Saving Private Sarbi

by Sandra Lee

  Nose-work is only one part of the game. Sarbi was taught the same four basic search patterns D had learnt years earlier— building, area, route and vehicle. EDDs searching for improvised explosive devices on routes work in a box pattern, up one side of the road, across and returning down the other side to the starting point. For vehicle searches, Sarbi circled a vehicle and checked under it before going through one door and out the other, front seat first then rear, followed by trays and truck sections. Large open areas are zigzagged, left to right with the dog off leash and metres out in front of its handler. The teams search vulnerable points and choke points including bridges, river crossings, riverbanks, and defiles, army speak for places where the road or route narrows due to a man-made or natural obstruction, increasing its risk as a site for ambush or attack.

  Circumstances dictate the distance at which the animal works. Each handler has his own preference for how far the dog should be ahead of him. D liked Sarbi to roam at least 40 metres in front of him but she could be as far as 70 to 80 metres from her handler, depending on the segment of the search pattern. Monitoring distance is absolutely vital. As he says, the dog is in the most vulnerable position and the crucial element in each search is to ensure the safety of the following troops. Visual hand signals and audible commands for the dog remain the same in every instance. Consistency is king.

  To the untrained observer, the intricate teamwork between man and mutt must seem magically telepathic and, in a way, it is. It is as if the dog has insinuated its way into the handler’s head, and vice versa. They have become attuned to each other’s needs. ‘Streamlined and instinctive,’ he says.

  When trained, the military mutts can detect lethal explosives from 100 metres, with a nose that is ten to 100,000 times superior to the exceedingly limited human olfactory tool. In monetary terms, they are worth an estimated $90,000 and cost thousands of dollars a year to run. The American military working dogs cost $40,000 a year to maintain and care for and are designated rather coldly as a ‘highly specialized piece of equipment’. It’s worth remembering that the eleven Australian dogs that served in Vietnam were also robbed of their actual dogness and described as ‘engineer stores’. Decades later the faithful hounds were finally afforded the respect they had earned and deserved when granted a proper title, explosive detection dog. But the dollar figure and designation devalues the true worth of the smart animals. To their handlers and the soldiers whose lives they save, ensuring they will go home safely, they are priceless.

  For these dogs had skills other than those for which they had been meticulously trained. How could you put a price on the ability to boost troop morale or comfort the grief-stricken or provide faithful companionship or act as an emotional crutch for young soldiers who put their lives on the line daily for their countries? What price their unconditional love, as pure and as old as the ages, or the happiness they bring by just being a dog? All the mutts want in return is to be loved, fed and taken care of. Occasional playtime is a bonus. As warriors go, there are none more uncomplicated than the four-legged variety. They are creatures of unbidden affection as well as marvels of military training.

  Sarbi and Rafi were trained to a gold standard and knew every hard edge and right angle of operational deployment. They proved to be star performers and graduated in November 2005. Yet, for the first time in their lives, the dogs that had done so much together were to be separated.

  Corporal Young chose to take Rafi, now with the official rank of EDD 435, to Townsville and he reported for duty in January of 2006. EDD 436 Sarbi remained with D, who was assigned to the specialist Incident Response Regiment at the Holsworthy Army Barracks under the aegis of the Special Operations Command.

  It was time to seek on, for real.

  Chapter 10

  SARBI, GO SEEK

  Explosive Detection Dog 436 Sarbi made her professional debut in 2006, in one of the greatest national security challenges on Australian soil—ensuring terrorists did not unleash a reign of terror on the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. The so-called friendly games were the second international sporting event held in Australia in the post September 11 environment and the Federal and State governments and law enforcement authorities were on high alert. For good reason. The threat of a terrorist strike was a daily reality.

  Echoes of the bloodbaths in Bali and London the previous year were resonating still. On 1 October 2005 twenty tourists were slaughtered while dining on a beachfront restaurant at the popular Indonesian resort of Jimbaran Bay, the second terrorist bombing to target Western holiday–makers in the Islamic archipelago in the space of three years. Three months previously, on 7 July, four suicide bombers with ties to al-Qaeda hit London. They detonated crudely made bombs during the morning peak hour on three trains in the Tube and on a red double-decker bus on a crowded city street. Fifty-two innocent men, women and children were murdered. Another 700 people were seriously injured.

  The attacks shattered Britain’s fragile sense of security, now permanently altered.

  The eighteenth Commonwealth Games presented another potential opportunity for religious and political extremists. Terrorists abhor a vacuum. They need an audience, crave it. An audience fuels and sustains the brutal objectives of terrorisers, who use violence against civilians and non-combatants to exact revenge for perceived wrongs. Equally dark and insidious is the desire to instil fear in and intimidate or influence a targeted population, often with irrevocable and devastating effect. As terrorists had shown on so many occasions in so many locations around the world, they had no compunction about targeting civilians.

  Terrorists weren’t the only concern. Individuals fixated on public figures, serial pests with a history of disrupting public events, minority groups with single-issue grievances and even those suffering mental illness posed real and significant threats.

