Secret U.S. anti-terror unit

Press, 4 March 1978, Page 9

Secret U.S. anti-terror unit

NZPA-Reuter Washington

President Jimmy Carter of the United States has ordered the formation of a secret Army commando unit to provide the nation’s first fulltime force for combating hijackings and other terrorist acts outside the country, Government sources have saidThe force has been given the code name “Project Blue Light” for its formative stages. The sources said that a nucleus of Green Berets, the Army’s Special Forces, have already quietly set up headquarters in a post stockade that has until now been used to house prisoners at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. There they are assembling a hand-picked force of unconventional warfare veterans, some of whom took part in the 1970 Son Tay Prison camp raid into North Vietnam. The unit is planned to number around 200 men by this summer, the sources said.

The operation is headed by Colonel Charlie Alvin Beckwith, a tough Green Beret who ran a clandestine suurveillance and guerrillawarfare unit in Vietnam.

Sources at Fort Bragg say Blue Light already has been unofficially dubbed “Charlie’s Angels” by its first members. The decisions to go ahead with the operation was made in the aftermath of the daring rescue of 91 hostages aboard a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner last October at Mogadishu, Somalia, by a special West German commando unit known as GSG-9, the sources said. A Pentagon spokesman, Thomas Ross, confirmed that Mr Carter issued a directive to the Defence Secretary (Mr Harold Brown) in December authorising steps to increase anti-terrorist capabilities, but declined comment on any further details. But the sources said that the Mogadishu incident focused Administration attention on terrorist dangers

and increased concern over the lack of American readiness to cope with similar incidents in remote parts of tire world.

They said that while some troops from various services had been given sporadic training, it was apparent that the United States lacked the ability to react with “surgical counter-terror” force in highly demanding situations with hostages such as hijacking or attacks on United States citizens.

A secret Pentagon document dated December 28 said the new unit would be armed with special weapons and equipment. Although a United States Army unit, it will be under direct control of the multi-service Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The sources said that it would be used only overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation continuing to have counter-terror responsibility inside United States borders. The sources said it was expected to take months to

train a full unit and up to two or three years for it to reach the proficiency of German or Israeli anti-hijack commandos.

The Blue Light group of j about 60 will act as an interim force, they said.

Colonel Beckwith is a veteran of three combat tours in Vietnam. He headed a secret behind-the-lines guerrilla force there known as Project Delta. He was detached from regular Green Beret duty at Fort Bragg’s Unconventional Warfare Centre last year to work full-time developing cou n t e r-terrorist plans, ‘sources said. Prisoners at the Fort Bragg stockade, which has seen relatively light use in recent years, were moved to a civilian jail in nearby Fayetteville to make room for Colonel Beckwith’s group. The sources said the site was chosen because it was in a secluded part of the post and easily screened from observation.