Hostage Rescue Team - Operations

Operations

Since its inception, HRT members have been involved in many of the FBI's most high-profile cases, executing numerous operations involving domestic militant groups, terrorists, and violent criminals. The first test of the team's capabilities came in the summer of 1984, when the team deployed to Los Angeles as part of the security buildup prior to the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. Some cases have brought the HRT a lot of attention. The HRT came under increased public and Congressional scrutiny, along with federal law enforcement in general, due to what some saw as heavy-handed tactics used at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

On the other hand, the HRT has been involved in over 200 successful missions, both in the US and abroad. Many of these low-key operations have received little or no attention from the world press. Some higher-profile cases include the Waco Siege, Ruby Ridge, the capture of the suspected masterminds of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Africa, and the hostage rescue operations of prison guards at Talladega, Alabama, and St. Martinville, Louisiana. All of these incidents led to changes in how and when the HRT is used by the FBI.

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Famous quotes containing the word operations:

    Plot, rules, nor even poetry, are not half so great beauties in tragedy or comedy as a just imitation of nature, of character, of the passions and their operations in diversified situations.
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    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)