(, , BAT) is a tactical

special operations Special operations or special ops are military activities conducted, according to NATO, by "specially designated, organized, selected, trained, and equipped forces using unconventional techniques and modes of employment." Special operations ma ...

unit of the

Romanian Intelligence Service The Romanian Intelligence Service (, abbreviated SRI) is Romania's main domestic intelligence service. Its role is to gather information relevant to national security and hand it over to relevant institutions, such as Romanian Government, presid ...

(SRI) specialized in counterterrorism and hostage rescue crisis management, as well as high-risk tactical special operations.

Mission

The unit's missions primarily involve

counterterrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and Intelligence agency, intelligence ...

, providing security in areas at risk of attack or terrorism, special reconnaissance in difficult to access and dangerous areas, and tactical special operations.

History

The unit was established on December 15, 1977 under the name of (''Special Counter-terrorism Unit'', USLA) as a result of the emergence of terrorist threats that were directly or indirectly aimed at

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. USLA confronted attempts by members or sympathizers of different

terrorist organizations Several national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and former ...

to enter Romania. These organizations did not limit themselves to precursory acts of preparing violent actions, but they also tried to organize

terrorist attacks The following is a list of terrorist incidents that were not carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism). Assassinations are presented in List of assassinations and unsuccessful attempts at List o ...

, the targets generally being foreign official representatives in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

. On May 26, 1985, two Arab terrorists placed explosive devices under the cars belonging to Syrian students' leaders, in the Grozăvești Campus parking lot in Bucharest. Two USLA officers were killed by the blast of the device while trying to defuse it. USLA units were involved in the violent crackdown of anti-communist demonstrations during the

Romanian Revolution The Romanian revolution () was a period of violent Civil disorder, civil unrest in Socialist Republic of Romania, Romania during December 1989 as a part of the revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world, primarily ...

of 1989. On December 24, 1989, the USLA was called upon by the new Defence Minister

Nicolae Militaru Nicolae Militaru (10 November 1925 – 27 December 1996) was a Romanian soldier and communist politician. Rising to the rank of general by the 1960s, his ties to the Soviet Union led dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu to question his loyalty and sideli ...

to protect the site of the

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

from alleged terrorist attacks. The tanks guarding the site opened fire and killed eight officers, while the other six survivors were arrested and one fled. This deadly hoax was used by the new authorities to claim that the terrorist threat really existed.''Mafia statală: 13. Rădăcina busuiocului''
Dezvăluiri.ro
/ref> On the December 26, 1989, the USLA was attached to the Romanian Ministry of Defence. On July 1, 1990, the name of the unit was changed to ''Brigada Antiteroristă'' and incorporated into the newly created

(SRI). On August 20, 1991, four

Sikh Sikhs (singular Sikh: or ; , ) are an ethnoreligious group who adhere to Sikhism, a religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Guru Nanak. The term ''Si ...

terrorists attempted to assassinate the Indian ambassador while he walked with his wife on the Aviatorilor Boulevard in

. The quick intervention of anti-terrorist officers guarding the ambassador resulted in failure for the terrorists: one was killed on the spot, another was captured, the third was injured, and the fourth person vanished. The criminal investigation revealed that the four terrorists belonged to an

Indian Sikh Indian Sikhs number approximately 21 million people and account for 1.7% of India's population as of 2011, forming the country's fourth-largest religious group. The majority of the nation's Sikhs live in the northern state of Punjab, which is ...

terrorist group.

Current activities

At present, there is an increased flow of information shared with partner-foreign services tasked with fighting terrorism. Backed up by state-of-the-art equipment and counter-terrorism tactics, the unit is always on the alert. Following the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

in the United States, the Inspectorate for Preventing and Fighting Terrorism was confronted with new challenges. To tackle the new terrorist threats, specialized units of the Romanian Intelligence Service implemented special plans designed for such circumstances.

Equipment

Similar units from other countries

*US

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

Special Activities Center The Special Activities Center (SAC) is the center of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to a 2015 reorganization. Within SAC there are at l ...

*French

Directorate-General for External Security The Directorate-General for External Security (, , DGSE) is France's foreign intelligence agency, equivalent to the British MI6 and the American CIA, established on 27 November 1943. The DGSE safeguards French national security through intelli ...

Action Division The Action Division (), commonly known by its predecessor's title Action Service () is a division of France's Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) responsible for planning and performing clandestine and covert operations including black ...

*British

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

E Squadron E Squadron, formerly the Increment, is a British paramilitary unit tasked with conducting covert operations, paramilitary operations and others at the behest of the Director Special Forces and Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. Its members ...

*Russian Foreign Intelligence Service's

Zaslon The BRLS-8B "Zaslon" (Barrier) is a Soviet, and later Russian, all-weather, multimode airborne radar developed between 1975 and 1980 by the Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design as part of the weapons control system of th ...

*Israeli

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

's Caesarea Division *Pakistani

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the premier Pakistani Intelligence community, intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant t ...

Covert Action Division The Covert Action Division (CAD) is generally considered the most secretive special operations force of Pakistan. It is responsible for special paramilitary and covert operations. It is tasked to collect intelligence in dense hostile environment ...

*Indonesian State Security Agency's Rajawali unit

References

External links

*
History of the Counter-terrorist Brigade on the SRI website
*

dead link *
Qualifications required to be a member of USLA
dead link {{DEFAULTSORT:Brigada Antiterorista Romanian Intelligence Service Special forces of Romania Terrorism in Romania Romanian revolution 1977 establishments in Romania