Sayeret Yahalom: Encyclopedia II - Sayeret Yahalom - Organization and Activities

Sayeret Yahalom - Organization and Activities

Sayeret Yahalom - General Activities

Sayeret Yahalom (SY) is one of the most classified units in the IDF and almost none of its special activities are exposed to the public. Usually, when its activities are published, they are just credited to a "combat engineering force" (a term which used interchangeably for regular Engineering sappers, IDF Caterpillar D9 operators and infantry engineering companies).

Foreign sources (such as Janes Defence Weekly) claim that Sayeret Yahalom are working closely with Sayeret Matkal and Shayetet-13, by providing them demolitions, explosive and sabotage skills.

Sayeret Yahalom - Sub Units

• YAEL ("Ibex") - special demolition unit, long range sabotages missions, counter terror, maritime engineering.
• YACHSAP ("EOD Unit") - removing landmines, missile's warheads, handling NBC threats, bomb disposal.
• SAMOOR ("Weasel") - a unit whose expertise is finding and destroying smuggling tunnels and hidden weapon caches.

Sayeret Yahalom - Weapons and means

The exact weapons of the unit aren't detailed but it was recently report they acquired new means to handle smuggling tunnels, such as remote-controlled robot which can scan tunnels, preventing the need for human operator to enter the tunnel and risk its life.

EOD robots for handling IEDs, bombs and explosive charges and advance EOD car are standard equipment for all engineering units handling explosives and also used by Magav sappers.

Other means of Sayeret Yahalom include the up-armored IDF Caterpillar D9 bulldozer (which was found extremely useful for special operation and CT duties), an armored Excavator with drills and IDF Puma CEV.

Sayeret Yahalom - Activities during the Al-Aqsa Intifada

Recently, Sayeret Yahalom was enlarged when the Southern Command Gazan tunnel experts team was merged with the unit, in a platoon called SAMOOR.

The "YACHSAP" team (the equivalent of EOD) is constantly defusing large IEDs set by Hizbullah in the Israeli-Lebanese border and bombs planted by Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They are often assisted by armored bulldozers for that mission.

The YAEL team provided accurate demolition skills to destroy Palestinian terror facilities such as bomb-labs and terrorists' house. They also reportedly blew up buildings in the Mukataa and bridges near Beit Hanoun (in order to prevent transportation of Qassam rockets via trucks and vans).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Organization and Activities", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki