[War] Saudi: "When it rains...."

[Pat B]

"When it rains...."

King Ali Bin Bashir al Saud


=Riyadh=

Ali woke up to the ringing of a phone. Phones were usually not a bad
thing, but this early, that was not a good thing.  never had been never
would be.

All he heard as he was sitting up was the phrase, hostages, oil field.

"Please repeat that bit about uniforms?"

"Interior ministry uniforms sir..." The voice responded, "It appears
they were dressed as interior ministry troops."

Coffee was being rapidly delivered by a valet and his military staff was
waiting. The general in charge of the interior ministry was smoking and
looking rather terrified.  Good Ali thought, he'd let the guy stew for a
bit he had a chance to redeem himself.

"Ok, we will discuss how they got interior ministry weapons and uniforms
later right now here's what we're going to do. I want the area sealed
off, have the airforce task helicopters to survey 24/7, I want to see
the outside.  Also set up negotiations, find out what they want and keep
them talking. and I want a plan for an assault."


=Outside the hostage situation=


Trucks pulled up, both large vehicles and several armored cars which 
secured the area and troops from the Saudi Army National Guard began to 
take up a perimiter around the facility.  Helicopters circled the area 
and a phone was set up and several people gathered around monitors as 
technical experts began to place video cameras and used the constant 
reports from the aircraft to identify the hostage takers, patterns, if 
they checked in, radio scramblers were going and plans of the facility 
were gathered and any place where hostages could be held were identified 
so far it looked like the main control room and a couple of valve rooms 
were best places to put people and it would make sense to do that.

The phone lines had been tapped and the first thing they did was attempt 
to make contact, first orders were to negotiate, find out what they want 
and delay as much as they could.

=Riyadh=

Ali and several department heads, most of whom were not relations where 
usually it would be a family affair, that alone made the young king 
realise that there was very little family, almost none to be exact. But 
that was not important right now as he had a briefing from Saudi 
Emergency Forces on their plan to assault the facility.

The Major seemed to be a very self assured man who had a powerpoint 
presentation of the situation and knew exactly what he had necessary and 
began to lay out the operational situation and identified so far three 
of the terrorists and were starting to get a pattern down.

"What are the risks to the hostages?"

"Minimal, there's a risk of 5 to 10% but it's better then their chances 
with the fanatics, which is 100% casualty rate."  The major was blunt, 
and for some reason that made Ali actually liked the guy for that.

Two of the generals who had been counseling caution began to splutter 
and rose a steam of argument were silenced by a glare from Ali, "Major 
what is the worst case scenario?"

"They kill the entire raid force, blow up the facility kill 200 hostages."

That got the King to blanche slightly, "Why the hell did you bring this 
to me?"

That got a raised eyebrow from the officer about his age, "Because it is 
your decision, the job isn't all Merceedes' and photo ops, you're not 
the King of England you actually rule."

Taking the verbal slap Ali nodded, "Thank you Major, and you're right, 
the worst case is bad, but not doing anything or giving in is worse. I'm 
releasing authority to commander on the scene, you go when it seems best 
to you, Safety of the hostages is number 1 priority but if you get 
prisoners take them in to custody."

That got a nod from the Emergency forces officer, "Try out the new laws?"

"Exactly, but like I said hostages safety first."

When the briefing was over Ali stood and  walked to the window, it was 
on his shoulders and he hadn't slept in 16 hours, damn he was hating 
this job.

=3am Local Standard Time=
=Hostage site=

The cover of darkness worked it's magic as usual shadowy figures moved 
slowly towards the facility, when they encountered a camera it was 
hooked in to a small portable dvd player which had a loop of the same 
footage over and over.

The teams would coordinate carefully each striking at exactly the same 
time and EOD teams were locating and disabling explosives where they could.

At the appointed time, it began.

"3.....2.....1  Breach, Breach, Breach"


Actions

1) Cordon the area off, open negotiations, get demands and as much 
information as we can, try to identify as many as possible.

2) Begin identifying the targets, get as much intel as possible, 
determine patterns and strategies.

3) at their lowest energy level breach with Saudi Emergency forces, two 
will hit the main control center, detachments will hit each control 
center, use SANG for backup, have RSA assist with  EOD and support as 
needed.

4) anyone alive will be charged under the new laws.