute just prior to the guns’ retirement.
Some of the most memorable events for us included Spanish fishing boats sharply heading for home when the airport erupted into (blank!) automatic fire during an intercepted night raid, the tension and graft of tunnel clearance, and the look of utter horror and surprise on the guard’s face after Tpr Bowles had used a van and its driver as hostage to infiltrate Buffadero Training Camp and then proceeded to wreak havoc.
At the Endex debrief the Commanding Officer RG, Lt Col John Perez, thanked the WDs for providing “an unusually intelligent Opfor”, but perhaps our contribution is best summed up by ‘Gibboe (RGR)’ on the informal Army chat website ARRSE when later discussing that exercise’s Opfor: “those F!#kers were driving us crazy all exercise long!”
It goes without saying that this was a hugely entertaining exercise to participate in. It also enabled us to gain a fascinating insight into urban operations, reconnaissance, and CCRF-related activities with and in support of other security and law-enforcement agencies, as well as experience working in small covert teams. For this we owe a huge amount of thanks to the RG for once again inviting us to train with them and for hosting us so royally. Most importantly though, it was heartening to see friendly forces’ skills and drills improve markedly as the exercise progressed (even if it did result in some less than pleasant arrest experiences for us) – if nothing else that meant we had achieved something concrete in our time on the Rock.