Who are the Special Forces?
When the BBC obtained exclusive pictures of Special Air Service soldiers fighting Islamic State militants in Syria, the Ministry of Defence refused to comment.
British Special Forces are now on the ground in Libya as well - although nobody ever voted in favour sending them, and there has never been a debate in Parliament about it.
In fact, it's a long-standing cross-party tradition that the government doesn't comment on the operations of the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service, and other Special Forces units.
In this edition of The Briefing Room, David Aaronovitch calls on expert…
The skinny
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