14 Riverside attack: Who are the Recce Squad?

Piece by: Uncle Chim Tuna
Lifestyle

With the Dusit terror attacks finally handled and the terrorists neutralized, Kenyans are left picking the pieces: some are praying for a quick recovery for themselves and loved ones, others are unfortunately left with the heavy task of identifying the remains of their loved ones.

The heroes of the day, Kenya's special forces unit (GSU) more commonly referred to as Recce Squad have left as quietly as they arrived, having accomplished their mission. But who are the Recce squad?

Well, as mentioned earlier, they are a special forces unit of the GSU whose training is done in both locally (Ruiru college, Solio Ranch and Magadi Field Training camp) and abroad. They go through highly regarded military training in countries such as the United Kingdom, Israel and America.

For the team to perform such operations as the one conducted at 14 Riverside, the Recce squad trainees first attend basic GSU training school in Embakasi.

From there, the best of the class (both academic and field operations) are selected for further training in VIP protection, handling and detonating explosives, security of vital installations, anti-terrorism, sky marshal (the counter-terrorism unit onboard commercial flights) and rescue operations.

Once this training is concluded, the graduands are deployed to one of 3 main units to provide support to the other field companies of the General Service Unit.

The GSU Recce Company units are:

Sky Marshal unit.

This is the undercover counter-terrorist unit onboard commercial flights to counter aircraft hijackings.

Crisis Response unit.

As the name suggests, this team of elite soldiers is always on stand-by to swing into action in case an already ongoing operation gets out of hand.

Rendition Operation unit

Mostly trained in Israel and America and handles VIP protection.

Sources: and