The Munich massacre and the proliferation of counterterrorism special operation forces

ABSTRACT

The attack on members of the Israeli team during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, West Germany, was a critical juncture in the understanding of terrorism as theatre and in the fusion between counterterrorism and special operation forces. It created a path dependency in the way the terrorist threat is perceived and handled. For Israel, the attack was one in an ever increasing and constantly changing terrorist threat that helped shape its security apparatus and led to the proliferation of special operation forces units within the military, police and border police. Globally, the attack led to a spur in the establishment of special operation units with specific counterterrorism and hostage rescuing expertise. Overall, the media coverage of the Munich massacre and the failure of the German security forces in handling the crisis contributed to the survivability of special operation forces units. These units specialised in counterterrorism operations and later-on appropriated other types of missions and responsibilities while tightening their political ties and enhancing their public image. Most notably of these was the Israeli Sayeret Matkal.

KEYWORDS:

• Munich massacre
• terrorism
• special operation forces
• Israel
• counterterrorism

In recent decades, governments around the world have come to perceive terrorism as a military challenge. The war on terror that the United States and its allies declared in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks is the most prominent example of this perspective. Not surprisingly, the architects of the war on terror have placed Special Operations Forces (SOF), the most proficient combat military units of their respective armed forces, at the forefront of the campaign. Assuming a historical-institutionalist perspective, this article argues that the attack on the Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic Games was both an Israeli and a global critical juncture. It brought terrorism to the top of the agenda of policymakers around the world and framed it as a military threat. Moreover, in the absence of previous experience with such a phenomenon, let alone available units that specialise in hostage rescue missions, western countries adopted the model that Israel set several months earlier during the successful rescue of the passengers on board Sabena Flight 571. In the months following the Munich Massacre, many countries established special hostage rescue units within the armed forces, gendarmerie, or police.

The remainder of this article will proceed as follows. I begins with the rise of media oriented international terrorism, and discusses the hijacking of Sabena Flight 571 and the rescue of the hostages by Sayeret Matkal. It then analyses the Munich Olympic Massacre and frames it as a critical juncture. It proceeds to discuss the rise of hostage rescue units in response to the Munich massacre and delves into the Israeli case in more detail to present the ever-expanding role of counterterrorism operations within the Israeli SOF community and the costs of this trajectory. The articles concludes with a summary of the main theoretical and empirical lessons learned.

The rise of media-oriented terrorism

The decades after World War II were marked by national struggles for independence from colonial powers, and a struggle between the Soviet and the Western blocs over spheres of influence. The supranational nature of the Communist ideology, the Soviet Bloc’s support for national liberation struggles, and Moscow’s interests laid the groundwork for the formation of coalitions between revolutionary and violent groups from different countries.¹

Meanwhile, the fields of civil aviation and electronic media underwent a revolution. These conditions spawned the international terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s. Revolutionary groups quickly identified the propaganda potential inherent in the new technologies. The rapid expansion of television sets to homes around the world, the limited security arrangements in the realm of civil/ aviation, and the logistic support from like-minded state and non-state actors allowed them to send a loud and clear message to viewers around the world.²

Israel and its citizens were a focal target of international attacks during those times that forced Israeli security forces to adapt quickly to the changing nature of the threat. Prior to the Munich massacre, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and of Black September hijacked two planes on their way to Israel, one in 1968 and the other in 1972. In May 1972, members of the PFLP and of Black September hijacked Sabena Flight 57 from Brussels to Tel-Aviv.³ Unlike the previous airplane hijacking in 1968 by one of the same hijackers and his associates, this time, the hijackers landed the plane in Lod Airport. Bringing the plane into Israel’s space provided the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) with an opportunity to devise and carry out a rescue operation which would have been far more difficult to do abroad.⁴

In the early 1970s, no military in the world, including the IDF, had a unit that specialised in hostage crises. The IDF’s General Staff Reconnaissance Unit aka Sayeret Matkal emerged as the best possible choice to handle the situation. Its base in Kfar Sirkin was close to the airport and several of its reserve operators worked as air marshals in Israel’s newly established Aircraft Security Unit, a unit that was established as a lesson learned from the former hijacking in 1968.⁵ These were not the only reasons. Within the IDF, Sayeret Matkal acquired a reputation for its creativity and expertise in artful deception.⁶ Disguised as technicians, the operators approached the plane, surprised the hijackers, and rescued the 93 passengers and 7 crew members on board. One passenger was killed in the operation.⁷

The Sabena Operation was the first successful hostage rescue mission since terrorists began hijacking civilian flights and gave Israel’s SOF a celebrity reputation worldwide. It also solidified the monopoly of Sayeret Matkal over counterterrorism raids and hostage rescue operations and its status as the spearhead of the IDF.⁸ Following the Six Day War in which Sayeret Matkal was not allowed to join the fighting due to Israel’s desire to protect its valued warriors, Sabena was its chance to shine. The way in which Sayeret Matkal handled the crisis and its successful release of almost all the hostages bolstered Sayeret Matcal’s reputation as a gifted and expert force within Israel and around the world even further.

