Assignment Selous Scouts

Assignment Selous Scouts illuminates the day-to-day horrors of the bloody and brutal terror war that was fought in the former Rhodesia against Marxists guerrillas. ZANLA targeted white civilians, particularly farmers, to drive them from the land as well as tribal blacks to bring them onside using a strategy of murder, torture, rape, arson and other horrible acts of terror. They laid landmines indiscriminately on public roads. By the war's end there had been 21782 recorded terrorist incidents in the country (7996 in Hurricane, 5398 in Thrasher, 5676 in Repulse and 2712 in Grapple and Tangent between them). There were 1276 landmine detonations that caused 7283 casualties. Although involved in the conflict earlier while a regular policeman, the author stepped back into the Rhodesian Bush War in mid 1977 when as a farmer and a Police A Reservist he was appointed as a Special Branch liaison officer with the Selous Scouts at their Chiredzi Fort in the Lowveld. Much of what he has written in this book has come from his personal knowledge and experience. What Jim Parker didn't know then was that on 20 July 1977 the Security Force chiefs at Combined Operations had told Prime Minister Ian Sm