Operation Barras - Long-term Impact

Long-term Impact

The capture of the Royal Irish patrol had undermined the confidence of the Sierra Leonean population in the British operation, which they hoped would help to bring an end to the country's civil war, and embarrassed the British government, which had been critical of similar previous incidents involving UNAMSIL personnel. Operation Barras restored confidence in the British forces, prompting military historian William Fowler to call the operation "a necessarily spectacular endorsement of the rule of law and the elected government of Sierra Leone".

The British media struck a celebratory note at the success of Operation Barras, but some suggested that Marshall had erred in diverting the patrol off the main road to visit the West Side Boys. Both Marshall and Bangura—the patrol's Sierra Leone Army liaison—were adamant that the patrol had been asked by the Jordanian peacekeepers serving with UNAMSIL to, in Bangura's words, "take a closer look". However, the commander of UNAMSIL—General Mohamed Garba of Nigeria—initially denied that the Royal Irish had met the Jordanians and both UNAMSIL HQ and the Jordanian commanding officer denied that the patrol were asked to investigate the West Side Boys' camp. An investigation into the capture of the patrol was launched by Land Command and a senior officer was despatched to Freetown to debrief the members of the patrol. The report was critical of Marshall, stating that he "made an error of professional judgement in diverting from a planned and authorised journey to make an unauthorised visit to the village of Magbeni."

The risks of Operation Barras were acknowledged by the MoD and by officers involved in the planning and the assault. It was described by an SAS soldier as "not a clinical, black balaclava, Princes Gate type operation. It was a very grubby, green operation with lots of potential for things to go wrong". Richard Connaughton observed in the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies that the operation showed that Tony Blair's government was not averse to the possibility of casualties where they felt the cause was just. Geoff Hoon, British Secretary of State for Defence, summed up the effect of the operation at a press conference, stating that " sends a number of powerful messages. Firstly, it is a yet further demonstration of the refusal of successive British governments to do deals with terrorists and hostage takers. Secondly, we hope the West Side Group and other rebel units in Sierra Leone will now accept the rule of law and the authority of the democratically elected government of Sierra Leone. Thirdly, we hope all those who may in future consider taking similar actions against UK armed forces will think carefully about the possible consequences and realise there is nothing to be gained by such action". Andrew M. Dorman of King's College London suggested that the success or failure of Operation Barras was "inextricably linked" to the fate of the wider British operation in Sierra Leone and that, had the British forces been defeated, the United Kingdom would have been forced to withdraw all its forces from Sierra Leone. Dorman also suggests that a defeat would have "raised questions" regarding Tony Blair's policy of using armed force for humanitarian intervention.

The success of Operation Barras was a factor in the decision to form the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG), a permanent unit whose role is to act as a force multiplier for British special forces on large or complex operations. The SFSG was formed in 2006 and is based around an infantry battalion—originally 1 PARA, which was the first battalion to serve in the role—with supporting elements from the Royal Marines and Royal Air Force Regiment. The SFSG went on to support special forces operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The capture of the Royal Irish patrol and the effectiveness of the operation to free them prompted the British government to increase its support of UNAMSIL, both politically and through the provision of staff officers to assist UNAMSIL's operational headquarters (though not with a significant contribution of peacekeepers, despite considerable lobbying). The British also applied political pressure through the United Nations Security Council on the Revolutionary United Front (RUF)—the second main party to the civil war after the government—and on Sierra Leone's neighbour Liberia, which had provided support to the RUF. The new approach, combined with a larger and more powerful UNAMSIL, hastened the demobilisation of the RUF and thus the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War.