However, just like counterterrorism units adapt and learn as the nature of the threat changes, so do the terrorists. The failure of the Sabena hijacking only led the PFLP to adopt other tactics. Three weeks following the Sabena flight hijacking, on 30 May 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army, conducted an attack inside Israel’s Lod airport. Operating on behalf of the Wadie Haddad's faction of the PFLP, the terrorists landed in Israel and headed straight to the baggage claim area, where they already knew the security measurements are lacking. They picked up their weapons which were concealed in violin cases and managed to kill 26 tourists and Israelis and injure 78 others before the Israeli security forces could gain control over the situation. One terrorist died from Israeli fire, the second committed suicide using a grenade and the third was injured but survived and later sentenced to life imprisonment.⁹

These two attacks, and the ones before them affected Israeli security apparatus in meaningful ways, leading to changes in perception, preparation and operation. However, none had as a significant effect as Munich. The attack that took place on members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich during the Olympic games later that year, unfolded in front of the world’s eyes. For the first time, a terrorist attack was being covered by multiple news agencies around the world, as it was taking place and kept the world’s attention for almost 24 hours.¹⁰ As such, it was a critical juncture in the perception of terrorist threat and in the development of counterterrorism, both for Israel, but also for the world. The idea of critical junctures is that some events or developments in the past have a crucial impact on outcomes later in time^.11 Choices that are made at a critical juncture have a lasting impact in the sense that they close off alternative paths of operation in the future and ‘lead to the establishment of institutions that generate self-reinforcing path-dependent processes’.¹² As others have already claimed, the Munich massacre prompted governments ‘to think about terrorism as an enduring challenge to security, international and domestic, and to respond to it with a wide range of government resources’.¹³

The success of the terrorists of holding the attention of the global media hostage for almost 24 hours laid the foundation for the characterisation of terrorism as theatre.¹⁴ This new point of view assisted in sharpening the definition of terrorism and differentiating it from other forms of political violence and led to a new era in the study of the phenomenon.¹⁵ But it also changed the role SOF play in the fight against terrorism.

Non-state actors carry out media-oriented attacks to advance external and internal goals. Externally, they aim at shifting public opinion in the country that they attack against a government that fails to protect its citizens.¹⁶ They also try to raise global awareness to the grievances of the population that they aim to represent. Internally, they try to gain support among their constituents.¹⁷ If there is more than one group that operates on behalf of a certain community, successful media-oriented attacks can tilt public opinion in favour of the perpetrators and ensure political and organisational stability.¹⁸

We claim that the new understanding of terrorism as theatre has also improved our understanding of counterterrorism, despite receiving relatively less scholarly attention.¹⁹ SOF often find themselves in a similar predicament to the one violent non-state actors encounter. Just like terrorists, most SOF operate covertly. As a result, they do not receive positive media coverage. Unlike technology-based formations such as armour brigades, air squadrons, and naval flotillas, SOF rely on human resources. The costs associated with forming them are relatively low and dissolving them is equally cheap. Most of the SOF units that were established throughout World War II were the first to be disbanded at the end of the war.²⁰ To survive, SOF units must amass organisational capital and recruit policymakers in and out of the military as allies.²¹ Counter-terrorism operations that are already being covered by media, and the designation of SOF as counterterrorism forces, gives them the media cover, the public’s favour, the cream of the crop recruits, and the funds they need to survive.

The way the Munich crisis unfolded, and decisions that were taken during it, have significantly limited the ways in which we think of, and prepare to combat, terrorism. But it is the Munich crisis that also created a path-dependency towards specific counterterrorism measures, most notably, the fusion of counterterrorism with SOFs.²² The process that began with the Sabena hijacking for Israeli security forces, materialised globally following the failure of the West German security forces to rescue the hostages in Munich.

Munich as a critical juncture

On 5 September 1972, at 4.10 am, eight members of Black September entered the Olympic Village in Munich.²³ Almost four decades after the 1936 Olympic Games that the Nazi regime hosted in Berlin, Germany had an opportunity to show the world how far it had come. Labelling the event as ‘The Cheerful Games’, the West German authorities were committed to eradicating any symbol of militarism. As a result, they made sure that the security personnel on the premises were unarmed.²⁴ This decision was merely one in a long list of flawed and failed decisions, both deliberate and unintended,²⁵ that led to the tragic ending of the event.

