NOW: Australia JUST Deployed SAS Troops to an Active War Zone. The Government Won’t Admit It
Somewhere in the desert south of Dubai, inside a military compound that most Australians have never heard of, a small group of soldiers arrived without announcement. No press conference, no parliamentary debate, no public record of the flight that carried them or the orders that sent them.
They were members of the Special Air Service Regiment, Australia’s most elite and secretive fighting force. Roughly 90 operators, according to unnamed defense sources, who leaked the deployment to a major Australian newspaper in early April 2026, the Australian government’s response to the story was immediate, and it was nothing.
Defense Minister Richard Mars refused to confirm the deployment existed. He refused to deny it. He said only that the government does not comment on the movements of special forces and that Australia is not putting boots on the ground in Iran. But Iran is not where the SAS reportedly went. They reportedly went to the United Arab Emirates and they reportedly arrived at a base that had already been hit by Iranian drones just weeks earlier.
So why would a government send its most capable soldiers into a war zone and [music] then pretend it never happened? To understand the answer, you have to understand the unit itself and you have to understand the war that Australia keeps saying it is not fighting. If you are into stories like this, the ones governments do not talk about, consider liking the video and subscribing.
It helps more than you think. I am going to be covering everything going on in the Middle East and our SAS troops. The Special Air Service Regiment was born on July 25th, 1957 at a modest barracks in Swanborn, a quiet suburb on the coast of Perth in Western Australia. The original company consisted of just 16 officers and 144 other ranks.
It was a tiny force modeled on the British SAS, built for long range reconnaissance and unconventional warfare in the jungles of Southeast Asia. For the first few years, nobody really knew what to do with them. The regular army viewed them as outsiders, a small band of misfits training for a type of war that the generals did not believe was coming.
The unit was, according to its historical association, the ugly duckling of the Australian army. That changed in 1965 when the unit deployed to Borneo. Indonesia’s President Sukarno had launched a campaign of armed confrontation against the newly formed Federation of Malaysia. [music] British and Commonwealth forces were fighting to prevent Indonesian troops from infiltrating across the border into Malaysian territory.
The SAS was sent in to do what no one else could. Small patrols of four to six men were inserted [music] deep into the jungle to track enemy movements, lay ambushes, and conduct crossber operations that were so sensitive the Australian government denied they were happening. Those operations remained classified for years.
The soldiers who carried them out were not allowed to speak about where they had been or what they had done. Three SAS men died during the Borneo deployment, though none from direct enemy contact. One was killed by an elephant. two drowned in a river crossing, but the unit proved its value in the dense equatorial rainforest. Small teams of SAS operators could move undetected for weeks, gathering intelligence that shaped the entire campaign.
The ugly duckling had become something far more dangerous. Vietnam came next. Starting in 1966, SAS squadrons rotated through on year-long deployments operating out of the Australian base at Nuiidat in Fuaktui Province. Their job was deep reconnaissance, tracking enemy troop movements far behind the front lines, calling in air strikes, and setting ambushes in territory controlled by the Vietkong.
The patrols were extraordinarily effective. Over six years, the Australian and New Zealand SAS in Vietnam mounted nearly 1,200 patrols, killing 492 confirmed enemy fighters and wounding dozens more. Their own losses were almost impossibly low. In 6 years of jungle warfare, a single SAS operator was killed by enemy fire. [music] The Vietkong placed a bounty on SAS soldiers, dead or [music] alive.
They called them marang, which means phantoms of the jungle. a name that stuck and a reputation that would define the unit for [music] decades. After Vietnam, the SAS went quiet. For two decades, from 1972 to the early 1990s, the regiment existed in a kind of operational silence. Training intensified.
Counterterrorism capabilities were developed after the 1978 bombing of the Sydney Hilton [music] Hotel. When the government realized Australia needed a military unit capable of responding to terrorist incidents on home soil, the SAS raised its tactical assa assault group, a dedicated counterterrorism unit capable of storming hijacked aircraft, clearing buildings, and conducting hostage rescue operations.
The selection process became legendary for its brutality. Candidates were pushed to physical and psychological breaking points designed to simulate the conditions of extended covert operations. But the world was about to change and the SAS was about to become busier than at any point in its history. In 1999, the regiment deployed to East Teeour as part of the Interfett peacekeeping force.
SAS patrols inserted ahead of conventional troops conducting reconnaissance and providing early warning of militia movements. Their contribution was so significant that the unit received a meritorious unit citation for [music] sustained outstanding warlike service. Then came September 11th, 2001. Within weeks of the Twin Towers falling, Australian Prime Minister John Howard invoked the Anzus Treaty and committed Australian forces to Afghanistan.
