The operation aimed to release five British soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment and their Sierra Leone Army (SLA) liaison officer, who were being held by a militia group known as the "West Side Boys".

The soldiers were part of a patrol that was returning from a visit to Jordanian peacekeepers attached to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) at Masiaka on 25 August 2000 when they turned off the main road and down a track towards the village of Magbeni.

There the patrol of twelve men was overwhelmed by a large number of heavily armed rebels, taken prisoner, and transported to Gberi Bana on the opposite side of Rokel Creek.

Negotiators secured the release of six of the soldiers, but were unable to gain the freedom of the remaining five and their SLA liaison officer before the West Side Boys' demands became increasingly unrealistic.

Fearing that the soldiers would be killed or moved to a location from which it would be more difficult to extract them, the British government authorised an assault on the West Side Boys' base, to take place at dawn the following day, 10 September.

Unlike in the SAS, new recruits to the army can apply to join the Parachute Regiment directly from the Infantry Training Centre at Catterick in Yorkshire (in the case of soldiers) or the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst (for officers).

Over lunch, they were informed that the West Side Boys had begun to disarm, despite their initial reluctance, and Marshall decided to take the patrol to investigate en route back to their base.

As they approached the base, they were surrounded by a large group of West Side Boys, who used an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a Bedford truck to block the patrol's route.

He and the rest of the patrol were then forced into canoes at the bank of Rokel Creek and transported to Gberi Bana, a village on the other side of the river, just upstream from the point of the initial confrontation.

During the meeting, Flaherty shook hands with Fordham and covertly passed him a sketch map of Gberi Bana which detailed the layout of the village and the building in which the soldiers were being held.

Media reported that the gang's drug habits also posed a problem for the British negotiators as their cannabis use allegedly caused them to forget previous discussions and the cocaine made them distrustful.

The gang responded that they had nothing against the soldiers, but that holding them had brought attention to their demands—which now included immunity from prosecution, safe passage to the UK to take up university courses, and guaranteed acceptance to the re-formed Sierra Leone Army.

One of them joined Fordham in several meetings with the West Side Boys, posing as a Royal Irish major in order to provide reconnaissance and gather intelligence in case an assault was required.

Shortly after the patrol's capture Surgeon Lieutenant Jon Carty RN, the medical officer on board HMS Argyll—which was operating off the coast—was brought ashore to assess the soldiers, should they be freed, or to provide immediate care in the event of an assault resulting in casualties.

The battalion's commanding officer selected A Company, led by Major Matthew Lowe, which had been on exercise in Jamaica at the time of the initial British deployment to Sierra Leone.

They calculated that it would take 14 hours to launch an assault from the United Kingdom should it be required in an emergency, so the remainder of the company group was also moved to Dakar in order to reduce the response time.

[26] The enhanced A Company group—approximately 130 troops in total—arrived in the country in several groups and joined the SAS, who had already established a base in Hastings, a village 30 miles (48 kilometres) south of Freetown, where several of the paras recognised former colleagues among the troopers from D Squadron.

From there, his staff established contact with the SAS observation teams on either side of Rokel Creek and with COBR,[note 4] the British government's emergency committee in London.

[23][32] On 9 September, "Colonel Cambodia" stated that the remaining six members of the Royal Irish patrol, who had now been held for over a fortnight, would be released only after a new government was formed in Sierra Leone.

Fordham, who had been leading the negotiations, telephoned the West Side Boys and was able to establish that the captive soldiers were alive, and the final orders were issued in the evening of 9 September.

[34] As the helicopters approached, the SAS observation team at Gberi Bana engaged West Side Boys in the vicinity of the captives to prevent any gang members from attempting to kill them before the area was secured.

[34] Upon their arrival, the Chinooks opened fire using the M134 Miniguns mounted on the front doors whilst the two Lynx attack helicopters strafed the villages to make the landing zones as safe as possible, and destroy the heavy weapons that had been identified by the SAS observation teams.

[41] The returning Chinook, carrying the remainder of the A Company group including second-in-command (2IC) Captain Danny Matthews, came under fire from a heavy machine gun in Magbeni.

[42] Another signaller radioed in a casualty report, and one of the Chinooks en route to Gberi Bana to extract the Royal Irish (who had just been freed by the SAS) landed on the track through the village.

The Jordanians had received 30 by the end of the day, and 371—including 57 children—had surrendered within a fortnight of Operation Barras, to which Julius Spencer, Sierra Leone's Minister for Information, declared that the West Side boys were "finished as a military threat".

Kallay, the gang's leader, recorded a message for broadcast on Sierra Leonean radio urging the remaining West Side Boys to surrender to UNAMSIL.

[3] Several decorations were awarded to the personnel who took part in Operation Barras, including two Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses (Parachute Regiment Colour Sergeant John David Baycroft and Royal Air Force Squadron Leader Iain James McKechnie MacFarlane), five Military Crosses (Parachute Regiment Warrant Officer Class 2 Harry William Bartlett, Major James Robert Chiswell, Captain Evan John Jeaffreson Fuery, Sergeant Stephen Michael Christopher Heaney, and Acting Captain Daniel John Matthews), and five Distinguished Flying Crosses (Royal Air Force Flight Lieutenant Timothy James Burgess, Squadron Leader Iain James McKechnie MacFarlane, Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Priest, Flight Lieutenant Paul Graham Shepherd, and Army Air Corps Captain Allan Laughlan Moyes).

[53] The British media struck a celebratory note at the success of Operation Barras, but some suggested that Marshall had erred in diverting the patrol off the main road to visit the West Side Boys.

The report was critical of Marshall, stating that he "made an error of professional judgement in diverting from a planned and authorised journey to make an unauthorised visit to the village of Magbeni.

[55] Richard Connaughton observed in the journal Small Wars & Insurgencies that the operation showed that Tony Blair's government was not averse to the possibility of casualties where they felt the cause was just.