  It was for these reasons that the contours and consequences of an attack in Melbourne were addressed from every imaginable perspective, by a coalition of agencies experienced in counter terrorism, rapid responses and cataclysmic consequence management. ‘It was not as if the threat of terrorism was new, but the concern was around issue-motivated groups. There was a possibility they would use your event to push their own cause,’ recalls a senior member of the contract security team for the games.

  Security for the Commonwealth Games was logistically complicated. More than 4500 athletes from 71 countries converged on Melbourne to compete in 247 events in sixteen sports, fourteen of which were held within three kilometres of the southern state’s central business district. Hundreds of thousands of spectators were expected to attend more than 60 sporting venues and public domains, all of which had to be searched and secured. Chief among them were the sprawling ‘precincts’ for the road events, the only venues where unscreened, non-ticketed spectators could actually reach out and physically touch an athlete competing in the walk and mountain bike events, and the popular road cycle races, marathon and triathlon.

  The opening and closing ceremonies at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, on 15 March and 26 March respectively, presented even bigger propaganda opportunities for potential terrorists. Queen Elizabeth II was opening the games before a retinue of royalty, heads of state, VIPs and dignitaries. For terrorists, they were high-value targets. Tens of thousands of jubilant locals and tourists, all with their guard down to celebrate the glory of the games, were also at risk. Hundreds of thousands more were invited to free events at public venues. Public transport would be stretched to capacity. There was no overstating the fact: the city would be a target-rich environment. Nothing could or would be left to chance.

  Federal and State law enforcement agencies joined with intelligence, military and government bodies plus a civilian army of 6000 private security contractors to make the games safe, or as safe as could be.

  Two thousand six hundred personnel from the Australian Defence Force—navy, army and air force—were selected for the event. In typical style, the ADF named its mission, calling this one Operat
ion Acolyte, the Greek word for ‘helper’ or ‘assistant’. Highly trained soldiers from the Special Air Service Regiment, the 1st and 2nd Commando Regiments, the Incident Response Regiment and the entire Explosive Dog Detection Section were among the 1200 defence members specifically conscripted to provide security for the Games, patrolling the skies, land and waterways. Their collective specialty was counter-terrorism and rapid responses to terrorist strikes.

  Blackhawk helicopters supported a Tactical Assault Group (there are two, known as east and west and located in Sydney and Perth). Maritime and airborne assets, including amphibious landing vessels and FA/18 Hornets, were ready to intercept vessels or divert aircraft to counter specific threats should they arise. Soldiers from the IRR would respond to any chemical, biological or radiological (CBR) threats, as well as perform air crash rescues.

  The devil was in the detail. The success or otherwise of an operation as vast and complicated as the Games was in the planning, training, rehearsing and readiness. Operation Acolyte presented new training opportunities for D and another handler, Sapper Craig Turnbull, and EDD Razz because they were attached to the Commandos and SAS, with their superior firepower, machinery and equipment.

  D and EDD Sarbi hadn’t been working together long but he didn’t reckon that as a disadvantage. He had every confidence in her and believed she was up to the task. As dogs go, he had seen none better. Still hasn’t. She had proven her mettle as an all-terrain, all-conditions dog during doggie boot camp. Sarbi knew her TNT from her RDX, her detonator cords from her time fuses; she was able to sniff up wind, down wind and across wind. In short, she knew the ropes and the smells.

  The EDD teams developed extra searches to assist the elite Special Forces soldiers and devised new ways of winching two dogs side-by-side out of Blackhawk helicopters for rapid response insertions. One handler fast-roped out of the chopper to the ground first, followed by the dogs that were winched out the other side in harnesses, then the second handler fast-roped to the ground.

  D strapped Sarbi in and hoisted her up a tree to determine her reaction—remarkably calm, considering the situation. She didn’t, however, appreciate the noise and downwash of the rotor blades when winched from the chopper, not uncommon for the hounds. The dogs were compliant, if not overly happy about their aerial activities, unlike the rush of wind they love when abseiling. ‘I wouldn’t say they like it, they tolerate it,’ he says.

  The dogs were also taught to detect explosives concealed on humans, to counter the threat of suicide bombers. That required a new skill set. Dogs recognise humans as people—not inanimate objects with an explosive scent— and respond accordingly. The innovative handlers tweaked the proven methods of detecting explosives and the dogs dutifully adapted.

  The hounds and handlers had honed their skills and drills to their highest standard yet, constantly sharpening their ever-evolving TTPs. They were fully prepared for any situation, however unpredictable. D, calm and process driven by nature, didn’t let things faze him. He had worked the Sydney Olympics and Sydney Special Olympics with EDD Vegas in 2000 and his experience would complement his hound’s natural-born sniffing skills. Sarbi was good to go.

  The EDDs searched, cleared and secured the athletes’ villages and prepped them for lockdown. Once done, nothing could penetrate the established security zone. They helped other agencies at vehicle checkpoints, with the dogs sniffing for explosives and associated contraband.

  The dogs’ mere presence among the public was psychologically reassuring from a security perspective. The feel-good effect was rated a bonus. Animal lovers all stopped and offered a pat and kind word. The flow-on effect and goodwill was infinite.

