Fact file: Australian special forces

Fact file: Australian special forces

Australia has committed 2,000 troops to the Gulf

Australia has committed 2,000 troops to the war in Iraq, including some 150 members of its special forces.

It's the country's largest military deployment since the Vietnam war, though members of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment were heavily involved in secret operations with their US and British counterparts in Afghanistan.

The country's elite special forces were born in the post-war period out of the Australian Defence Force's close relationship with the British SAS.

Australian special forces, like their counterparts from New Zealand have often been members of or served with British units.

In general terms, it is organised along similar lines to the British units with the SAS at the heart of operations.

It shares the same regimental badge (a winged dagger) and mottor (Who Dares Wins) as the British. It has now started to develop new units as Australia expands its counter-terrorism military strategy.

Counter-terrorism: Expanded role at home

The forces present in Iraq include members of the SAS plus a quick-reaction force drawn from the 4th Battalion Australian Regiment (Commando), all under the command of Brigadier Maurie McNarn.

While the SAS units are understood to be active in Iraq on covert target identification missions, the Commando unit in Kuwait was established to prepare for search-and-rescue operations deep inside enemy territory.

Australia was one of the first nations to sign up to President George W Bush's so-called war against terror and special forces and regular troops served in Afghanistan.

In October 2002, weeks after the Bali bomb that killed 88 Australian holidaymakers, Prime Minister John Howard announced his country would expand the special forces with a new counter-terrorism commando company.

There would also be a new special forces supremo, on the same level as the heads of land, sea and air forces, Major-General Duncan Lewis. That new unit is expected to add an extra 300 soldiers over 18 months.

Army chief Lieutenant General Peter Leahy recently told the Australian parliament that special forces were becoming the military's "force of choice" though he was concerned that too much was being asked of them.

The Perth-based SAS is not without controversy.

UN war crimes investigators said they have looked at claims that Australia SAS men were involved in the torture and killing of two pro-Indonesian militiamen during their 1999 peace-keeping mission to East Timor.

That claim sparked a further inquiry within the Australian military.