Sas Secret War

The author was the first serving SAS commander to write about the modern SAS. He describes the part played by the SAS in what was probably the most successful counter-insurgency campaign ever fought: the Dhofar war of 1969-76. Yet, the SAS's part in supporting the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces was kept secret from the British public and is still unknown save to a few.
The first edition of this book, written in 1977 under the title SAS Operation Oman took three years to clear with the censors before it could be published. It is still studied at the British Army Staff College as a text book on how a counter-insurgency campaign should be conducted. The aim was not to kill the enemy but to persuade them to join the government forces instead. Their only fault was that 'they did not know the truth'. The task of the SAS was to retrain these former guerillas, the firqats, reorganise them and lead them back to fight against their old comrades-in-arms. Their success was to expose the so-called 'historic inevitability' of Communist revolution for the myth it was.