Direct Action: OP NIFLEHEIM – Sitrep

A while back I was posting parts of the adventures I was running while playtesting a modern military special operations campaign which I called Direct Action. The last adventure was OP GRANGE. OP NIFLEHEIM follows on from OP GRANGE and has the team entering a terrorist camp in Niger.

Col. Terry Warner and MWO Chester “Watts” Watkins meet team at airport. They have arrived aboard the Challenger with a close personal protection detail from JTF2. A C-130 with a platoon from CSOR (Canadian Special Operations Regiment, usually referred to as See-Sore) is due in the next few hours. Col Warner will be departing with the ambassador but the warrant will remain with the team to brief.

The colonel congratulates the men on a job well done, and getting a goddamn police escort to the airport. That’s how he likes to see things done.

The ambassador is effusive in his praise.

When they have departed, Watts takes the team to a quiet office inside the airport. He drops Al-Masri sheet on the desk there.

The points Watts will pass along

1. This fucker wanted to buy the ambassador from the assholes who kidnapped him. He was the one talking to the gunrunner in Guinea-Bissau.
2. He called from a location in Niger using an Algerian cell number.
3. CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada, usually referred to as See-Sek) has tracked him to a camp just outside Garambak in Niger. That’s in the west of the country, near the borders with Algeria and Mali, crawling with Tuareg and AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
4. While the local Nigerien forces won’t do anything about it, France wants to nuke the camp from orbit, but are being restrained because of the possibility of hostages being held in the camp – possibly French hostages. There is a Canadian Defence Attaché team in Niamey trying to get cooperation from the brass.
5. The Agency doesn’t believe this joker is a top tier bad-guy, so someone’s pulling his chain.

Watts will provide imagery of the camp location.

1. This camp has no road access to it, though there are paths vehicles can use.
2. Only get a flyover once a day, and have noted only minimal activity
3. CSEC rep with secure comms (communications) will be arriving with CSOR, and will have an imagery analysis report

When the C-130 touches down, the CSOR platoon includes CSEC liaison, Clara Lithwick, known at the Hill as Echo Charlie or just Echo. She’s ex-military, tall, swimmer’s build, and the target of just about every hetero male on the Hill. She’s got secure comms gear and indicates:

1. Al-Masri has been calling someone named Abbas in the northern part of Pakistan’s tribal region
2. The French are concerned French hostages still at large may be in the camp. They want to babysit us, and that’s the only way we’ll get access. We’re going in with their Marine Parachute Regiment. They have agreed we can turn over (search) the camp as long as we share anything we grab. The Nigeriens are following the French on this, so Niamey won’t say boo.
3. No one else wants in on this one. Everyone’s still smarting from the In Amenas debacle.

She has imagery of the camp itself.

For imagery of the area surrounding the camp, I just took a Google Maps shot from Niger near the tri-border area. For the camp, I used an image available at Global Security and cropped out some of the captions.

You can find the camp image here.

You can find more Spec Ops posts here.

You can find OP GRANGE posts here.