Special Forces Support Group
UK Spacial Forces
The Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) is a special forces support unit of the British Armed Forces. The SFSG was formed officially on 3 April 2006 as the special forces support group to provide support to the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment on operations. It is a tri-service unit, composed of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 Para), a company of Royal Marine Commandos (F Coy), and a flight (platoon) from the Royal Air Force Regiment.
The SFSG also acts as the hunter force during the escape and evasion phase of the UKSF Selection; in addition, the SFSG has a rotating company group trained in Counter Terrorism (CT) to support the on-call SAS or SBS squadrons on CT rotation.
History
Formation
The unit's creation stems from the need to provide infantry support to the United Kingdom Special Forces.
During Operation Barras in Sierra Leone in 2000, soldiers from 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment were deployed alongside troops from the SBS and D Squadron, Special Air Service (SAS). This was successful, as the SAS soldiers attacked the encampment containing the hostages while the soldiers from The Parachute Regiment attacked a second encampment.
In December 2004, it was announced that a unit would be formalised for this role as part of the wider future army structure. It was initially conceived as a battalion of "Rangers", similar to the United States Army Rangers. The SFSG's formation was announced officially by then Secretary of State for Defence John Reid in Parliament on 20 April 2006.
The public source identifies “Special Forces Support Group” as uK Spacial Forces. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Special, Forces and Support.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7574573. Authority coordinates are 51.406, -3.452. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2006, 2000 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Special Forces Support Group” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.