PM reveals SAS role in busting terror cell

John Key on his way to visit SAS troops in Afghanistan. Photo / NZPA

BAMIYAN - New Zealand Special Air Service troops were involved in an operation in Kabul that saw a terror cell busted and a quarter tonne of explosives seized - foiling plans for suicide bombings and other attacks.

Prime Minister John Key revealed the mission when talking to media in Kabul yesterday, during a three-day secret visit to Afghanistan, during which he was flown to an unnamed location in the capital on a Black Hawk helicopter to talk to the SAS team.

Mr Key said the unit had recently had a big success uncovering a massive cache of weapons in Kabul, including missiles and hand grenades.

"In the course of the discussions with the SAS it's been possible to get an understanding of what they are doing and the kind of operations that they've been undertaking...

"What is absolutely the case in talking to the SAS is they have been doing some tremendous work. They were very recently involved in a mission which saw them basically break and destroy a major insurgent effort, they recovered one of the largest caches that we've seen recovered here in downtown Kabul... it was a tremendous cache."

An article in US Army newspaper Stars and Stripes details the operation without naming the Kiwi involvement but Mr Key confirmed it was the same incident.

The SAS last year returned to Afghanistan for an 18-month stint training an elite group of Afghan commandos known as the Crisis Response Unit.

Stars and Stripes said Afghan security forces arrested nine members of a terrorist cell. Intelligence service spokesman Saeed Ansari told the newspaper four of the suspects were arrested while travelling in a vehicle in eastern Kabul while the other five were found at an Islamic school in the city.

Confiscated were a small number of rifles and machines guns, two rocket-propelled grenades, 200kg of explosives, suicide bomb vests and a vehicle.

The suspects ranged in age from 16 to 55 and each had specific jobs within the group. Three were apparently preparing for suicide bombing attacks but the spokesman said there were enough explosives for double the number.

He said the group was acting on orders from a Pakistan-based Taleban faction. It had rented a house in eastern Kabul, shipped weapons across the border and funded the vehicle purchase.

Meanwhile, Mr Key said he would "consider" extending the SAS commitment which is due to end in March.

"The SAS preference would be to have a smaller contingent to stay for a bit longer," he said.

However, he would not commit to allowing the contingent to remain.

"We need to wait and see. We've got a lot of domestic commitments with the Rugby World Cup and all sorts of other things... I can certainly understand their point which is they have made strong links, they are doing so in actually a very peaceful way, they are working with the Crisis Response Unit, they are working with the Afghan people and they haven't fired their weapons yet.

"I'd consider it. The purpose of being here is to be on the ground, to get an assessment of what I am being told and to go back and relay that to my Cabinet colleagues."

- NZPA