from insurgents inside, air support was called in and hit the farm, after it was cleared; seven dead insurgents were found whom American intelligence believed were foreign fighters. Operation Abalone, on the night of 31 October 2003, two dozen members of A Squadron (G Squadron left Iraq in August) with Delta Force, supported by a platoon of US M2A3 Bradley IFV's manning an outer cordon, assaulted four compounds/dwellings on the outskirts of Ramadi where US intelligence had tracked a Sudanese jihadist who was facilitating Islamist militants into Iraq. The SAS were tasked with assaulting 2 of the dwellings whilst Delta Force assaulted another 2 dwellings; both of Delta's and one of the SAS's target buildings were cleared without incident, but as the SAS assaulted their final dwelling the assault team were wounded by a hail of fire and an RPG-7 rocket, they returned fire and withdrew from the building. After a head count, it was realised that 2 soldiers were still in the building (one had been killed and another, an SAS Corporal, was wounded), A squadron's CO and several soldiers moved to the roof of another building from which they could fire onto the target building, whilst several soldiers re-entered the building to find the 2 missing personnel. After finding the body of one soldier and recovering the wounded Corporal under fire, Bradley IFV's 'pummelled' the dwelling with its armaments and then Delta force assaulted it, killing several terrorists; whilst the SAS assaulted another house that they were receiving fire from, killing 1 and capturing 4 foreign insurgents. The operation was brought to a successful conclusion, the more seriously wounded SAS soldiers were medevaced and as the SAS and Delta Force collapsed back to their cordon, they received small arms fire from the neighbourhood. Although they did not find the Sudanese jihadist, he's believed to have been killed with a dozen other insurgents; the soldier killed - Corporal Ian Plank, who had been attached to A Squadron from the SBS, was the first UKSF combat fatality in the Iraq War. The Operation turned up actual proof of an internationalist jihadist movement. 2005 Royal Air Force Hercules shootdown, 2005, Iraqi insurgents shot down an RAF Hercules flying out of Baghdad in January 2005, in response to this G Squadron of the 22nd SAS Regiment immediately began hunting down the insurgents responsible, after a long intelligence operation that led to operations