An SAS hero once tasked with assassinating Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar as a mercenary gun-for-hire, has died aged 81.
Special forces hardman, Peter McAleese led a crack team of rogue black ops troops during a deadly mission to kill the notorious cartel chief in 1989.
Working as a soldier of fortune, having left Britain’s famed SAS, he was offered a staggering $1million to deliver Escobar’s head.
But the operation to storm Escobar’s fortress mansion failed catastrophically when his helicopter crashed flying over the Andes, killing the pilot and leaving McAleese seriously wounded on the mountainside for three days before he was rescued.
McAleese’s death was announced last night on his official social media accounts.
Peter McAleese (right), 81, joined the army when he was 17 and had an eventful 60-year career serving with Britain’s Paratroopers, the SAS, Rhodesia’s SAS and the South African Defence Force (pictured) and becoming a gun-for-hire to kill Pablo Escobar in 1989
The SAS legend’s death was announced last night on social media. He was aged 81
Pictured: Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar who McAleese was hired to assassinate
A statement said: ‘It’s with an empty heart I regret to inform you that on Monday afternoon Peter McAleese completed his final tour of duty and went off to the big reorg in the sky.
‘I’m sure I speak on behalf of may people when I say Peter was a warrior in the military world and a gentleman in the streets, although Peter didn’t like being called a legend, it’s true to say that much of his journey was legendary, for me I’m just happy to call him my friend.
‘Sleep well buddy, keep smiling see you one day.’
Leading tributes today, famed SAS veteran-turned-author Chris Ryan told MailOnline McAleese was a huge figure in the Regiment.
‘He was a tough soldier who served in the Parachute Regiment, Special air service and Rhodesian air service before his life as a mercenary,’ said Ryan, who met the Peter while he was serving in the military.
Raised in a tough environment with a violent father who once broke his son’s nose and who was often incarcerated in nearby Barlinnie prison, McAleese was a born fighter.
As a teenager he felt he had to get out of Glasgow and channel his aggression, so he joined the Parachute Regiment at 17, in 1960, and worked towards his dream posting in the Special Air Service, join ‘D’ Squadron SAS in 1962.
He made it and saw action during the Aden Emergency in 1967. He said: ‘I had my first contact with the enemy in the SAS.
‘We were on patrol and ran into some shepherds, who turned out to be bandits. We had a shoot-out and killed five while they wounded two of us.’
An explosive character, he was repeatedly booted out of the SAS and back to the Paras for ‘disciplinary reasons’.
After leaving the military, McAleese struggled for direction and drifted around jobs, including as a North Sea oil worker.
He admits he had trouble controlling his temper and ended up in jail for fighting. Hitting that rock bottom was a turning point.
He found a new path as a private soldier, being recruited into conflicts such as the civil war in Angola in 1976, where he fought with the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and first encountered private military operative David Tomkins.
Former SAS soldier turned mercenary Peter McAleese was hired to take down the South American drugs baron
McAleese is pictured, front and left, while serving in what was then called Rhodesia
McAleese is pictured as a young soldier in the 1960s wearing his SAS beret, in a post shared on Tuesday evening following news of his death
Following his work in Angola, McAleese joined the Rhodesian equivalent of the SAS, passing basic training in his mid-30s.
Approaching his 40s, he signed up for the South African parachute brigade. He was 46 and back living in the SAS’s home town of Hereford when old pal Tomkins approached him with the challenge of a lifetime.
At that point, Escobar was the seventh richest man in the world, worth £18 billion, and featured on the Forbes billionaire rich list.
Despite an estimated 4,000 murders to his name, the criminal was beloved by his local community and treated like a folk hero after spending fortunes on local services.
One of his most dangerous missions came in 1989 when he was hired to lead a private army to assassinate Pablo Escobar.
The Colombian cartel chief rose to prominence in the drug trade in the 1970s, graduating from petty crime to car theft before becoming a feared boss in charge of an operation worth £300 million every week.
Once worth more than £40billion, Escobar was the wealthiest criminal in history, smuggling a staggering 15 tones of a day. He ruled with an iron fist, brutally slaughtering rivals.
