US army training centre near Mosul, 2011. Wikicommons/ DVIDSHUB. Some rights reserved.The SAS are the only British soldiers engaged actively in military conflict. They are deployed in Iraq, in Syria, and in Libya where they conducted their very first operations 75 years ago. They are helping Kurdish fighters target Isis positions in the attack on Mosul.
While Britain’s conventional army is being slashed, Britain’s special forces are benefiting from special treatment. Their budget was doubled in last year’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).
They will be able to spend more than £2bn over the next ten years on new, sophisticated, equipment. They are already testing high altitude surveillance drones that can patrol for weeks on end to spy on targets far below. The new drone, called Zephyr 8, can fly so high and for so long that military commanders are calling it a ‘pseudo satellite’.
