The Amsar raid was a joint British SAS-Russian Spetsnaz operation which targeted the Iraqi nationalist leader Khaled al-Asad at his safehouse in northern Azerbaijan, guarded by around 100 Russian Ultranationalists. The operation resulted in the capture and summary execution of al-Asad and the SAS' identification of Ultranationalist leader Imran Zakhaev as al-Asad's main backer.
Background[]
The Chairman of the Russian Ultranationalist Party, Imran Zakhaev, initiated the Second Russian Civil War in 2011 with the objective of seizing power in Moscow and restoring Russia to its Soviet-era glory. However, the United States and the United Kingdom were daunted by the prospect of the Ultranationalists acquiring control of 15,000 nuclear warheads if they were able to seize power; Zakhaev had openly attacked the Russian government for "prostituting" itself to Western interests. As a precaution against Western intervention in Russia, Zakhaev financed, equipped, and encouraged Khaled al-Asad's Ba'athist insurgents in Iraq, opening a second front to distract the NATO forces as his forces made progress against the Russian government. The deaths of 30,000 US soldiers in a nuclear blast in Baghdad led to the British Special Air Service (SAS) Captain John Price being assigned to track down al-Asad and capture him alive with the intent of discovering his benefactor. Price's informant Nikolai tipped him off about al-Asad's safehouse in northern Azerbaijan, so a small team of SAS operatives - backed logistically by local Russian Loyalists and given air support by the USA - was dispatched to raid the Amsar safehouse and capture al-Asad.
Raid[]
The SAS team arrived in the town just as the local Ultranationalists began to kill the locals and occupy their houses, hoping to set up decoy safehouses to distract the team and protect al-Asad. The SAS proceeded to clear the village house-by-house, and, as they advanced, they received American gunship support. They succeeded in clearing out the village before storming the barn where al-Asad was hiding, killing his bodyguard before beating down al-Asad and tying him to a chair. While al-Asad refused to identify his benefactor, Price answered a call to al-Asad's cell phone and recognized the voice on the other end as that of Ultranationalist leader Imran Zakhaev, causing him to recall the 1996 Pripyat raid and then shoot al-Asad in the head with a handgun, having identified the West's main threat.