While they couldn’t see the action live, those familiar with assault and battlefield weaponry had a clear mental picture of what was going on inside the Phase 2 safe house where an elite strike force from the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security felled 10 armed robbers. That they did by merely listening to the audio feed of a Sunday Standard Facebook livestream. A security establishment source says that from listening to the burst of gunfire in the video, a weapons expert can easily tell that highly trained gun-slingers were matched up against hopeless amateurs.
Two different gunfire patterns are discernible from the audio, which is still available on the Sunday Standard Facebook page. One is a series of two shots that are fired in rapid succession. This style of shooting is known as the “double-tap” and is one of the many tricks of the trade that Botswana Defence Force drills its commandos in. As mere formality, the Botswana Police Service has claimed credit for the killing of the armed robbers. However, good sources tell us that the honour goes to an elite strike force within the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security that is called the Special Task Team (STT). This Team is based in Sebele, on the outskirts of Gaborone, where DISS has offices. The STT is made up of elite commandos who were recruited from the BDF – Botswana’s commandos are among the best trained in Africa. Seven members of the STT, who were armed Israeli-made Galil ACE rifles, were despatched to the scene to perform their magic tricks. When the curtain fell, 10 robbers had disappeared from the face of the earth.
First taught to American and British special forces, the double-tap shooting technique combines speed and accuracy. The rationale for it is that one shot wouldn’t do much but a second one delivered to roughly the same part of the body in quick succession causes double the damage in the same spot. As a source tells us, mastering the double-tap technique requires long hours of special practice on the firing range. A credible online source says that those who master this technique can “consistently put two shots within 5 inches of one another in one to two seconds.”
While they work with guns, video evidence strongly suggests that armed robbers tend to spend extremely long periods of time engaging in hedonism (alongside their harem of beauty-queen girlfriends) at exclusive entertainment establishments in Sandton, Johannesburg. The gap in training and gun-handling experience became evident when the agents were put in the same house with robbers. Our expert says that the double-tap in the Sunday Standard video is consistently answered with single bursts of gunfire from the robbers. As the outcome shows, the latter were nothing compared to the double-tap.
Beyond experience and firepower, DIS agents had another advantage that the robbers didn’t have: access to ammunition. The hours-long stand-off meant that a lot of ammunition was being used and while the agents could easily replenish their supply, the robbers didn’t have such luxury.
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