In the post-World War II West Germany, the military was prohibited from deploying inside West Germany, leaving all matters of domestic security to the police force, local and federal.²⁶ And the West German police had no relevant experience, training, or arms for such situations. The German government refused Israel’s offer to send in Sayeret Matkal who had the appropriate skills, qualifications, experience, and motivation for success, insisting the police would handle the crisis.²⁷

But the police did not know how to. To begin with, they were unaware or oblivious to existing intelligence warnings the Olympic Games will be used by terrorists. In 2012 it was revealed that concrete intelligence from multiple sources regarding a potential attack by Palestinian functions at the Olympic games was known to the security forces, but no contingency plan was established. The West German newspaper Der Spiegel even revealed that a psychologist working for the Munich police wrote about 26 possible scenarios at the Olympic games, one of which was an invasion of Palestinian elements to the Olympic village. However, the document was never handed over to the West German authorities.²⁸ Therefore, despite having clear intelligence from multiple sources, and despite having technically considered the possibility of such an attack, the German police was still caught by surprise.

Additionally, the police failed to grasp the importance of the attention Munich drew to the terrorists’ cause.²⁹ Their negotiation offers did not account for the international stage the Olympic games were providing the terrorists with, which was their motivation for choosing the games as the theatre for action to begin with.³⁰ Relatedly, the police failed to harness the media to its advantage or at the minimum, minimise its obstructive effects, such as blocking roads or broadcasting to the world, and the terrorists, the police’s plans of action.³¹

The police clearly lacked the required expertise, but the issue was more sever. There was no single authority who oversaw the situation. The Munich police, the Bavarian authorities, the West German authorities, and even the Olympic committee all intervened, increasing the confusion and difficulty of handling the crisis.³² When Zvi Zamir, head of the Israeli Mossad, who arrived in Munich, pleaded with the Bavarian authorities to let Sayeret Matkal handle the crisis he was repeatedly refused. At the same time, the Olympic committee refused to halt the games despite the emerging crisis, adding pressure on the West German authorities and police to try and reach some resolution. Munich serves as a critical juncture on this point as well as it was then that governments around the world realised the need to designate special units with decision-making power, as well as the expertise and means, to handle such crises.

These special units were instructed to develop standard operating procedures for hostage taking events, strengthening Munich as a critical juncture in yet another respect. The police failed to handle the situation at the Olympic village and to prepare better for the situation at the airport because there were no standard operating procedures for such events in place. The gravity of the West German’s inexistence of an experienced and properly trained rescue team combined with the unclear command and control structure and lack of clear procedures for action culminated in the disastrous ending to the crisis.

The global and Israeli rise of hostage rescue SOF

Munich was a critical juncture in so many respects as is evident by the choices made by Western governments immediately after.³³ West Germany quickly drew the lessons of its failure in Munich and formed a special hostage rescue team – (GSG 9 der Bundespolizei) – as a part of its federal police. Five years later, the GSG9 received an opportunity to present its skills. Four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Lufthansa Flight 181 en route from Palma de Mallorca to Frankfurt. On 18 October 1977, five days after the hijacking, the plane landed in Mogadishu. Aided by local Somali forces, and the British 22 SAS, a GSG9 team stormed the plane and released the hostages.³⁴

France followed a similar path. In 1974 it established the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) – within the Gendarmerie. Notable among the unit’s operations was the 1994 successful release of 164 passengers on board Air France Flight 8969 that Algerian terrorists hijacked.

Britain and the US took a comparable route with one important exception. They formed counterterrorism units within their respective military SOF. Britain established the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Wing of the 22 Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), its premier military SOF.³⁵ Inspired by his year long experience as an exchange officer with the British SAS, on 17 November 1977, US special forces officer, Colonel Charles Beckwith, formed the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.³⁶ Following the failure of ‘Operation Eagle Claw’, the attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran, the US Military introduced the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to coordinate counterterrorism operations.

Nowadays, the command consists of the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, along with the 75th Ranger Regimental Reconnaissance Company, the Army’s Intelligence Support Activity, and the Air Force’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron.³⁷ These developments of SOF as specialised counterterrorism forces were driven by the events in Munich and took note from developments in the Israeli security forces and operations in the years leading up to, and immediately following Munich, as will be discussed below.

The Israeli case

Unlike most countries, which enjoy periods of calm between one terrorist incident and another, and use these periods to systematically incorporate new tactics, Israel is engrossed in an ongoing struggle. Until the signing of the peace accords with Egypt, the Israeli military leadership prioritised preparations for the next conventional war with its neighbours, over becoming proficient in counter-terrorism tactics. Sayeret Matkal, which specialises mainly in intelligence operations behind enemy lines, could not allocate the resources needed to specialise in hostage rescue operations. Moreover, in 1974, following the Yom Kippur war and its insistence of joining the battles, the unit underwent a significant reform. It formed a new battalion-size reserve force, which specialised in carrying out special operations during wartime.

On 15 May 1974, three members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine took over a school in the town of Ma’alot. Despite the efforts of Sayeret Matkal, the event ended in a massacre of students. Subsequentially, a committee that inquired into the Ma’alot incident recommended forming a new unit specialising in hostage rescue missions. Yamam (Special Police Unit) formed within Israel’s Border Police shortly afterwards. Police officers join the Yamam in their early 20s after completing their military service in a combat unit. They commonly serve in the unit for a decade and often longer. The selection process is rigorous. Only a handful of candidates qualify to begin the gruelling training course. New recruits go through basic training with an emphasis on close-quarter combat and counter-terrorism tactics. Later, each officer acquires additional expertise in sniping, breaching techniques, and robotics.³⁸ The establishment of the Yamam, did not alleviate Israeli concerns about the rise in hostage-taking attacks. The process of establishing the Yamam and turning it into an operational unit took several years. Meanwhile, the hostage-taking incidents have escalated. In response, the IDF established a counter-terrorism school.

While Sayeret Matkal remained the only qualified takeover unit, that is, a unit that specialised in the release of hostages, other elite infantry units qualified as intervention units whose function was to prevent terrorist incidents from escalating until the takeover unit arrived. With the appointment of Assaf Hefetz as commander of the Yamam in 1978, it made a quantum leap in capability and became the second independent takeover unit. Although it was ready to carry out the missions for which it was established, the Yamam needed another seven years, until it was given the opportunity to prove its worth.

By the early 1980s the Palestinian factions underwent a tactical shift. While the media-oriented hostage taking attacks provided them with the exposure that they sought, such operations required careful planning and investment of vast resources while their chances of success diminished due to developments within the counterterrorism focused SOF. Hence, they began to use their bases in southern Lebanon, an area that Israel named ‘Fatahland’ to launch rockets at Israeli population centres in the upper Galilee. Yamam could not operate against such a threat as it was beyond Israel’s borders. But this was not the only reason it did not act.

Despite its multiple responsibilities, Sayeret Matkal fought over its role in hostage rescue operations and refused to relinquish its designation as the top team for the job. For a covert intelligence unit, overt operations with a high media profile constitute a valuable resource. These operations provided Sayeret Matkal with the exposure that was and still is vital for accumulating organisational capital within the IDF and among policymakers.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the expulsion of PLO forces from the country led to another shift in tactics. Young Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip launched the First Intifada (1987–93). They orchestrated mass demonstrations and tied up many IDF units to the city centres and refugee camps. The Intifada (December 1987-September 1993) represented yet another critical juncture for the Israeli security establishment. As a result of the changing threat, both the IDF and the police had to expand their counterterrorism apparatus even further.

In 1986, Maj. Gen. Ehud Barak, former commander of Sayeret Matkal, established a new unit in the Central Command. The unit, Duvdevan 217 (Cherry), adopted Sayeret Matcal’s techniques of disguise and deception. Operatives of Duvdevan and its counterpart in Gaza, Unit Shimshon 367 (Samson), specialised in impersonating Arabs and in infiltrating Palestinian population centres. Their mission was to apprehend or kill the leaders of the uprising. Later, both the Border Police and the Police set up similar units that operated in other areas. Like Sayeret Matkal, the success of the Duvdevan depended on maintaining its secrecy.

To locate and capture the leaders of the uprising operators had to successfully assimilate among the protesters.³⁹ Shortly after the establishment of Duvdevan, when the Palestinians already knew of its existence, Israel’s single TV channel at the time, exposed the unit in its weekly news show.⁴⁰ It is impossible to establish a direct link between the media exposure and the fact that Duvdevan survived while Samson and the Mechanised infantry units that served in a similar capacity dissolved. Nevertheless, just like Sabena increased the public and policy makers’ appreciation for Sayeret Matkal and its specialised skills, here again it could be argued that the positive coverage of operations of a specific SOF by the media assisted it in attaining funding and support to survive, as opposed to its counterparts.

Conclusion

This article began with a discussion of the rise of media oriented international terrorism, especially as it pertained to Israel. It introduced Sayeret Matcal and discussed its rescue mission of the hostages aboard Sabena flight 571. It then analysed the Munich Olympic Massacre and framed it as a critical juncture. It proceeded by discussing the rise of hostage rescue units in response to the Munich massacre and delved into the Israeli case in more detail to present the ever-expanding role of counterterrorism operations within the Israeli SOF community and the costs of this trajectory.

The Munich attack was a critical juncture in more than one way. First, it was then that terrorism began to be understood as theatre due to its use of the media in reaching wider audiences. Second, it was then that the fusion between counterterrorism and special operation forces began. That fusion created a path dependency in the way terrorist threat is perceived and handled. As a result of that path dependency, the third way in which it was a critical juncture was the proliferation of special operation forces that were established for hostage taking missions specifically and for other counterterrorism aspects.

For Israel, the attack was one in an ever increasing and constantly changing terrorist threat that helped shape its security apparatus and led to the proliferation of special operation forces units within the military, police, border police and the prison security services. Globally, the attack led to a spur in the establishment of special operation units with specific counterterrorism and hostage rescuing expertise. Overall, the media coverage of the Munich crisis and the failure of the German security forces in handling the crisis led to an understanding that special units with separate decision-making powers and specific skills are needed for the new phase of terrorism threat. In that it not only led to the establishment of numerous specialised units, but it also contributed to the survivability of special operation forces units, units that in the past struggled to survive beyond their fulfilment of their particularised missions.

The new units that were formed following Munich or were transformed as a result of the new threat perception specialised in counterterrorism operations and later-on appropriated other types of missions and responsibilities while tightening their political ties and enhancing their public image. Most notably of these was the Israeli Sayeret Matkal. This is not to say that such developments in international terrorism and counterterrorism tactics would not have happened, but it is to claim that Munich was a catalyst in the process and one that determined the path ahead.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ronit Berger Hobson

Ronit Berger Hobson is lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Queen’s University, Belfast.

Ami Pedahzur

Ami Pedahzur is Professor of Government and the Ralph W. Yarborough Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin.

Notes

1. Karmon, Coalitions Between Terrorist Organizations, 1.

2. Weimann and Winn, The Theater of Terror.

3. Zonder, Sayeret a, 66; and Ram & Kfir, Sylvia Rafael, 105.

4. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 66.

5. Secret Security Guards, Israel Defense, 1. Betser & Rosenberg, “Secret Soldier,” 277.

6. Shur, Itamar’s Squad, 1.

7. Leibowitz-Dar, “The Forgotten Victim.”

8. Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Service, 44–46.

9. Gambetta, Making sense of Suicide Missions, 287.

10. Finnane, “The Munich Olympic Massacre,” 821.

11. Capoccia, Critical Junctures, 89.

12. Capoccia and Kelemen, “The Study of Critical Junctures,” 341.

13. Finnane, “The Munich Olympic Massacre,” 820

14. Jenkins, International Terrorism, 2; Galili et al, “From Munich to Boston,” 998.

15. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 40.

16. Crenshaw, The causes of terrorism, 379; Pape, “The Strategic logic of suicide terrorism,” 343; and Ganor, “Defining Terrorism,” 287.

17. Bloom, Palestinian Suicide Bombing, 61.

18. Findley & Young, “More Combatant Groups,” 706.

19. For a comprehensive review see: Crelinsten, Terrorism, Democracy, and Human Security.

20. Tucker and Lamb, United States Special Operations Forces; and Johnson, “The Growing Relevance,” 273.

21. King, “The Special Air Service,” 646.

22. Milligan, By Water Beneath the Walls.

23. Finnane, “The Munich Olympic Massacre,” 817.

24. Macdonald, One Day in September, 8:00.

25. Finnane, “The Munich Olympic Massacre,” 818.

26. Macdonald, One Day in September, 09:18.

27. Ibid, 44:10.

28. Aderet, “Der Spiegel finds.”

29. Ulich et al., Munich 72’ and Beyond.

30. Macdonald, One Day in September, 31:20; and Diffrient, “Spectator Sports and Terrorist Reports,” 311.

31. Macdonald, One Day in September.

32. Ibid, 57:10.

33. Toohey, “Terrorism, Sport, and Public Policy,” 433.

34. McNab, Storming Flight 181, 1.

35. Taillon, The Evolution of Special Forces, 1; Firmin, The Regiment.

36. Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force.

37. Naylor, Relentless Strike.

38. Ciralsky, “We try to Learn,” 1.

39. Bergman, Rise and Kill First, 324.

40. Limor and Ben David, “Third Place: Duvdevan.”