Terrorist Weapons and Tactics Team

Terrorist Weapons and Tactics Team (TWATT) was a British Army unit reportedly active in Aden in the 1960s.

The unit is decsribed in a memoir by the pseudonymous "Reginald Lingham".

Only a limited number of troops were needed for normal battalion internal security duties. It gave the British an ideal training ground to practice special operations tactics and new weapons and the individual’s various skills. New technology was given its proving base here. Intelligence gathering techniques were a top priority, and combined service SOGs were tasked with that side of the game, and issued with all the new night surveillance equipment and specialist cameras, bugging and tracking devices that the military may purchase. They found an operational test bed with them.

Mac's job as a TWATT member (Terrorist Weapons and Tactics Team) was another embryo organisation to develop in this theatre. One can imagine the piss taking they received from other Special Forces with a name carrying that sort of abbreviation.

It was fun in a way when you met someone, especially a supercilious officer who asked, "What are you?" You would reply, "I’m a TWATT."

On actual operations, they learned the job, tested equipment, and produced brilliant results. They were allowed access to SOG information, which was invaluable as a tool of war.

According to Lingham, the team made a number of attempts to assassinate the leader of the NLF opposition group, Ashabi:

On the second of October 1967, the NLF headquarters in Crater exploded majestically. There were no survivors. Ashabi was not present. Oh well, can't win them all, but it was a bloody good try. FLOSY were made the obvious scapegoats and blamed for this attack. Therefore, another set of tit for tat reprisals started between the bastards, thus leaving the British alone.

According to Pete Scholey, the TWATT shared a firing range at Cemetery Vale with the SAS and other special operations units.