Who Dares Wins (Latin: Qui audet adipiscitur; Greek: Ο τολμών νικά, O tolmón niká; French: Qui ose gagne; Italian: Chi osa vince; Portuguese: Quem ousa vence; German: Wer wagt gewinnt) is a motto made popular by the British Special Air Service.[1] It is normally credited to the founder of the SAS, Sir David Stirling. Among the SAS themselves, it is sometimes humorously corrupted to "Who cares [who] wins?".
The expression appears in a medieval Arabic book of fairy tales translated and published in 2014.
The catchphrase "He Who Dares Wins" was commonly used by Del Boy in British sitcom Only Fools and Horses. The shortened form "Qui Audet" is also heard on the second episode of Pennyworth.
The motto has been used by twelve elite special forces units around the world that in some way have historical ties to the British SAS. Of related interest, the Canadian Special Service Force (SSF), which included the Canadian Airborne Regiment, adopted the motto "Osons" (Fr - "We Dare") - an obvious response to the original motto.
The phrase is the motto of Baron Alvingham of Woodfold in the County Palatine of Lancaster, a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
An early statement of the idea is Ancient Greek "τοῖς τολμῶσιν ἡ τύχη ξύμφορος" (toîs tolmôsin hē túkhē xúmphoros, "luck favours the daring") from the Athenian soldier and historian Thucydides.
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. The SAS was founded in 1941 as a regiment, and later reconstituted as a corps in 1950. The unit undertakes a number of roles including covert reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, direct action and hostage rescue.
The corps presently comprises 22 Special Air Service Regiment, the regular component under the operational command of United Kingdom Special Forces, and 21 (Artists) Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve) and 23 Special Air Service Regiment (Reserve), which are reserve units under the operational command of 1st Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Brigade.
The Special Air Service traces its origins to 1941 and the Second World War and was reformed as part of the Territorial Army in 1947, named the 21st Special Air Service Regiment (Artists Rifles). The 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, part of the regular army and later gained fame and recognition worldwide after successfully assaulting the Iranian Embassy in London and rescuing hostages during the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, which lifted the regiment from obscurity outside the military establishment..
The Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) is a special reconnaissance unit of the British Army. It was established on 6 April 2005 and is part of the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF). The regiment conducts a wide range of classified activities related to covert surveillance and reconnaissance. The SRR draws its personnel from existing units and can recruit male and female volunteers from any branch of the British Armed Forces. The Special Reconnaissance Regiment conducts surveillance operations mainly concerning, but not limited to, "counter-terrorism" activities. It was formed to relieve the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service of that role and is believed to contain around 500–700 personnel. Media reports state they are based alongside the Special Air Service at Stirling Lines barracks, Credenhill in Herefordshire. The SRR was formed to meet a demand for a special reconnaissance capability identified in the Strategic Defence Review: A New Chapter published in 2002 in response to the 2001 September 11 attacks. The regiment was formed around a core of the already established 14 Intelligence Company, which played a similar role against the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
In April 2013, having expanded into Syria, the group adopted the name ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah fī 'l-ʿIrāq wa-sh-Shām (الدولة الإسلامية في العراق والشام). As al-Shām is a region often compared with the Levant or Greater Syria, the group's name has been variously translated as "Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham", "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (both abbreviated as ISIS), or "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (abbreviated as ISIL). While the use of either one or the other acronym has been the subject of debate, the distinction between the two and its relevance has been considered not so great. Of greater relevance is Daesh, an acronym of ISIL's Arabic name al-Dawlah al-Islamīyah fī al-ʻIrāq wa-al-Shām. Daesh, or Da'ish (داعش), has been widely used by ISIL's Arabic-speaking detractors, although – and to a certain extent because – it is considered derogatory, as it resembles the Arabic words Daes (lit. "one who crushes, or tramples down, something underfoot") and Dāhis (loosely translated: "one who sows discord"). Within areas under its control, ISIL considers use of the acronym Daesh punishable by flogging or cutting out the tongue. In May 2014, the United States Department of State announced its decision to use "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) as the group's primary name. It kept to this decision when in late June 2014 the group renamed itself ad-Dawlah al-Islāmiyah(lit. Islamic State or IS), thereby declaring itself a worldwide caliphate. The name "Islamic State" and the group's claim to be a caliphate have been widely rejected, with the UN, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups refusing to use the new name. Later in 2014, however, some top US officials shifted toward using the name Daesh, since this was the name that their Arab allies preferred to use. In 2015, over 120 British parliamentarians asked the BBC to use the name Daesh, following the example of John Kerry and Laurent Fabius. It subsequently adopted the phrase "so-called Islamic State"..