McAleese is pictured preparing for the attack on Pablo Escobar’s Villa in Colombia in 1989
Peter McAleese (white T shirt) and his team of mercenaries train for their assassination attempt on Pablo Escobar
Peter McAleese (white T shirt) and his team of mercenaries train for their assassination attempt on Pablo Escobar
The hit job to kill him was initiated and funded by the rival Cali cartel – but the operation is believed to have had the tacit support of the Colombian, US and UK Governments who, it is claimed, were happy to see Escobar taken out by anyone.
Speaking in an interview on the James English podcast about the mission, McAleese said: ‘We flew straight to Colombia and met up with a guy called Jorge Salcedo and he briefed us on what was happening
‘There was an ongoing battle between the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel and they just wanted Pablo out of the way because he was gunning for them because he wanted the complete show,’ the ex-SAS soldier said.
‘There was also army involvement in that Jorge Salcido was a colonel in the army.
‘The intelligence side of the army wanted the two cartels finished and thought they’d get them battling with one another, they might wipe each other out.’
After training a team of crack soldiers – made up of former special forces and black ops troops – in a mock-up football pitch, the team moved to a live firing training camp in the jungle, before setting off to kill the infamous criminal.
‘We did a couple of live rehearsals, wearing all the kit that we’d wear on the target, carrying the weapons we would use on the target, fire and ammunition that we would use,’ the former soldier explained.
A scene from the film Killing Escobar showing an actor playing drug baron Pablo Escobar
McAleese was involved in training the men of his 12-man hit squad for the mission. A reconstruction of the training was portrayed in Killing Escobar (McAleese is shown, right)
‘We just practised and practised and then we got it right.
‘So, then it was just a case of getting up every day, warming up and doing a bit of shooting before the strike.’
Despite being only 12-strong, the former special forces trooper said he wasn’t worried about his mission to kill one of the world’s most feared gangsters.
‘A lot of his bodyguards and security guys were just guys that ran about with a magazine in their belt and carrying an Uzi or some sub-machine gun.
‘We went in there carrying enough ammunition to kill the best part of 3,000 men.
‘We were tooled up to the eyeballs, plus the fact that we had a helicopter gunship, which we thought would level it all down.
‘The confidence was on our side, it was never doubted by any of the men.’
The doomed assassination attempt by the 12-man team was revealed in the 2021 documentary, Killing Escobar.
The doomed assassination attempt by the 12-man team was revealed in the 2021 documentary, Killing Escobar (pictured is a scene from the film)
McAleese and his crew had conducted aerial reconnaissance of the area and were planning an armed assault. His team were on a retainer of $5,000 (£3,600) a month each.
But team leader Tomkins said Escobar’s head itself would be worth a $1 million bonus.
McAleese said: ‘You need a combination of men. You can’t just take gun hands, you need a medic, a signaller, someone who is explosive-trained – so we needed a balance and luckily enough, most ex-Special Forces guys are trained in these things.
‘You realise there are an awful lot of limitations with private work – you don’t have aircraft or a large military back-up, we only had us and we had to organise ourselves.’
In the midst of training, the team were shocked to discover that one man who had been let go after ‘losing his bottle’ had sold a story to Australian TV news about a British mercenary force on the loose in Colombia.
Although he had not detailed the target, the story nearly sparked an international incident, with then UK Foreign Minister John Major publicly denying knowledge and condemning the presence of any such force, if true.
McAleese said: ‘What John Major said… he’s a politician and he’s got to say what a politician would say.’
Training continued for weeks more and, although at 46 he was the oldest member of the team by at least ten years, the Scot said he felt no fear about taking on Escobar’s 60 armed guards, or risking the wrath of a man famed for torture and brutality.
‘It never entered my mind until later on. The way I looked at it was we trained to do a job.’
When it was go time, the team set off for the air assault in high spirits and confident of success. But just minutes out from Medellin, disaster struck.
Their helicopter got caught in cloud cover and crashed into the jungle – leaving the men stranded in Escobar country until they could be rescued.
McAleese survived the plane crash but suffered from several broken ribs.
“The pain was f***ing excruciating. I started thinking what the f*** am I doing here, how did it get myself into this s***?,’ he said.
Peter was eventually rescued after three days on the mountainside, being dragged down strapped to a tree during an excruciating eight-hour journey.
