Polish GROM  - Iraq War Operations, 2003-2008 "They captured more high-value targets in Iraq than any unit except Delta Force. You've never heard of them."   STORY: GROM (Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego) operated in the shadows during the Iraq War, conducting some of the most dangerous missions alongside American units. In 2003, GROM operators secured Iraqi oil platforms in the Persian Gulf before Saddam could destroy them, fast-roping from helicopters onto rigs rigge

Russian Alpha Group  - Nord-Ost Theatre Siege, 2002 "900 hostages. 40 terrorists. Alpha Group's solution was so extreme, it killed 130 hostages too." STORY: October 2002. Chechen terrorists seized Moscow's Dubrovka Theatre during a musical performance, wiring the building with explosives and holding 850 people hostage. For three days, they threatened to blow up everyone. Alpha Group, Russia's premier counter-terrorism unit, planned an unprecedented assault. They pumped an unk

Philippine Scout Rangers  - Raid at Kauswagan, 2017 "ISIS fighters beheaded civilians on camera. Scout Rangers tracked them through jungle and gave no mercy."   STORY: 2017. ISIS-affiliated Maute Group terrorized Marawi City, Philippines, beheading civilians and posting videos online. Scout Rangers, the Philippines' elite jungle warfare unit, hunted them through dense rainforest where drones were useless and satellites couldn't penetrate. One unit tracked a Maute leadership c

German GSG 9 - Mogadishu Hijacking, 1977 "Terrorists held 86 hostages in a plane for five days. GSG 9 ended it in seven minutes."   STORY: October 1977. Palestinian terrorists hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181, holding 86 passengers hostage across multiple countries. The plane landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, after the pilot was murdered. For five days, negotiations went nowhere. Germany's newly-formed GSG 9 flew to Somalia with British SAS advisors carrying new "flash-bang" grenade

Israeli Sayeret Matkal - Operation Entebbe, 1976 "3,000 miles from home. One runway. 100 hostages. They landed in the dark and had 90 seconds."   STORY: July 4, 1976. Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France flight and diverted it to Entebbe, Uganda, where dictator Idi Amin supported them. 106 Jewish hostages faced execution in 48 hours. Israel planned the impossible: a 2,500-mile rescue raid into hostile territory. Four C-130 Hercules aircraft flew at wave-top height ac

GIGN   (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) - Air France Flight 8969, 1994 "Terrorists planned to crash a plane into Paris. GIGN stormed it on the runway. Zero passengers died."   STORY: December 1994. Algerian terrorists hijacked Air France Flight 8969 with 220 passengers, planning to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. After executing three hostages in Algiers, they forced the plane to Marseille for refueling. French authorities stalled. GIGN operators positione

Delta   Force  - Operation Acid Gambit (Panama), 1989 "Delta Force’s daring raid ended with the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—and changed the fight against terror forever." STORY: In October 2019, Delta Force launched a covert, high-stakes operation deep inside Syria’s Idlib province to find and eliminate ISIS’s most notorious leader.  Eight Black Hawk helicopters flew through hostile airspace, navigating Turkish and Russian-monitored borders, to reach a fortified

Navy SEALs - Operation Neptune Spear (Bin Laden Raid), 2011 "They flew invisible helicopters into a fortress. Nobody knew they were there until it was over."   STORY: May 2, 2011. Twenty-three SEALs from SEAL Team Six boarded two stealth Black Hawks that didn't exist on any public record. Their target: Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, just miles from a Pakistani military academy. Flying low to avoid radar they crossed into Pakistani airspace undetected. One

Ukrainian Alpha Group - Euromaidan Sniper Crisis, 2014 "Snipers were killing protesters in the streets. Alpha Group operators refused orders to fire on their own people. Some paid with their lives." STORY: February 2014, Kyiv. Euromaidan protests turned deadly when snipers began killing demonstrators in Independence Square. Ukrainian Alpha Group received orders from the Yanukovych government to storm the square and "restore order." Alpha operators faced an impossible moral ch

Spetsnaz GRU - Soviet-Afghan War Operations, 1979-1989 "They hunted in the mountains like wolves. The Mujahideen called them 'the black tulips of death.'"   STORY: Soviet Spetsnaz units operated in Afghanistan with a brutality and efficiency that terrified even hardened Mujahideen fighters. Deployed in small teams, they would track guerrilla fighters through mountain passes for days without rest. One legendary operation involved a Spetsnaz team tracking a Mujahideen commander