Keenie Meenie Services (or KMS Ltd), was a British private military contractor set up by former

Special Air Service The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...

(SAS) officers in 1975. It operated as a mercenary force in countries where the United Kingdom had political interests, such as

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

History

Ken Connor, writing in ''Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS'', stated that KMS "took its name from the Swahili word for the movement of a snake through grass". The company's name has also been attributed to SAS slang for covert operations. KMS was founded in 1975 by Brigadier Mike Wingate Gray, Colonel Jim Johnson, Major David Walker, and Major Andrew Nightingale, when it started guarding British diplomats in Buenos Aires. Phil Miller's book ''Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away with War Crimes,'' drawing on declassified UK government documents, suggests that despite efforts to rein in the use of mercenaries by the government of

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

in 1976, KMS had sufficiently good connections to government departments in Whitehall that they were able to ignore these efforts. Miller's research claims that KMS went on to commit war crimes in Sri Lanka and Nicaragua. During the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Soviet ...

KMS under authority from the British government was active in training small Afghan commando units from 1983 and continued for another four years mostly operating outside of Afghanistan in places such

and

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. In 1984, KMS began training the Special Task Force (STF) of the

Sri Lanka Police (The one who lives by the Dhamma is protected by the Dhamma itself) , mission = , formedyear = , preceding1 = Ceylon Police Force (1866–1972) , dissolved = , superseding = , employees = ...

in its civil war with Tamil separatist group, the

LTTE The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE; ta, தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள், translit=Tamiḻīḻa viṭutalaip pulikaḷ, si, දෙමළ ඊළාම් විමුක්ති කොටි, t ...

. The ''

Tamil Guardian ''Tamil Guardian'' is an online, English language news site based in London. Published internationally for over 20 years, the media site was originally published as a print broadsheet newspaper in English from the UK and Canada. It has run op-eds ...

'' reported in 2001 that the STF went on to commit torture and

summary execution A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...

s of civilians. The report also states that KMS personnel quit their lucrative contracts in Sri Lanka because STF personnel were "out of control". The UK

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...

did not want to officially send military aid to Sri Lanka during its war with the Tamil Tigers for fear of jeopardising commercial and trade relations with India. Later, they helped Indian forces that battled with LTTE, particularly they provided air cover. In 1987, the exposure of the Iran-Contra Affair revealed that KMS "was part of a private network that assisted Nicaraguan insurgents". In the mid 80s, KMS had also been given a US military contract to help train Afghan rebels in sabotage in their insurgency against occupying Soviet forces. John Cooley's 2002 book, ''Unholy Wars'', stated that "It was indeed KMS ... to which the main British role in training holy warrior cadre for the Afghan ''jihad'' seems to have fallen." KMS remained in contact with the CIA about training Afghan rebels until at least 1987. Although KMS closed down in the early 1990s, a subsidiary company,

Saladin Security Ltd Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurds, Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egy ...

, has continued to operate in Afghanistan, where it was hired by the Canadian government in Kabul. The company openly stated that "Saladin with its predecessor KMS Ltd., has provided security services since 1975".

References

{{reflist Private security industry British mercenaries Private military contractors Security companies of the United Kingdom Sri Lankan Civil War Foreign intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War Indian Peace Keeping Force