The SAS was among the first allied units on the ground. First squadron arrived in December 2001, staging through Kuwait before inserting into southern Afghanistan. They joined American Marines at forward operating base Rhino and began conducting long range vehicle-mounted patrols across hundreds of kilometers of hostile terrain around Kandahar and into the Helman Valley all the way to the Iranian border.
This was the beginning of what would become Australia’s longest war. All three SAS squadrons rotated through Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. After a brief pause, the regiment redeployed in 2005 as part of the special operations task group operating in Urus gun province alongside Dutch and American forces. The fighting was intense. SAS operators engaged in sustained combat against Taliban insurgents across some of the most dangerous terrain in the country.
In 2009, trooper Mark Donaldson became the first Australian since the Vietnam War to receive the Victoria Cross, the nation’s highest military honor for exposing himself to enemy fire to protect wounded soldiers and then running through a storm of bullets to rescue an Afghan interpreter. The SAS would continue rotating through Afghanistan for 20 deployments involving roughly 3,000 personnel until the last elements were withdrawn in 2021.
Over two decades of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the regiment became one of the most combat experienced special forces units in the world. But throughout all of it, something remained constant. The Australian government rarely confirmed where the SAS was, what it was doing, or how many operators were deployed. Special forces movements were treated uh as classified by default.
Questions from journalists were met with the same phrase repeated like a mantra. We do not comment on the movements of our special forces. That phrase is the key to understanding what is happening right now. In late February 2026, the United States and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran.
The stated objectives included preventing Thran from acquiring nuclear weapons and neutralizing its ability to project military power across the region. Iran retaliated with a massive wave of rocket, drone, and missile attacks across the Persian Gulf. 12 countries in the region were targeted. The United Arab Emirates alone was forced to intercept more than 1,500 incoming projectiles, including ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones.
On March 3rd, one of those Iranian drones struck near Al-Minhad Air Base, a military installation 15 km south of Dubai. Al- Minhad is operated by the UAE Air Force, but since 2003, it has also served as the headquarters for Australia’s Joint Task Force 633, the nerve center for every Australian military operation in the Middle East.
The drone strike caused only minor damage. No Australian casualties were reported, but the attack illuminated something the government had been trying to keep in the background. Australian military personnel were sitting inside a base that was now being directly targeted by a hostile foreign power. The government framed the incident as contained, but defense analysts saw it differently.
The Loey Institute, one of Australia’s most respected foreign policy think tanks, [music] published an analysis arguing that the strike revealed Australia’s growing exposure to hostile action despite its formal position as a non-belligerant. the assumption that rear area facilities were safe from attack no longer held in an era of proliferating drone and missile capabilities.
Then just one day later, things got significantly more complicated. On March 4th, the USS Charlotte, an American Los Angeles class nuclear attack submarine, fired two Mark 48 torpedoes at the Iranian Navy Frigot Iris Dana in the Indian Ocean approximately 19 nautical miles off the coast of Sri Lanka. One torpedo struck the ship.
The Denna sank within 2 to 3 minutes. At least 87 Iranian sailors were killed. [music] Dozens more were left missing. It was the first time a nuclearpowered submarine had sunk an enemy warship since the HMS Conqueror torpedoed the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the Faulland’s war in 1982. 2 days later, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanzi stood in front of cameras and confirmed that three Royal Australian Navy personnel had been on board the USS Charlotte at the time of the attack.
They were embedded with the United States Navy as part of the AUS submarine training program, a long-standing arrangement under which Australian sailors serve aboard American attack submarines [music] to prepare for the day Australia operates its own nuclearpowered fleet. Albanese insisted the Australians did not participate in any offensive action.
Reports suggested the three were sent to their sleeping quarters before the torpedo was fired, but the confirmation rattled the political landscape in Canberra. Australia was, by any reasonable interpretation, present at an act of war against a country it claimed to not be at war with. Green Senator David Schubbridge called it evidence that Australia was being dragged into the conflict through the architecture of AUS.
Defense analysts noted that with more than 50 Australian sailors and officers embedded across the United States submarine fleet, the odds of Australians being present during combat operations were not small. They were statistically almost inevitable. The government tried to draw the line. We are not at war with Iran. We are not taking offensive action.
We are not deploying troops on the ground. But the line kept moving. On March 10th, Albanesei announced the deployment of a Boeing E7A Wedget airborne early warning and control aircraft to the Persian Gulf along with 85 Australian Defense Force personnel, stocks of advanced air-to-air missiles, a C17 transport aircraft, and a KC3A aerial tanker.
The Wedge Tale is not an ordinary surveillance plane. It is arguably the most capable airborne early warning platform in the world. Built on a Boeing 737 airframe and equipped with the Northrup Grumman Misa radar, which provides 360 degree coverage capable of tracking hundreds of aerial and maritime targets simultaneously.
