[8] The SRR was formed to meet a demand for a special reconnaissance capability identified in the Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter published in 2002 in response to the 2001 September 11 attacks on the US.

[13] In the aftermath of 21 July 2005 London bombings, the SRR attached one of its members to each of the Metropolitan Police Service's surveillance teams to provide additional capability to a seriously overstretched SO12.

Three media reports carry unconfirmed assertions by unattributed UK government sources that SRR personnel were involved in the intelligence collection effort leading to the shooting and were on the tube train when it happened.

After an hour-long gunfight (some sources say three), Apache attack helicopters, the Gurkha quick reaction force and the 16-man unit, supported by a U.S. A-10 Thunderbolt and two Harrier GR7s managed to break contact and return to the closest forward operating base; two of the four Taliban leaders were killed in the firefight while the remaining two escaped in the chaos.

[21][22] In April 2011, the Telegraph reported that a surveillance team from the SRR had spent three weeks tracking a cell of four men belonging to the Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH)-a dissident Irish republican paramilitary group operating in Northern Ireland made up of members who split from the Real IRA.

The SRR members (who were reportedly working for the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command) watched the men, who photographed key roads and buildings in London, including the Olympic Stadium.

[23] By the end of July 2011, a 24-man British special forces team from D Squadron 22 SAS, including members of the SRR who were expert in covert intelligence gathering had been deployed to Libya to train and mentor NTC units against the Gaddafi regime during the Libyan Civil war.

[24] In April 2016, it was reported that members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment were seconded to MI6 teams in Yemen to train Yemeni forces fighting AQAP, as well as identifying targets for drone strikes.