Anatomy of a Hostage Rescue in Sudan

We are often asked about hostage rescues. Oil company executives -- particularly Westerners pose a very lucrative and vulnerable target.

Case A. Operation Crimson Albatross.

An French oil executive-- Vivier LaForge in Sudan was spirited away by several armed men as he exited his Western oil processing facility.

Kidnappers asked for 6M US Dollars by phone and threatened to beat Mr Laforge more.

Victim's family contacted us and asked us to try to negotiate the release of the hostage and use reason before force.

When it was determined that force would finally be used and that kidnappers were getting serious...

We made use of 20 Special Operations team members. Making use of network of contacts in Sudan... we built up the kidnappers profiles, weapons used, and level of professionalism. It was determined that there were 3 kidnappers in the hostage keep-- located in a 3rd level apartment block in the city center's market.

Satellite photos were taken of the target area and increased Recce and Surveillance was done on the hostage keep by two Operators (snipers) dressed as locals posted in an aparment block 500 metres away.

Photos of the type of windows, wall materials of the hostage keep, and possible landing zones (LZs) for helicopters were taken by our R and S team over a period of 2 weeks. Photos were corelated with detailed maps.

Time from hostage incident was now 3 weeks. We had the hostage family keep talking to the kidnappers to buy time and build up a clearer intelligence picture for our Intelligence Officer. We had to know the constitution of the kidnapping team-- their weapons, their level of motivation and their level of seriousness in carrying out the threats of further harm to the hostage.

It was finally decided that kidnappers threats to execute hostage by a certain dateline had to come to and end and a call was made by the Mission Commander to execute the mission.

0300 hours was the set time for building entry.

at 0230 hours-- the 20 Special Forces paratroopers dropped from an AN-12 cargo plane.

At 0250 hours-- the men-- divided into two separate teams-- one the SHOOTER team and the other the PERIMETER security team formed up.

At 0258-- the frame charge to destroy the door to the hostage keep was pasted