Sanjha Morcha

10 swiftest, most secret ops

  • 1942, Operation Anthropoid, Prague: Code name for the assassination attempt on Nazi officer Reinhard Heydrich. It was planned by the British Special Operations Executive with the approval of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Although only wounded in the attack, Heydrich died from his injuries in June 1942 and his death led to a wave of merciless reprisals by German troops.
  • 1972, Operation Wrath of God: After terrorist group Black September kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972, the Israeli intelligence Mossad sought revenge. Covert Israeli assassination units killed dozens of suspected conspirators across Europe. The operation spurred retaliations and criticism of Israel.
  • 1976, Israeli raid at Entebbe: Under cover of darkness, Israeli commandos launched Operation Thunderbolt, to rescue 100 Jewish passengers of an Air France jet that had been hijacked and flown to Entebbe Airport in Uganda. The mission was largely a success, with all seven hijackers and dozens of Ugandan soldiers killed.
  • 1980, Iranian hostage rescue: Iranian students took 53 Americans hostage at the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Early next year a plan, Operation Eagle Claw, ended in disaster in the desert as members of the US Army Rangers and the Delta Force antiterrorism team ran into sand storms and aborted the mission. In a subsequent fire during the evacuation, eight men died and the team left a Sea Stallion helicopter and a C-130 aircraft burning in the desert.
  • 1989, Arrest of Manuel Noriega: In the winter of 1989, US launched Operation Nifty Package to overthrow and capture the Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega. Three platoons of Navy SEALs tracked down and surrounded Noriega at the Apostolic Nuncio, a Roman Catholic facility in Panama City. After a bloody firefight and psychological pressure for several days, Noriega surrendered.
  • 1993, Mogadishu, Somalia: US Army Rangers and Delta Force teams launched an operation in October 1993 to capture Somali warloard Mohamed Farrah Aidid. But after two US Black Hawk helicopters were downed by rocket-propelled grenades, the mission quickly unraveled. US lost 18 soldiers and another 73 were wounded. The Somali managed to escape.
  • 2002, Moscow theatre hostage: In 2002, Chechan rebels took over the crowded Nord-Ost Theater in Moscow, taking 850 hostages. After two days, Russian Spetsnaz forces pumped an unknown chemical into the theater’s ventilation system and then stormed the complex. The raid left at least 170 dead, including 129 hostages and 39 terrorists.
  • 2003: Rescue of Jessica Lynch: Jessica Lynch, a US soldier was taken prisoner by Iraqi forces in March 2003, when her convoy was ambushed in Nassiriya. She was missing for nine days. On April 1, a team of US Special Forces launched a nighttime raid on the hospital where she was kept and rescued her.
  • 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said to the be among the key planners of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, was among three terrorism suspects arrested in a March 2003 CIA-led operation in the garrison city of Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
  • 2011, Killing of Osama bin Laden: A heli-borne assault, Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out by a team of US Navy SEALs on the compound of terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011. The mastermind of the attacks of September 11, 2001, was killed and the team gathered a large cache of documents and manuscripts.