During each mission, a single E7A can monitor more than 4 million square kilmters of airspace, an area roughly the size of Western Australia. [music] The government described the deployment as purely defensive. The wedge tail would help Gulf nations detect incoming Iranian drones and cruise missiles. [music] It would protect Australians.
It would support collective self-defense. But the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank published a detailed rebuttal within days. The idea that the most advanced airborne surveillance aircraft in the world would fly over the Persian Gulf, collecting vast amounts of radar data and then refused to share that data with American and Israeli forces conducting offensive operations was in their assessment not credible.
Green Senator Shoebridge went further telling the national broadcaster that the wedge tale was supplying targeting information to the United States for its strikes inside Iran. He said this was not defensive and that it was critical to United States attacks across Iran. The government denied this characterization.
Defense Minister Marles repeated that Australia had responded only to a request from the UAE. The wedge tale was there to defend the Gulf. Full stop. And then on April 2nd, the final piece of the puzzle leaked. News Corpse Daily Telegraph reported that a contingent [music] of approximately 90 special air service regiment operators had been quietly deployed to the Middle East roughly 2 weeks earlier.
The deployment had been made without any public announcement. Sources told the newspaper that the SAS troops were based at Al-Manhad Air Base and were focused on emergency rescue operations, including the potential evacuation of diplomats stranded in the region after Australia closed its embassies in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv and its consulate in Dubai.
The government response followed the same script it has used for seven decades. Defense Minister Marles issued a statement saying, “We don’t comment on the movements of our special forces.” He did not confirm the deployment. He did not deny it. He added that Australia was absolutely clear about not putting boots on the ground in Iran and that the country was not involved in offensive action.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia is not taking offensive action against Iran and is not deploying troops on the ground in Iran. Notice the careful wording. Not in Iran. Nobody said anything about the UAE. Cabinet Minister Anika Wells appearing on the National Morning News was asked directly about the SAS report. She did not deny it.
She said she could not comment on the specifics of when and where assets are deployed because those details are operational. So, here is where things stand. Australian soldiers were present aboard a submarine that sank an Iranian warship. Australian aircraft are feeding surveillance data into a coalition air campaign over the Persian Gulf.
Australian missiles are being transferred to the UAE to replenish interceptor stocks depleted by Iranian attacks. And now Australia’s most elite special forces operators are reportedly positioned at a at a base that has already been targeted by Iranian drones. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson has publicly stated that Australian military assets in the Gulf are legitimate targets.
The Australian government maintains that none of this constitutes involvement [music] in a war. This pattern is not new. It is in fact the way Australia has entered [music] every major conflict of the past two decades. Small commitments are described as defensive, positioned as temporary and expanded increment. incrementally while public debate is carefully managed.
The SAS deployment to the Middle East the Middle [music] East in 2026 fits the exact template of the early Afghanistan commitment in 2001 when a single squadron was sent quietly and then rotated continuously for 20 [music] years. The government’s language was almost identical then defensive temporary limited.
The question is not whether Australian special forces are [music] in the Middle East. The reports are clear. Multiple unnamed defense sources have confirmed the deployment. Cabinet ministers have not denied it. The only people pretending it may not have happened are the officials responsible for sending them. The question is what happens next.
Every war Australia has fought in the last quarter century began with a small secret deployment of special forces justified as defensive or temporary. Every single one expanded and the government’s refusal to confirm or deny the SAS presence in the Gulf is not about operational security. It is about preserving the political fiction that Australia is not being drawn into another war.
The soldiers at Almanhad do not have the luxury of political fiction. They are sitting inside a base that has already been struck by a hostile nation that has publicly declared them [music] targets. Whatever their official mission, whether it is evacuation planning or something far more complex, they are operating inside a conflict zone that grows more dangerous by the day.
The Australian SAS [music] has earned its reputation over nearly seven decades of war. From the jungles of Borneo to the mountains of Afghanistan, these soldiers have done the things their government cannot acknowledge. They have gone where they were told, done what was required, and accepted that their service would remain invisible.
That invisibility has always been the deal. The government sends them. The government denies sending them, and the soldiers do the job regardless. [music] But in 2026, with Iranian missiles falling on the base where they sleep, with Australian aircraft feeding data into an active bombing campaign, and with Australian sailors already present at the scene of a torpedo strike that killed nearly 100 people, the gap between what the government says and what the government does has never been wider. The SAS motto is, who dares wins.
The question Australians should be asking is who dared to send them and why nobody will admit it. If you found this story as concerning as I did, soon I am going to make a video that goes deeper into the full timeline of the 2026 Iran conflict [music] and how it is reshaping the Middle East.
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