  The intense preparation paid off. The event was a masterpiece of top-level domestic security and lived up to its nickname of the ‘friendly games’. The VIPs went home happy; Melbourne’s proud boast that it is the sporting capital of Australia remained unchallenged.

  It was a prelude for what would come next.

  D and Sarbi returned to the Incident Response Regiment in Sydney and the other Doggies flew back to their bases around the country. Before long the handlers were hearing whispers about their next deployment.

  There was then a 200-member Australian Army Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) partway through a yearlong deployment known as Operation Slipper. They were based at the multinational Camp Holland in the remote and dangerous province of Uruzgan in Afghanistan.

  To outsiders, Afghanistan is a place that time forgot. A nation for which past is prologue. Afghans boast a proud warrior culture some 2000 years old. They have ruthlessly repelled Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, Tartars, the British and, finally, the Soviet Union (the Cold War superpower was humiliated in defeat after a nine-year war that ended in 1989). No nation has been able to conquer with any sense of permanence Afghanistan’s ethnically diverse tribes, sub-tribes and clans. The infamously fractious populace has a reputation for independence, blood feuds, ferocity and a near mystical ability to disappear into the mountains and villages, the latter trait for which the Russians dubbed them dukhi and dushman—ghosts and bandits. Not for nothing is the landlocked country known as a graveyard of empires for, historically speaking, it has been.

  Uruzgan, the southern province where the Australians were deployed, is hauntingly beautiful but treacherous. The terrain is tailor-made for guerrilla warfare, dominated as it is by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Uruzgan bleeds slowly in to the southern edge of the Hindu Kush that splits the country from north to south and rises into jagged, steep and impenetrable hills pockmarked by elaborate cave systems and rutted with deep crevices. In the sweeping valley below, mud hut compounds known as qualas nestle along tree-lined rivers that feed creeks and streams used to irrigate the surrounding fertile fields farmed for opium poppy and a handful of other crops. Subsistence farming. Beyond the green belt, the land turns harsh, hard and barren. The arid desert plateaus are littered with rock as hard as flint and pebbles sharp enough to shear through combat fatigues. Seasonal temperatures swing from extreme highs to dangerous lows, notable for sandpaper-like dust storms and biting blizzards.

  The high-tech machinery of a modern army is, strangely, at some disadvantage against the dramatic natural features of the landscape. Movement is limited, communications obstructed and observation restricted.

  As the commanding officer of the task group, Major General Mike Hindmarsh said later, the soaring desert mountains are so remote and difficult to access that local villagers believed the Australian soldiers who arrived in August 2005 were Soviet soldiers returning to fight the war that ended in 1989.

  It had been almost four years since the first Special Operations Task Group withdrew from the country, after an initial twelve-month deployment in response to the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Their mission then was to support the American-led operation to catch or kill the elusive al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who used Afghanistan as a training ground for his terrorist network.

  They missed bin Laden but the Taliban was quickly ousted in 2001. A fledgling democracy was desperately trying to take hold under President Hamid Karzai, who had been democratically elected in 2004. The economy remained fragile amid widespread corruption. The nation was susceptible to the growing number of insurgents flowing across the badlands along the porous 2430-kilometre border Afghanistan shares with Pakistan on its eastern and southern sides.

  In 2005 the governments of the United States, United Kingdom and Afghanistan asked Prime Minister John Howard to redeploy Australian troops to join the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) as they expanded south in the next stage of the war on terror. The country was on the cusp of another round of national elections.

  ‘In recent months there has been a resurgence [of enemy activity] and it’s very important in the war against terror, because of the obvious connection between al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghanistan, that those attempts of recent times, renewed attempts to undermine the government of Afghanistan, are not suc
cessful,’ Mr Howard said in a packed press conference in Canberra.

  By 23 September 2005 two large SAS and Commando units from the task group were patrolling the hostile terrain, pushing 70 kilometres north of their base at Camp Holland in Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan. They were to provide overwatch on remote polling stations and gather intelligence, or intel.

  The prime minister revealed that a 200-member Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) would deploy in August 2006, to help stabilise the Afghan government and aid locals with rebuilding the war-torn country. The troops would build schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and even a dam to provide irrigation and electricity, while also providing humanitarian, medical and veterinary support to locals. ‘What you might call the hearts and minds side of the operation,’ Howard said.

  The Special Operations Task Group had a dangerous mission—to target terrorist groups and their supporters and disrupt the hardcore Taliban leadership and al-Qaeda elements in their traditional sanctuary of Uruzgan. In other words, to capture or kill the enemy in its own backyard. ‘It was akin to poking an ant bed with a stick,’ said Major General Mike Hindmarsh.

  To succeed they would penetrate hostile terrain on joint combat patrols with American, Dutch and British Special Forces and the Afghan National Army. They would perform long-range reconnaissance and surveillance to gather intelligence on the enemy’s routine, intent and movements, particularly across the so-called ‘rat lines’, treacherous donkey trails and goat paths that fed the Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters over the Durand Line dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan.