Seal of the Central Intelligence

Agency

The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence
Agency responsible for covert operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division
prior to 2016.[1] Within SAC there are two separate groups: SAC/SOG for tactical
paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG for covert political action.[2]

The Special Operations Group (SOG) is a department within SAC responsible for
operations that include high-threat military or covert operations with which the U.S.
government does not wish to be overtly associated.[3] As such, unit members, called
Paramilitary Operations Officers and Specialized Skills Officers, do not typically carry any
objects or clothing, e.g., military uniforms, that would associate them with the United States
government.[4]

If they are compromised during a mission, the United States government may deny all
knowledge.[5] SOG is generally considered the most secretive special operations force in
the United States. The group selects operatives from other special mission units such as
Delta Force, MARSOC, DEVGRU, ISA, Force Reconnaissance and 24th STS, as well as other
United States special operations forces.[6]

SOG Paramilitary Operations Officers account for a majority of Distinguished Intelligence

Cross and Intelligence Star recipients during conflicts or incidents which elicited CIA
involvement. These are the highest and third highest valor awards in the CIA. An award
bestowing either of these citations represents the highest honors awarded within the CIA in
recognition of distinguished valor and excellence in the line of duty. SAC/SOG operatives
also account for the majority of the stars displayed on the Memorial Wall at CIA
headquarters indicating that the officer died while on active duty.[7] The motto of SAC is
Tertia Optio, which means Third Option, as covert action is the option with diplomacy and

the military.[8]

The Political Action Group (PAG) is responsible for covert activities related to political
influence, psychological operations, and economic warfare. The rapid development of
technology has added cyber warfare to their mission. Tactical units within SAC are also
capable of carrying out covert political action while deployed in hostile and austere
environments. A large covert operation typically has components that involve many or all of
these categories as well as paramilitary operations.

Political and "influence" covert operations are used to support U.S. foreign policy. Overt
support for one element of an insurgency would often be counterproductive due to the
impression it would potentially exert on the local population. In such cases covert assistance
allows the U.S. to assist without damaging these elements in the process.

Overview

SAC provides the President of the United States with an option when overt military
operations and/or diplomatic actions are not viable or politically feasible. SAC can be
directly tasked by the president or the National Security Council at the president's direction,
unlike other U.S. special mission forces. SAC/SOG has far fewer members than most of the
other special missions units, such as the U.S. Army's 1st Special Forces Operational
Detachment-Delta (Delta Force) or Naval Special Warfare Development Group
(DEVGRU).[9][10][11]

As the action arm of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, SAC/SOG conducts direct action
missions such as raids, ambushes, sabotage, targeted killings[12][13][14] and unconventional
warfare (e.g., training and leading guerrilla and military units of other countries in combat).
SAC/SOG also conducts special reconnaissance that can be either military or intelligence
driven and is carried out by Paramilitary Officers (also called Paramilitary Operatives or
Paramilitary Operations Officers) when in "non-permissive environments". Paramilitary
Operations Officers are also fully trained case officers (i.e., "spy handlers") and as such
conduct clandestine human intelligence (HUMINT) operations throughout the world.[15]

The political action group within SAC conducts the deniable psychological operations, also
known as black propaganda, as well as "covert influence" to effect political change in other
countries as part of United States foreign policy.[2] Covert intervention in foreign elections is
the most significant form of SAC's political action. This involves financial support for favored

candidates, media guidance, technical support for public relations, get-out-the-vote or

political organizing efforts, legal expertise, advertising campaigns, assistance with poll-
watching, and other means of direct action. Policy decisions are influenced by agents, such
as subverted officials of the country, to make decisions in their official capacity that are in
the furtherance of U.S. policy aims. In addition, mechanisms for forming and developing
opinions involve the covert use of propaganda.[16]

Propaganda includes leaflets, newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and television, all of
which are geared to convey the U.S. message appropriate to the region. These techniques
have expanded to cover the internet as well. They may employ officers to work as
journalists, recruit agents of influence, operate media platforms, plant certain stories or
information in places it is hoped it will come to public attention, or seek to deny and/or
discredit information that is public knowledge. In all such propaganda efforts, "black"
operations denote those in which the audience is to be kept ignorant of the source; "white"
efforts are those in which the originator openly acknowledges themselves; and "gray"
operations are those in which the source is partly but not fully acknowledged.[16][17]

Some examples of political action programs were the prevention of the Italian Communist
Party (PCI) from winning elections between 1948 and the late 1960s; overthrowing the
governments of Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954; arming rebels in Indonesia in 1957; and
providing funds and support to the trade union federation Solidarity following the imposition
of martial law in Poland after 1981.[18]

SAC's existence became better known as a result of the "War on Terror". Beginning in
autumn of 2001, SAC/SOG paramilitary teams arrived in Afghanistan to hunt down al-Qaeda
leaders, facilitate the entry of U.S. Army Special Forces and lead the United Islamic Front for
the Salvation of Afghanistan against the ruling Taliban. SAC/SOG units also defeated Ansar
al-Islam in Iraqi Kurdistan prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003[19][20] and trained, equipped,
organized and led the Kurdish peshmerga forces to defeat the Iraqi Army in northern
Iraq.[15][19] Despite being the most covert unit in U.S. Special Operations, numerous books
have been published on the exploits of CIA paramilitary officers, including Conboy and
Morrison's Feet to the Fire: CIA Covert Operations in Indonesia,[21] and Warner's Shooting at
the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos.[22] Most experts consider
SAC/SOG the premier force for unconventional warfare (UW), whether that warfare consists
of either creating or combating an insurgency in a foreign country.[9][23][24]

United States Special Operations

Command Insignia

There remains some conflict between the Directorate of Operations (CIA) and the more
clandestine parts of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM),[25] such
as the Joint Special Operations Command. This is usually confined to the civilian/political
heads of the respective Department/Agency. The combination of SAC and USSOCOM units
has resulted in some of the more prominent actions of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
including the locating and killing of Osama bin Laden.[24][26] SAC/SOG has several missions.
One of these missions is the recruiting, training, and leading of indigenous forces in combat
operations.[24] SAC/SOG and its successors have been used when it was considered
desirable to have plausible deniability about U.S. support (this is called a covert operation or
"covert action").[15] Unlike other special missions units, SAC/SOG operatives combine
special operations and clandestine intelligence capabilities in one individual.[11] These
individuals can operate in any environment (sea, air or ground) with limited to no support.[9]

Covert action

Under U.S. law, the CIA is authorized to collect intelligence, conduct counterintelligence and
to conduct covert action by the National Security Act of 1947.[2] President Ronald Reagan
issued Executive Order 12333 titled "United States Intelligence Activities" in 1984. This
order defined covert action as "special activities," both political and military, that the U.S.
government would deny, granting such operations exclusively to the CIA. The CIA was also
designated as the sole authority under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act and
mirrored in Title 50 of the United States Code Section 413(e).[2][24] The CIA must have a
presidential finding issued by the President of the United States in order to conduct these
activities under the Hughes-Ryan amendment to the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act.[27]
These findings are then monitored by the oversight committees in both the U.S. Senate,
called the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and the U.S. House of
Representatives, called the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).[28]

The Pentagon commissioned a study to determine whether the CIA or the U.S. Department
of Defense (DoD) should conduct covert action paramilitary operations. Their study
determined that the CIA should maintain this capability and be the "sole government agency
conducting covert action." The DoD found that, even under U.S. law, it does not have the
legal authority to conduct covert action, nor the operational agility to carry out these types
of missions.[29]

Selection and training

 Emblem of the Joint Special
Operations Command

SAC/SOG has several hundred officers, mostly former members of special operations forces
(SOF) and a majority from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).[30] The CIA has
also recruited individuals from within the agency.[31] The CIA's formal position for these
individuals is "Paramilitary Operations Officers" and "Specialized Skills Officers."
Paramilitary Operations Officers most likely attend the Clandestine Service Trainee (CST)
program, which trains them as clandestine intelligence operatives and an internal
paramilitary training course. The primary strengths of SAC/SOG Paramilitary Officers are
operational agility, adaptability, and deniability. They often operate in small teams, typically
made up of two to eight operatives (with some operations being carried out by a single
officer), all usually with extensive military tactical experience and a set of specialized skills
that does not exist in any other unit.[11] As fully trained intelligence case officers,
Paramilitary Operations Officers possess all the clandestine skills to collect human
intelligence – and most importantly – to recruit assets from among the indigenous troops
receiving their training. These officers often operate in remote locations behind enemy lines
to carry out direct action (including raids and sabotage), counter-intelligence,
guerrilla/unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism, and hostage rescue missions, in
addition to being able to conduct espionage via HUMINT assets.

There are four principal elements within SAC's Special Operations Group: the Air Branch,
the Maritime Branch, the Ground Branch, and the Armor and Special Programs Branch.
The Armor and Special Programs Branch is charged with development, testing, and covert
procurement of new personnel and vehicular armor and maintenance of stockpiles of
ordnance and weapons systems used by SOG, almost all of which must be obtained from
clandestine sources abroad, in order to provide SOG operatives and their foreign trainees
with plausible deniability in accordance with U.S. Congressional directives.

Together, the SAC/SOG comprises a complete combined arms covert paramilitary force.
Paramilitary Operations Officers are the core of each branch and routinely move between
the branches to gain expertise in all aspects of SOG.[31] As such, Paramilitary Operations
Officers are trained to operate in a multitude of environments. Because these officers are
taken from the most highly trained units in the U.S. military and then provided with extensive
additional training to become CIA clandestine intelligence officers, many U.S. security
experts assess them as the most elite of the U.S. special missions units.[32]

SAC, like most of the CIA, requires a bachelor's degree to be considered for employment.
Many have advanced degrees such as Master's and law degrees.[33] SAC officers are
trained at Camp Peary, Virginia (also known as "The Farm") and at privately owned training
centers around the United States. They also train its personnel at "The Point" (Harvey
Point), a facility outside of Hertford, North Carolina.[34][35] In addition to the eighteen
months of training in the Clandestine Service Trainee (CST) Program[36] required to become
a clandestine intelligence officer, Paramilitary Operations Officers are trained to a high level
of proficiency in the use and tactical employment of an unusually wide degree of modern
weaponry, explosive devices and firearms (foreign and domestic), hand to hand combat,
high performance/tactical driving (on and off road), apprehension avoidance (including
picking handcuffs and escaping from confinement), improvised explosive devices, cyber
warfare, covert channels, HAHO/HALO parachuting, combat and commercial SCUBA and
closed circuit diving, proficiency in foreign languages, surreptitious entry operations
(picking or otherwise bypassing locks), vehicle hot-wiring, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and
Escape (SERE), extreme survival and wilderness training, combat EMS medical training,
tactical communications, and tracking.

History

World War II
 William Joseph Donovan

While the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was technically a military agency
under the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in practice it was fairly autonomous and enjoyed direct
access to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Major General William Joseph Donovan was the
head of the OSS. Donovan was a soldier and Medal of Honor recipient from World War I. He
was also a lawyer and former classmate of FDR at Columbia Law School.[37] Like its
successor, the CIA, OSS included both human intelligence functions and special operations
paramilitary functions. Its Secret Intelligence division was responsible for espionage, while
its Jedburgh teams, a joint U.S.-UK-French unit, were forerunners of groups that create
guerrilla units, such as the U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA. OSS' Operational Groups
were larger U.S. units that carried out direct action behind enemy lines. Even during World
War II, the idea of intelligence and special operations units not under strict military control
was controversial. OSS operated primarily in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) and
to some extent in the China-Burma-India Theater, while General of the Army Douglas
MacArthur was extremely reluctant to have any OSS personnel within his area of operations.

From 1943 to 1945, the OSS also played a major role in training Kuomintang troops in China
and Burma, and recruited other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides
for Allied forces in Burma fighting the Japanese army. OSS also helped arm, train and
supply resistance movements, including Mao Zedong's People's Liberation Army in China
and the Viet Minh in French Indochina, in areas occupied by the Axis powers. Other

functions of the OSS included the use of propaganda, espionage, subversion, and post-war
planning.

One of the OSS' greatest accomplishments during World War II was its penetration of Nazi
Germany by OSS operatives. The OSS was responsible for training German and Austrian
commandos for missions inside Nazi Germany. Some of these agents included exiled
communists, socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi POWs, and German and
Jewish refugees. At the height of its influence during World War II, the OSS employed
almost 24,000 people.[38]

OSS Paramilitary Officers parachuted into many countries that were behind enemy lines,
including France, Norway, Greece, and the Netherlands. In Crete, OSS paramilitary officers
linked up with, equipped and fought alongside Greek resistance forces against the Axis
occupation.

OSS was disbanded shortly after World War II, with its intelligence analysis functions
moving temporarily into the U.S. Department of State. Espionage and counterintelligence
went into military units, while paramilitary and other covert action functions went into the
Office of Policy Coordination set up in 1948. Between the original creation of the CIA by the
National Security Act of 1947 and various mergers and reorganizations through 1952, the
wartime OSS functions generally ended up in CIA. The mission of training and leading
guerrillas in due course went to the United States Army Special Forces, but those missions
required to remain covert were performed by the (Deputy) Directorate of Plans and its
successor the Directorate of Operations of the CIA. In 1962, the paramilitary operations of
CIA centralized in the Special Operations Division (SOD), the predecessor of SAC. The
direct descendant of the OSS' Special Operations is the CIA's Special Activities Division.

Tibet

After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in October 1950, the CIA inserted paramilitary (PM)
teams into Tibet to train and lead Tibetan resistance fighters against the People's Liberation
Army of China. These teams selected and then trained Tibetan soldiers in the Rocky
Mountains of the United States;[39] training occurred at Camp Hale.[40][41] The PM teams
then advised and led these commandos against the Chinese, both from Nepal and India. In
addition, CIA Paramilitary Officers were responsible for the Dalai Lama's clandestine escape
to India, narrowly escaping capture by the People's Liberation Army.[39]

According to a book by retired CIA officer John Kenneth Knaus, entitled Orphans Of The
Cold War: America And The Tibetan Struggle For Survival, Gyalo Thondup, the older brother
of the 14th (and current) Dalai Lama, sent the CIA five Tibetan recruits. These recruits were
trained in paramilitary tactics on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas.[42] Shortly
thereafter, the five men were covertly returned to Tibet "to assess and organize the
resistance" and selected another 300 Tibetans for training. U.S. assistance to the Tibetan
resistance ceased after the 1972 Nixon visit to China, after which the United States and
China normalized relations.[43]

Korea
 Battle of Incheon

The CIA sponsored a variety of activities during the Korean War. These activities included
maritime operations behind North Korean lines. Yong Do Island, connected by a rugged
isthmus to Pusan, served as the base for those operations. These operations were carried
out by well-trained Korean guerrillas. The four principal U.S. advisers responsible for the
training and operational planning of those special missions were Dutch Kramer, Tom Curtis,
George Atcheson and Joe Pagnella. All of these Paramilitary Operations Officers operated
through a CIA front organization called the Joint Advisory Commission, Korea (JACK),
headquartered at Tongnae, a village near Pusan, on the peninsula's southeast coast.[44]
These paramilitary teams were responsible for numerous maritime raids and ambushes
behind North Korean lines, as well as prisoner of war rescue operations.

These were the first maritime unconventional warfare units that trained indigenous forces as
surrogates. They also provided a model, along with the other CIA-sponsored ground-based,
paramilitary Korean operations, for the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and
Observations Group (MACV-SOG) activities conducted by the U.S. military and the CIA/SOD
(now Special Activities Center) in Vietnam.[9][44] In addition, CIA paramilitary ground-based
teams worked directly for U.S. military commanders, specifically with the 8th Army, on the
"White Tiger" initiative. This initiative included inserting South Korean commandos and CIA
Paramilitary Operations Officers prior to the two major amphibious assaults on North Korea,
including the landing at Inchon.[9]

Cuba (1961)

Map showing the location of the Bay

of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs Invasion (known as "La Batalla de Girón", or "Playa Girón" in Cuba), was an
unsuccessful attempt by a U.S.-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba and
overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan was launched in April 1961, less
than three months after John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency of the United States. The
Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated
the exile-combatants in three days.

The sea-borne invasion force landed on April 17, and fighting lasted until April 19, 1961. CIA
Paramilitary Operations Officers Grayston Lynch and William "Rip" Robertson led the first
assault on the beaches, and supervised the amphibious landings.[45] Four American aircrew
instructors from Alabama Air National Guard were killed while flying attack sorties.[45]
Various sources estimate Cuban Army casualties (killed or injured) to be in the thousands
(between 2,000 and 5,000).[46] This invasion followed the successful overthrow by the CIA
of the Mosaddeq government in Iran in 1953[47] and Arbenz government in Guatemala in
1954,[48] but was a failure both militarily and politically.[49] Deteriorating Cuban-American
relations were made worse by the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Bolivia

The National Liberation Army of Bolivia (ELN-Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia) was
a communist guerrilla force that operated from the remote Ñancahuazú region against the
pro-U.S. Bolivian government. They were joined by Che Guevara in the mid-1960s.[50][51]
The ELN was well equipped and scored a number of early successes against the Bolivian
army in the difficult terrain of the mountainous Camiri region.[52] In the late 1960s, the CIA
deployed teams of Paramilitary Operations Officers to Bolivia to train the Bolivian army in
order to counter the ELN.[52] These teams linked up with U.S. Army Special Forces and
Bolivian Special Forces to track down and capture Guevara, who was a special prize
because of his leading role in the Cuban Revolution.[52] On October 9, 1967, Guevara was
executed by Bolivian soldiers on the orders of CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer Félix
Rodríguez shortly after being captured, according to CIA documents.[53]

Vietnam and Laos

South Vietnam, Military Regions,

1967
The original OSS mission in Vietnam under Major Archimedes Patti was to work with Ho Chi
Minh in order to prepare his forces to assist the United States and their Allies in fighting the
Japanese. After the end of World War II, the U.S. agreed at Potsdam to turn Vietnam back to
their previous French rulers and in 1950 the U.S. began providing military aid to the
French.[54]

CIA Paramilitary Operations Officers trained and led Hmong tribesmen in Laos and Vietnam,
and the actions of these officers were not known for several years. Air America was the air
component of the CIA's paramilitary mission in Southeast Asia and was responsible for all
combat, logistics and search and rescue operations in Laos and certain sections of
Vietnam.[55] The ethnic minority forces numbered in the tens of thousands. They conducted
direct actions mission, led by Paramilitary Operations Officers, against the communist
Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese allies.[9]

Elements of the Special Operations Division were seen in the CIA's Phoenix Program. One
component of the Phoenix Program was involved in the capture and killing of suspected Viet
Cong (National Liberation Front – NLF) members.[56] Between 1968 and 1972, the Phoenix
Program captured 81,740 National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong)
members, of whom 26,369 were killed. This was a large proportion of U.S. killings between
1969 and 1971. The program was also successful in destroying their infrastructure. By 1970,
communist plans repeatedly emphasized attacking the government's "pacification" program
and specifically targeted Phoenix agents. The NLF also imposed quotas. In 1970, for
example, communist officials near Da Nang in northern South Vietnam instructed their
agents to "kill 400 persons" deemed to be government "tyrant[s]" and to "annihilate"
anyone involved with the "pacification" program. Several North Vietnamese officials have
made statements about the effectiveness of Phoenix.[57][58]

MAC-V SOG (Studies and Observations Group, which was originally named the Special
Operations Group, but was changed for cover purposes) was created and active during the
Vietnam War. While the CIA was just one part of MAC-V SOG, it did have operational control
of some of the programs. Many of the military members of MAC-V SOG joined the CIA after
their military service. The legacy of MAC-V SOG continues within SAC's Special Operations
Group.[59]

On May 22, 2016, the CIA honored three paramilitary officers with stars on the memorial wall
56 years after their deaths. They were David W. Bevan, Darrell A. Eubanks and John S.
Lewis, all young men, killed on a mission to resupply anti-Communist forces in Laos. They
were all recruited from the famous smokejumpers from Montana.[60] One former
smokejumper and paramilitary officer, Mike Oehlerich, believed he should have been on that
flight, but they accidentally missed their pickup to the airport. They got stuck in Bangkok
and so another crew – Bevan, Eubanks, and Lewis – flew that mission on August 13, 1961.
"We had no idea anything happened until we got back the next day, and that's when they
told us that they went into a canyon and tried to turn around and got into bad air", he said.
CIA officials told him days after the crash that Lewis had jumped out of the plane, rather
than remain inside. "When they told me that, I teared up," Oehlerich recalled. "It was
something John and I had talked about – 'Don't go down with the airplane, your chances are
better if you get out."[60]

Maritime activities against the U.S.S.R.

In 1973, SAC/SOG and the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology built and deployed
the USNS Glomar Explorer (T-AG-193), a large deep-sea salvage ship, on a secret
operation. This operation was called Project Azorian (erroneously called Project Jennifer by
the press).[61] Her mission was to recover a sunken Soviet submarine, K-129, which had
been lost in April 1968.[62][63] A mechanical failure caused two-thirds of the submarine to
break off during recovery,[61] but SAC recovered two nuclear-tipped torpedoes,
cryptographic machines and the bodies of six Soviet submariners.[64] An alternative theory
claims that all of K-129 was recovered[65] and that the official account was an "elaborate
cover-up".[66]

Also in the 1970s, the U.S. Navy, the National Security Agency (NSA) and SAC/SOG [67]
conducted Operation Ivy Bells and a series of other missions to place wiretaps on Soviet
underwater communications cables. These operations were covered in detail in the 1998
book Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage.[68] In the 1985
edition of "Studies in Intelligence", the CIA's in-house journal that outsiders rarely get to
see, the CIA describes the "staggering expense and improbable engineering feats" that
culminated in the August 1974 mission.[69]

CIA officials were always on the lookout for Soviet military equipment captured by the
Israelis in the Middle East or abandoned by Libyans in Chad. But the reason the Pentagon
spent so much in the covert weapons buying operation was its desire for newer systems,
some not previously shipped outside Moscow's alliance. Washington also hoped that Soviet
officials would remain, for a time at least, unaware of their loss.

The operation had started in the late 1970s with a relatively small purchase from Romania.
Deals were arranged through two of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu's brothers, one of whom
was defense minister. The U.S. government paid Romania more than $40 million (roughly
$93 million today) between 1979 and 1989 to acquire such items as the Shilka mobile
antiaircraft system, according to reports. The Ceaușescu brothers demanded that about 20
percent of the money go to Swiss accounts that they controlled. The deals with Romania
stopped when Ceaușescu was deposed and executed in December 1989.

The United States made its first purchases from Poland in the early 1980s, paying $20
million to $30 million (roughly $69 million today) to acquire more than 1,000 shoulder-fired
antiaircraft rockets and portable launchers. The rockets were routed to Islamic guerrillas in
Afghanistan, who used them to shoot down Russian helicopters and cargo planes. (In 1986,
the CIA gave the rebels the more effective American-made Stinger missile.)

Nicaragua

In 1979, the U.S.-backed Anastasio Somoza Debayle dictatorship in Nicaragua fell to the
socialist Sandinistas. Once in power, the Sandinistas disbanded the Nicaraguan National
Guard, who had committed many human rights abuses, and arrested and executed some of
its members. Other former National Guard members helped to form the backbone of the
Nicaraguan Counterrevolution or Contra. SAC/SOG paramilitary teams were deployed to
train and lead these forces against the Sandinista government. These paramilitary activities
were based in Honduras and Costa Rica. Direct military aid by the United States was
eventually forbidden by the Boland Amendment of the Defense Appropriations Act of 1983.
The Boland Amendment was extended in October 1984 to forbid action by not only the
Defense Department, but also to include the Central Intelligence Agency.[70][71]

The Boland Amendment was a compromise because the U.S. Democratic Party did not have
enough votes for a comprehensive ban on military aid. It covered only appropriated funds
spent by intelligence agencies. Some of Reagan's national security officials used non-
appropriated money of the National Security Council (NSC) to circumvent the Amendment.
NSC officials sought to arrange funding by third parties. These efforts resulted in the Iran-
Contra Affair of 1987, which concerned Contra funding through the proceeds of arms sales
to the Islamic Republic of Iran. No court ever made a determination whether Boland covered
the NSC and on the grounds that it was a prohibition rather than a criminal statute, no one
was indicted for violating it. Congress later resumed aid to the Contras, totaling over
$300 million. The Contra war ended when the Sandinistas were voted out of power by a
war-weary populace in 1990.[71][72] Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega was re-elected as
President of Nicaragua in 2006 and took office again on January 10, 2007.

El Salvador

CIA personnel were also involved in the Salvadoran civil war.[73] Some allege that the
techniques used to interrogate prisoners in El Salvador foreshadowed those later used in
Iraq and Afghanistan.[74] In fact, when a similar counter-insurgency program was proposed
in Iraq, it was referred to as "the Salvador Option".[75]

Somalia
 Location of Somalia

SAC sent in teams of Paramilitary Operations Officers into Somalia prior to the U.S.
intervention in 1992. On December 23, 1992, Paramilitary Operations Officer Larry
Freedman became the first casualty of the conflict in Somalia. Freedman was a former Army
Delta Force operator who had served in every conflict that the U.S. was involved in, both
officially and unofficially, since Vietnam.[76] Freedman was killed while conducting special
reconnaissance in advance of the entry of U.S. military forces. His mission was completely
voluntary, but it required entry into a very hostile area without any support. Freedman was
posthumously awarded the Intelligence Star on January 5, 1993 for his "extraordinary
heroism".[77]

SAC/SOG teams were key in working with JSOC and tracking high-value targets (HVT),
known as "Tier One Personalities". Their efforts, working under extremely dangerous
conditions with little to no support, led to several very successful joint JSOC/CIA
operations.[78] In one specific operation, a CIA case officer, Michael Shanklin[79] and
codenamed "Condor", working with a CIA Technical Operations Officer from the Directorate
of Science and Technology, managed to get a cane with a beacon in it to Osman Ato, a
wealthy businessman, arms importer, and Mohammed Aideed, a money man whose name
was right below Mohamed Farrah Aidid's on the Tier One list.

Once Condor confirmed that Ato was in a vehicle, JSOC's Delta Force launched a capture
operation.

a Little Bird helicopter dropped out of the sky and a sniper leaned out and
fired three shots into the car's engine block. The car ground to a halt as
commandos roped down from hovering Blackhawks [sic], surrounded the
car and handcuffed Ato. It was the first known helicopter takedown of
suspects in a moving car. The next time Jones saw the magic cane, an hour
later, Garrison had it in his hand. "I like this cane," Jones remembers the
general exclaiming, a big grin on his face. "Let's use this again." Finally, a
tier one personality was in custody.[78]

President Bill Clinton withdrew U.S. forces on May 4, 1994.[80]

In June 2006, the Islamic Courts Union seized control of southern Somalia, including the
country's capital Mogadishu, prompting the Ethiopian government to send in troops to try to
protect the transitional government. In December, the Islamic Courts warned Ethiopia they
would declare war if Ethiopia did not remove all its troops from Somalia. Sheikh Sharif
Ahmed, leader of the Islamic Courts, called for a jihad, or holy war, against Ethiopia and
encouraged foreign Muslim fighters to come to Somalia. At that time, the United States
accused the group of being controlled by al-Qaeda, but the Islamic Courts denied that
charge.[81]

In 2009, PBS reported that al-Qaeda had been training terrorists in Somalia for years. Until
December 2006, Somalia's government had no power outside of the town of Baidoa, 150
miles (240 km) from the capital. The countryside and the capital were run by warlords and
militia groups who could be paid to protect terrorist groups.[81]

CIA officers kept close tabs on the country and paid a group of Somali warlords to help hunt
down members of al-Qaeda according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, Ayman al-
Zawahiri, the deputy to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, issued a message calling for all
Muslims to go to Somalia.[81] On January 9, 2007, a U.S. official said that ten militants were
killed in one airstrike.[82]

On September 14, 2009, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a senior al-Qaeda leader in East Africa as
well as a senior leader in Shabaab, al Qaeda's surrogate in Somalia, was killed by elements
of U.S. Special Operations. According to a witness, at least two AH-6 Little Bird attack
helicopters strafed a two-car convoy. Navy SEALs then seized the body of Nabhan and took
two other wounded fighters captive.[83][84] JSOC and the CIA had been trying to kill Nabhan
for some time including back in January 2007, when an AC-130 Gunship was called in on
one attempt. A U.S. intelligence source stated that CIA paramilitary teams are directly
embedded with Ethiopian forces in Somalia, allowing for the tactical intelligence to launch
these operations.[85] Nabhan was wanted for his involvement in the 1998 United States
embassy bombings, as well as leading the cell behind the 2002 Mombasa attacks.[83][86]

From 2010 to 2013, the CIA set up the Somalia National Intelligence and Security Agency
(NISA) by providing training, funding and diplomatic access. In the same time period, the EU
and UN has spent millions of dollars for the military training of the Somali National Army
(SNA). NISA is considered a professional Somali security force that can be relied upon to
neutralize the terrorist threat.[87] This force responded to the complex al-Shabaab attack on
the Banadir Regional Courthouse in Mogadishu which killed 25 civilians. NISA's response
however saved hundreds of people and resulted in the death of all the al-Shabaab guerrillas
involved.[88]

Significant events during this time frame included the targeted drone strikes against British
al-Qaida operative Bilal el-Berjawi[89] and Moroccan al-Qaida operative Abu Ibrahim.[90] It
also included the rescue of U.S. citizen Jessica Buchanan by U.S. Navy SEALs.[91] All likely
aided by intelligence collection efforts in Somalia.[92]
Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai with Special Forces

and CIA Paramilitary in late 2001.

During the Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s, Paramilitary Operations Officers were
instrumental in equipping Mujaheddin forces against the Soviet Army. Although the CIA in
general, and a Texas congressman named Charlie Wilson in particular, have received most
of the attention, the key architect of this strategy was Michael G. Vickers. Vickers was a
young Paramilitary Operations Officer from SAC/SOG. The CIA's efforts have been given
credit for assisting in ending the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and bringing Taliban to
power.[93]

SAC paramilitary teams were active in Afghanistan in the 1990s in clandestine operations to
locate and kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. These teams planned several operations, but
did not receive the order to execute from President Bill Clinton because the available
intelligence did not guarantee a successful outcome weighed against the extraordinary risk
to the SAC/SOG teams that would execute the mission.[15] These efforts did however build
many of the relationships that would prove essential in the 2001 U.S. Invasion of
Afghanistan.[15]

On September 26, 2001, members of the Special Activities Division, led by Gary Schroen,
were the first U.S. forces inserted into Afghanistan. The Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team
entered the country nine days after the 9/11 attack[94][95] and linked up with the Northern
Alliance as part of Task Force Dagger.[96]

They provided the Northern Alliance with resources including cash to buy weapons and
prepared for the arrival of USSOCOM forces. The plan for the invasion of Afghanistan was
developed by the CIA, the first time in United States history that such a large-scale military
operation was planned by the CIA.[97] SAC, U.S. Army Special Forces, and the Northern
Alliance combined to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan with minimal loss of U.S. lives.
They did this without the use of conventional U.S. military ground forces.[15][98][99][100]

The Washington Post stated in an editorial by John Lehman in 2006:

What made the Afghan campaign a landmark in the U.S. Military's

history is that it was prosecuted by Special Operations forces from all the
 services, along with Navy and Air Force tactical power, operations by the
Afghan Northern Alliance and the CIA were equally important and fully
integrated. No large Army or Marine force was employed.[101]

In a 2008 New York Times book review of Horse Soldiers, a book by Doug Stanton about
the invasion of Afghanistan, Bruce Barcott wrote:

The valor exhibited by Afghan and American soldiers, fighting to free

Afghanistan from a horribly cruel regime, will inspire even the most
jaded reader. The stunning victory of the horse soldiers – 350 Special
Forces soldiers, 100 C.I.A. officers and 15,000 Northern Alliance fighters
routing a Taliban army 50,000 strong – deserves a hallowed place in
American military history.[102]

Small and highly agile paramilitary mobile teams spread out over the countryside to meet
with locals and gather information about the Taliban and al-Qa'ida. During that time, one of
the teams was approached in a village and asked by a young man for help in retrieving his
teenage sister. He explained that a senior Taliban official had taken her as a wife and had
sharply restricted the time she could spend with her family. The team gave the man a small
hand-held tracking device to pass along to his sister, with instructions for her to activate it
when the Taliban leader returned home. As a result, the team captured the senior Taliban
official and rescued the sister.[103]

Tora Bora

In December 2001, SAC/SOG and the Army's Delta Force tracked down Osama bin Laden in
the rugged mountains near the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan.[104] Former CIA station chief
Gary Berntsen as well as a subsequent Senate investigation claimed that the combined
American special operations task force was largely outnumbered by al-Qaeda forces and
that they were denied additional U.S. troops by higher command.[105] The task force also
requested munitions to block the avenues of egress of bin Laden, but that request was also
denied.[106] The SAC team was unsuccessful and "Bin Laden and bodyguards walked
uncontested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area."[107]
At Bin Laden's abandoned encampment, the team uncovered evidence that bin Laden's
ultimate aim was to obtain and detonate a nuclear device in the United States.[97]

Surge

In September 2009, the CIA planned on "deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary
operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence 'surge' ordered by President Obama.
This will make its station there among the largest in the agency's history."[108] This presence
is expected to surpass the size of the stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those
wars.[108] The station is located at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and is led "by a veteran with
an extensive background in paramilitary operations".[109] The majority of the CIA's workforce
is located among secret bases and military special operations posts throughout the
country.[109][110]

Also in 2009, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan,
planned to request an increase in teams of CIA operatives, including their elite paramilitary
officers, to join with U.S. military special operations forces. This combination worked well in
Iraq and is largely credited with the success of that surge.[109][111] There have been basically
three options described in the media: McChrystal's increased counter-insurgency
campaign; a counter-terror campaign using special operations raids and drone strikes; and
withdrawal. The most successful combination in both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has
been the linking up of SAC and military special forces to fight alongside highly trained

indigenous units. One thing all of these options have in common is a requirement for greater
CIA participation.[111]

The End Game

According to the current and former intelligence officials, General McChrystal also had his
own preferred candidate for the Chief of Station (COS) job, a good friend and decorated CIA
paramilitary officer (who is now known to be Greg Vogle).[112][113] The officer had extensive
experience in war zones, including two previous tours in Afghanistan with one as the Chief
of Station, as well as tours in the Balkans, Baghdad and Yemen. He is well known in CIA lore
as "the man who saved Hamid Karzai's life when the CIA led the effort to oust the Taliban
from power in 2001". President Karzai is said to be greatly indebted to this officer and was
pleased when the officer was named chief of station again. According to interviews with
several senior officials, this officer "was uniformly well-liked and admired. A career
paramilitary officer, he came to the CIA after several years in an elite Marine unit".[112][114]

General McChrystal's strategy included the lash up of special operations forces from the
U.S. Military and from SAC/SOG to duplicate the initial success and the defeat of the Taliban
in 2001[115] and the success of the "Surge" in Iraq in 2007.[116] This strategy proved highly
successful and worked very well in Afghanistan with SAC/SOG and JSOC forces conducting
raids nearly every night having "superb results" against the enemy.[117]

In 2001, the CIA's SAC/SOG began creating what would come to be called Counter-terrorism
Pursuit Teams (CTPT).[118][119] These units grew to include over 3,000 operatives by 2010
and have been involved in sustained heavy fighting against the enemy. It is considered the
"best Afghan fighting force".
Located at 7,800 feet (2,400 m) above sea level, Firebase Lilley in Shkin serves as a "nerve
center for the covert war".[119] This covert war includes being a hub for these CTPT
operations with Firebase Lilley being just one in a constellation of CIA bases across
Afghanistan.[119] These units have not only been highly effective in combat operations
against the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, but have also been used to engage with the tribes
in areas with no other official government presence.[120]

This covert war also includes a large SOG/CTPT expansion into Pakistan to target senior al-
Qaeda and Taliban leadership in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).[121] CTPT
units are the main effort in both the "Counterterrorism plus" and the full
"Counterinsurgency" options being discussed by the Obama administration in the
December 2010 review.[122] SOG/CTPT are also key to any exit strategy for the U.S.
government to leave Afghanistan, while still being able to deny al-Qaeda and other trans-
national extremists groups a safehaven both in Afghanistan and in the FATA of Pakistan.[123]

In January 2013, a CIA drone strike killed Mullah Nazir a senior Taliban commander in the
South Waziristan area of Pakistan believed responsible for carrying out the insurgent effort
against the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Nazir's death degraded the Taliban.[124]

The U.S. has decided to lean heavily on CIA in general and SAC specifically in their efforts to
withdraw from Afghanistan as it did in Iraq.[125] There are plans being considered to have
several U.S .Military special operations elements assigned to CIA after the withdrawal. If so,
there would still be a chance to rebuild and assist and coordinate (with Afghan ANSF
commandos) and continue to keep a small footprint while allowing free elections and
pushing back the Taliban/AQ forces that have failed but continue to attempt their taking
back parts of the country, as they have had between 2015 through 2016.[126]

The Trump administration doubled down on the covert war in Afghanistan by increasing the
number of paramilitary officers from SAC fighting along side and leading the Afghan CTPT's,
supported by Omega Teams from JSOC. Combined they are considered the most effective
units in Afghanistan and the lynchpin of the counter insurgency and counter-terrorism
effort. The war has been largely turned over to SAC.[127] On October 21, 2016, two senior
paramilitary officers, Brian Hoke and Nate Delemarre, were killed during a CTPT operation in
Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The two longtime friends were killed fighting side-by-side against
the Taliban and buried next to each other at Arlington National Cemetery.[128]

Yemen

On November 5, 2002, a missile launched from a CIA-controlled Predator drone killed al-
Qaeda members traveling in a remote area in Yemen. SAC/SOG paramilitary teams had been
on the ground tracking their movements for months and called in this air strike.[129] One of
those in the car was Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, al-Qaeda's chief operative in Yemen and a
suspect in the October 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole. Five other people,
believed to be low-level al-Qaeda members, were also killed to include an American named
Kamal Derwish.[130][131] Former Deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called it "a
very successful tactical operation" and said "such strikes are useful not only in killing
terrorists but in forcing al-Qaeda to change its tactics".[130]

"It's an important step that has been taken in that it has eliminated another level of
experienced leadership from al-Qaeda," said Vince Cannistraro, former head of counter-
terrorism for the CIA and current ABC News consultant. "It will help weaken the organization
and make it much less effective."[132][133] Harithi was on the run, pursued by several
security forces who were looking for him and Muhammad Hamdi al-Ahdal, another suspect
in the USS Cole bombing case.[134]

In 2009, the Obama administration authorized continued lethal operations in Yemen by the
CIA.[135] As a result, the SAC/SOG and JSOC have joined together to aggressively target al-
Qaeda operatives in that country, both through leading Yemenese special forces and
intelligence driven drone strikes.[135] A major target of these operations is imam Anwar al-
Aulaqi, an American citizen with ties to both Nidal Hassan, the alleged Fort Hood attacker,
and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas 2009 attempted bomber of Northwest
Airline flight 253.[136] Imam al-Aulaki was killed on September 30, 2011 by an air attack
carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command.[137]
Iraq

SAC paramilitary teams entered Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Once on the ground they
prepared the battle space for the subsequent arrival of U.S. military forces. SAC teams then
combined with U.S. Army special forces (on a team called the Northern Iraq Liaison Element
or NILE).[19] This team organized the Kurdish Peshmerga for the subsequent U.S. led
invasion. This joint team combined in Operation Viking Hammer to defeat Ansar al-Islam, an
Islamist group allied to al-Qaeda, which several battle-hardened fighters from Afghanistan
had joined after the fall of the Taliban, in a battle for control over the northeast of Iraq – a
battle that turned out being one of the "most intense battles of Special Forces since
Vietnam".[138] This battle was for an entire territory that was completely occupied by Ansar
al-Islam and was executed prior to the invasion in February 2003. If this battle had not been
as successful as it was, there would have been a considerable hostile force in the rear of the
U.S./secular Kurdish force in the subsequent assault on the Iraqi army to the south. The U.S.
side was represented by paramilitary operations officers from SAC/SOG and the army's 10th
Special Forces Group (10th SFG). 10th SFG soldiers were awarded three Silver Stars and six
Bronze Stars with V for valor for this battle alone [139] and several paramilitary officers were
awarded the Intelligence Star for valor in combat.[140] This battle was a significant direct
attack and victory on a key U.S. opponent. It resulted in the deaths of a substantial number
of militants and the uncovering of a crude laboratory that had traces of poisons and
information on chemical weapons at Sargat.[19][141] The team found foreign identity cards,
visas, and passports on the enemy bodies. They had come from a wide variety of Middle
Eastern and north African countries including Yemen, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman,
Tunisia, Morocco, and Iran.[139] Sargat was also the only facility that had traces of chemical
weapons discovered in the Iraq war.[20][140][142]

The village of Biyara and Base of

Ansar al-Islam 2001–2003

In a 2004 U.S. News & World Report article, "A firefight in the mountains", the author states:

Viking Hammer would go down in the annals of Special Forces history – a

battle fought on foot, under sustained fire from an enemy lodged in the
mountains, and with minimal artillery and air support.[139]
SAC/SOG teams also conducted high risk special reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines
to identify senior leadership targets. These missions led to the initial assassination attempts
against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his key generals. Although the initial air strike
against Hussein was unsuccessful in killing the dictator, it was successful in effectively
ending his ability to command and control his forces. Other strikes against key generals
were successful and significantly degraded the command's ability to react to and maneuver
against the U.S.-led invasion force.[19][143] SAC operations officers were also successful in
convincing key Iraqi army officers to surrender their units once the fighting started and/or
not to oppose the invasion force.[20]

NATO member Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used by the U.S. Army's 4th
Infantry Division for the invasion. As a result, the SAC/SOG, U.S. Army special forces joint
teams, the Kurdish Peshmerga and the 173d Airborne Brigade were the entire northern
force against the Iraqi army during the invasion. Their efforts kept the 13 divisions of the
Iraqi Army in place to defend against the Kurds rather allowing them to contest the coalition

force coming from the south.[138] This combined U.S. special operations and Kurdish force
defeated the Iraqi Army.[19] Four members of the SAC/SOG team received CIA's rare
Intelligence Star for "extraordinary heroism".[20]

The mission that captured Saddam Hussein was called "Operation Red Dawn". It was
planned and carried out by JSOC's Delta Force and SAC/SOG teams (together called Task
Force 121). The operation eventually included around 600 soldiers from the 1st Brigade of
the 4th Infantry Division.[144][145] Special operations troops probably numbered around 40.
Much of the publicity and credit for the capture went to the 4th Infantry Division soldiers,
but CIA and JSOC were the driving force. "Task Force 121 were actually the ones who pulled
Saddam out of the hole" said Robert Andrews, former deputy assistant Secretary of
Defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. "They can't be denied a role
anymore."[144]

CIA paramilitary units continued to team up with the JSOC in Iraq and in 2007 the
combination created a lethal force many credit with having a major impact in the success of
"the Surge". They did this by killing or capturing many of the key al-Qaeda leaders in
Iraq.[146][147] In a CBS 60 Minutes interview, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward
described a new special operations capability that allowed for this success. This capability
was developed by the joint teams of CIA and JSOC.[148] Several senior U.S. officials stated
that the "joint efforts of JSOC and CIA paramilitary units was the most significant
contributor to the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq".[146][149]

In May 2007, Marine Major Douglas A. Zembiec was serving in SAC Ground Branch in Iraq
when he was killed by small arms fire while leading a raid.[150][151] Reports from fellow
paramilitary officers stated that the flash radio report sent was "five wounded and one
martyred"[152] Major Zembiec was killed while saving his soldiers, Iraqi soldiers. He was
honored with an intelligence star for his valor in combat.[153]
On October 26, 2008, SAC/SOG and JSOC conducted an operation in Syria targeting the
"foreign fighter logistics network" bringing al-Qaeda operatives into Iraq (See 2008 Abu
Kamal raid).[154] A U.S. source told CBS News that "the leader of the foreign fighters, an al-
Qaeda officer, was the target of Sunday's cross-border raid." He said the attack was
successful, but did not say whether or not the al-Qaeda officer was killed.[155] Fox News
later reported that Abu Ghadiya, "al-Qa'ida's senior coordinator operating in Syria", was
killed in the attack.[156] The New York Times reported that during the raid U.S. forces killed
several armed males who "posed a threat".[157]

In September 2014 with the rise of the Islamic State, the U.S. government began aggressive
military operations against them in both Iraq and Syria. SAC Ground Branch was placed in
charge of the ground war.[158] This is a testament to SAC being the preeminent force for
unconventional warfare and their long-standing relationship with the most effective fighting
force in the region, the Kurdish Peshmerga.[159]

Pakistan

SAC/SOG has been very active "on the ground" inside Pakistan targeting al-Qaeda
operatives for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Predator strikes and along with USSOCOM
elements they have been training Pakistani paramilitary troops and regular Army troops,
they have also done HVT target missions alongside Pakistani special forces.[160] Before
leaving office, President George W. Bush authorized SAC's successful killing of eight senior
al-Qaeda operatives via targeted air strikes.[161] Among those killed were the mastermind of
a 2006 plot to detonate explosives aboard planes flying across the Atlantic Rashid Rauf and
the man thought to have planned the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing on September 20,
2008 that killed 53 people.[162][163] The CIA Director authorized the continuation of these
operations and on January 23, SAC/SOG performed killings of 20 individuals in
northwestern Pakistan that were terrorists. Some experts assess that the CIA Director – at
that time Leon Panetta – has been more aggressive in conducting paramilitary operations in
Pakistan than his predecessor.[164] A Pakistani security official stated that other strikes
killed at least 10 insurgents, including five foreign nationals and possibly "a high-value
target" such as a senior al-Qaeda or Taliban official.[165] On February 14, the CIA drone
killed 27 taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in a missile strike in south Waziristan, a militant
stronghold near the Afghan border where al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-
Zawahri were believed to be hiding.[166]
 MQ-9 Reaper

According to the documentary film Drone, by Tonje Schei, since 2002 the U.S. Air Force

17th Reconnaissance Squadron has been working for the CIA as "customer", carrying out at
least some of the armed missions in Pakistan.[167]

In a National Public Radio (NPR) report dated February 3, 2008, a senior official stated that
al-Qaeda has been "decimated" by SAC/SOG's air and ground operations. This senior U.S.
counter-terrorism official goes on to say, "The enemy is really, really struggling. These
attacks have produced the broadest, deepest and most rapid reduction in al-Qaida senior
leadership that we've seen in several years."[168] President Obama's CIA Director Leon
Panetta stated that SAC/SOG's efforts in Pakistan have been "the most effective weapon"
against senior al-Qaeda leadership.[169][170]

These covert attacks have increased significantly under President Obama, with as many at
50 al-Qaeda militants being killed in the month of May 2009 alone.[171][172][173] In June
2009, sixty Taliban fighters were killed while at a funeral to bury fighters that had been killed
in previous CIA attacks.[174] On July 22, 2009, National Public Radio reported that U.S.
officials believe Saad bin Laden, a son of Osama bin Laden, was killed by a CIA strike in
Pakistan. Saad bin Laden spent years under house arrest in Iran before traveling last year to
Pakistan, according to former National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell. It's believed he
was killed sometime in 2009. A senior U.S. counter-terrorism said U.S. intelligence agencies
are "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.[175]

On August 6, 2009, the CIA announced that Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a SAC/SOG
drone strike in Pakistan.[176] The New York Times said, "Although President Obama has
distanced himself from many of the Bush administration's counter-terrorism policies, he has
embraced and even expanded the C.I.A.'s covert campaign in Pakistan using Predator and
Reaper drones".[176] The biggest loss may be to "Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida". For the past
eight years, al-Qaeda had depended on Mehsud for protection after Mullah Mohammed
Omar fled Afghanistan in late 2001. "Mehsud's death means the tent sheltering Al Qaeda
has collapsed," an Afghan Taliban intelligence officer who had met Mehsud many times told
Newsweek. "Without a doubt he was Al Qaeda's No. 1 guy in Pakistan," adds Mahmood
Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier and a former chief of the Federally Administered
Tribal Area, or FATA, Mehsud's base.[177]

Airstrikes from CIA drones struck targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
of Pakistan on September 8, 2009. Reports stated that seven to ten militants were killed to
include one top al-Qaida leader. He was Mustafa al-Jaziri, an Algerian national described as
an "important and effective" leader and senior military commander for al-Qaida. The
success of these operations are believed to have caused senior Taliban leaders to
significantly alter their operations and cancel key planning meetings.[178][179]

The CIA is also increasing its campaign using Predator missile strikes on al-Qaeda in
Pakistan. The number of strikes in 2009 exceeded the 2008 total, according to data
compiled by the Long War Journal, which tracks strikes in Pakistan.[109] In December 2009,
the New York Times reported that President Obama ordered an expansion of the drone
program with senior officials describing the program as "a resounding success, eliminating
key terrorists and throwing their operations into disarray".[180] The article also cites a
Pakistani official who stated that about 80 missile attacks in less than two years have killed
"more than 400" enemy fighters, a number lower than most estimates but in the same
range. His account of collateral damage was strikingly lower than many unofficial counts:
"We believe the number of civilian casualties is just over 20, and those were people who
were either at the side of major terrorists or were at facilities used by terrorists."[180]

On December 6, 2009, a senior al-Qaeda operative, Saleh al-Somali, was killed in a drone
strike in Pakistan. He was responsible for their operations outside of the Afghanistan-
Pakistan region and formed part of the senior leadership. Al-Somali was engaged in plotting
terrorist acts around the world and "given his central role, this probably included plotting
attacks against the United States and Europe".[181][182] On December 31, 2009, senior
Taliban leader and strong Haqqani ally Haji Omar Khan, brother of Arif Khan, was killed in
the strike along with the son of local tribal leader Karim Khan.[183]

In January 2010, al-Qaeda in Pakistan announced that Lashkar al-Zil leader Abdullah Said al
Libi was killed in a drone missile strike. Neither al-Qaeda nor the U.S. has revealed the date
of the attack that killed Libi.[184] On January 14, 2010, subsequent to the suicide attack at
Camp Chapman, the CIA located and killed the senior Taliban leader in Pakistan, Hakimullah
Mehsud. Mehsud had claimed responsibility in a video he made with the suicide bomber
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.[185]

On February 5, 2010, the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and CIA's SAC/SOG
conducted a joint raid and apprehended Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Baradar was the most
significant Taliban figure to be detained since the beginning of the Afghan War more than
eight years ago until that date. He ranked second to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's
founder and was known to be a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Mullah Baradar was
interrogated by CIA and ISI officers for several days before news of his capture was
released.[186] This capture sent the message that the Taliban leadership is not safe in
Afghanistan or Pakistan.[187] "The seizure of the Afghan Taliban's top military leader in
Pakistan represents a turning point in the U.S.-led war against the militants", U.S. officials
and analysts said.[188] Per Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, several raids in Karachi
in early February netted dozens of suspected Afghan militants.[188] In other joint raids that
occurred around the same time, Afghan officials said that the Taliban "shadow governors"
for two provinces in northern Afghanistan had also been detained. Mullah Abdul Salam, the
Taliban's leader in Kunduz, and Mullah Mir Mohammed of Baghlan were captured in Akora
Khattack.[189]

On February 20, Muhammad Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, was one of four people
killed in the drone strike in Pakistan's tribal region in North Waziristan, according to two
Pakistani intelligence sources.[190]

On May 31, 2010, the New York Times reported that Mustafa Abu al Yazid (AKA Saeed al
Masri), a senior operational leader for Al Qaeda, was killed in an American missile strike in
Pakistan's tribal areas.[191]

From July to December 2010, predator strikes killed 535 suspected militants in the FATA to
include Sheikh Fateh Al Misri, Al-Qaeda's new third in command on September 25.[192] Al
Misri was planning a major terrorist attack in Europe by recruiting British Muslims who would
then go on a shooting rampage similar to what transpired in Mumbai in November 2008.[193]

Operation Neptune Spear

 Play media
President Barack Obama's address
(Text)

On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed
earlier that day in Abbottabad, Pakistan by "a small team of Americans" acting under his
direct orders during a CIA operation under Director Leon Panetta.[26][194][195] The helicopter
raid was executed from a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan by the elements of the
U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (assigned to the CIA) and CIA paramilitary
operatives.[196][197][198]

The operation in the Bilal military cantonment area in the city of Abbottabad resulted in the
acquisition of extensive intelligence on the future attack plans of al-Qaeda.[199][200][201] Bin
Laden's body was flown to Afghanistan to be identified and then forwarded to the aircraft
carrier USS Carl Vinson for a burial at sea.[202] Results from the DNA samples taken
Afghanistan were compared with those of a known relative of bin Laden's and confirmed the
identity.
The operation was a result of years of intelligence work that included the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), the CIA, the DSS, and the Delta Force's apprehension and interrogation of
Khalid Sheik Mohammad (KSM),[203][204][205] the discovery of the real name of the courier
disclosed by KSM, the tracking, via signal intelligence, of the courier to the Abbottobad
compound by paramilitary operatives and the establishment of a CIA safe house that
provided critical advance intelligence for the operation.[206][207][208][208]

The material discovered in the raid indicated that bin Laden was still in charge of his Al-
Qaeda organization and was developing plans and issuing orders at the time of his death.
There is considerable controversy over claims that elements of the Pakistani government,
particularly the ISI, may have been concealing the presence of Osama bin Laden in
Pakistan.[209][210][211] Bin Laden's death has been labeled a "game changer" and a fatal
blow to Al-Qaeda, by senior U.S. officials.[212]

Iran

In the early 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service
were ordered to overthrow the government of Iran, Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq,
and re-install deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.[213] This event was called Operation
Ajax.[214][215] The senior CIA officer was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of American
president Theodore Roosevelt. The operation utilized all of SAC's components to include
political action, covert influence and paramilitary operations. The paramilitary component
included training anti-Communist guerrillas to fight the Tudeh Party if they seized power in
the chaos of Operation Ajax.[216] Although a significant tactical/operational success,
Operation Ajax is considered very controversial with many critics.[217]

In November 1979, a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American
embassy in support of the Iranian Revolution.[218] Operation Eagle Claw was the
unsuccessful United States military operation that attempted to rescue the 52 hostages
from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran on April 24, 1980. Several SAC/SOG teams infiltrated
into Tehran to support this operation.[219]
On March 9, 2007 alleged CIA officer Robert Levinson was kidnapped from Iran's Kish
Island. On July 7, 2008, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author Seymour
Hersh wrote an article in the New Yorker stating that the Bush Administration had signed a
Presidential Finding authorizing the CIA to begin cross border paramilitary operations from
Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran. These operations would be against Quds Force, the
commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, public and private sector strategic
targets, and "high-value targets" in the war on terror. Also enrolled to support CIA
objectives were the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and the Baluchis
insurgents. "The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to
undermine the government through regime change," a person familiar with its contents said,
and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."[220] Any significant
effort against Iran by the Obama Administration would likely come directly from SAC.[221]
and in July 2010, Director Panetta chose a former chief of SAC as the new NCS
Director.[222]

Libya

After the Arab Spring movements overthrew the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, its neighbours
to the west and east respectively, Libya had a major revolt beginning in February
2011.[223][224] In response, the Obama administration sent in SAC paramilitary operatives to
assess the situation and gather information on the opposition forces.[225][226] Experts
speculated that these teams could have been determining the capability of these forces to
defeat the Muammar Gaddafi regime and whether Al-Qaeda had a presence in these rebel
elements.

U.S. officials had made it clear that no U.S. troops would be "on the ground", making the use
of covert paramilitary operatives the only alternative.[227] During the early phases of the
Libyan offensive of U.S.-led air strikes, paramilitary operatives assisted in the recovery of a
U.S. Air Force pilot who had crashed due to mechanical problems.[228][229] There was
speculation that President Obama issued a covert action finding in March 2011 that
authorizes the CIA to carry out a clandestine effort to provide arms and support to the
Libyan opposition.[230]
Syria

CIA paramilitary teams have been deployed to Syria to report on the uprising, to access the
rebel groups, leadership and to potentially train, equip and lead one of those rebel groups
against the Bashar al-Assad regime.[231] In early September 2013, President Obama told
U.S. Senators that the CIA had trained the first 50-man insurgent element and that they had
been inserted into Syria.[232] The deployment of this unit and the supplying of weapons may
be the first tangible measure of support since the U.S. stated they would begin providing
assistance to the opposition.[233][234] In October 2013, SAC was tasked with supporting
moderate Syrian rebels to help engineer a stalemate and political settlement in the Syrian
civil war. This program was considered too limited to have the desired outcome.[235]
However, with the rise of the Islamic State, SAC was given the overall command and control
of the ground fight against them. This fight crossed borders between Iraq and
Syria.[158][236]

Again in 2015, the combination of the U.S. Military's JSOC and the CIA's Special Activities
Center became the force of choice for fighting this conflict.[237] SAC stood up and ran a
robust covert action program to overthrown the Assad regime. The program was
successful, including in 2015 when rebels using tank-destroying missiles, routed
government forces in northern Syria. But by late 2015 the Russian came to Assad aid and
their focus was focusing squarely on the C.I.A.-backed fighters battling Syrian government
troops. Many of the fighters were killed, and the fortunes of the rebel army reversed.[238]
According to the Middle East Institute. the program was never given the level of political
support - “They never gave it the necessary resources or space to determine the dynamics
of the battlefield. They were drip-feeding opposition groups just enough to survive but
never enough to become dominant actors.”[238]

In December 2018, US President Donald Trump announced that US troops involved in the
fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in northeast Syria would be withdrawn imminently.
Trumpʼs surprise decision overturned Washingtonʼs policy in the Middle East. It has also
fueled the ambitions and anxieties of local and regional actors vying over the future shape
of Syria. Many experts proposed that President Trump could mitigate the damage of his
withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria by using SAC.[239] Many believe the president
chose "to replace U.S. ground forces in Syria with personnel from the CIA's Special
Activities Division" and that the process has been underway for months. Already
experienced in operations in Syria, the CIA has numerous paramilitary officers who have the
skills to operate independently in harms way. And while the CIA lacks the numbers to
replace all 2,000 U.S. military personnel currently in Syria and work along side the Syrian
Democratic Forces (these CIA personnel are spread cross the world), but their model is

based on fewer enablers and support.[240]

Worldwide mission

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed after his

capture

The CIA has always had a Special Activities Center, which secretly carries out special
operations missions. However, since September 11, 2001 the U.S. government has relied
much more on SAC/SOG because fighting terrorists does not usually involve fighting other
armies. Rather, it involves secretly moving in and out of countries like Pakistan, Iran and
Somalia where the American military is not legally allowed to operate. If there are missions in
these countries that are denied to U.S. military special operations forces, SAC/SOG units are
the primary national special missions units to execute those operations.[241]

In the War on Terror, SAC has the lead in the covert war being waged against al
Qaeda.[13][242] SAC/SOG paramilitary teams have apprehended many of the senior leaders.
These include: Abu Zubaydah,[243] the chief of operations for al-Qaeda; Ramzi bin al-
Shibh,[244] the so-called "20th hijacker";[245] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of
the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.;[246] Abd al-Rahim
al-Nashiri, alleged to be the mastermind of the USS Cole bombing and leader of al Qaeda
operations in the Persian Gulf prior to his capture in November 2002;[247] Abu Faraj al-Libi,
al Qaeda's "field general" believed to have taken the role of No. 3 in al Qaeda following the
capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Pakistan;[248] and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the
number two Taliban commander and the highest level Taliban commander apprehended in
the Afghan War.[249] Prior to the beginning of the "War on Terror", SAC/SOG located and
captured many notable militants and international criminals, including Abimael Guzman and
Carlos the Jackal. These were just three of the over 50 caught by SAC/SOG just between
1983 and 1995.[250]

In 2002, the George W. Bush Administration prepared a list of "terrorist leaders" the CIA is
authorized to kill in a targeted killing, if capture is impractical and civilian casualties can be

kept to an acceptable number. The list includes key al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden
(deceased) and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as other principal figures from
al Qaeda and affiliated groups. This list is called the "high value target list".[251] The U.S.
president is not legally required to approve each name added to the list, nor is the CIA
required to obtain presidential approval for specific attacks, although the president is kept
well informed about operations.[251]
SAC/SOG teams have been dispatched to the country of Georgia, where dozens of al Qaeda
fugitives from Afghanistan are believed to have taken refuge with Chechen separatists and
thousands of refugees in the Pankisi Gorge. Their efforts have already resulted in 15 Arab
militants linked to al Qaeda being captured.[129]

The SAC/SOG teams have also been active in the Philippines, where 1,200 U.S. military
advisers helped to train local soldiers in "counter-terrorist operations" against Abu Sayyaf, a
radical Islamist group suspected of ties with al Qaeda. Little is known about this U.S. covert
action program, but some analysts believe that "the CIA's paramilitary wing, the Special
Activities Division (SAD) [referring to SAC's previous name], has been allowed to pursue
terrorist suspects in the Philippines on the basis that its actions will never be
acknowledged".[129]

On July 14, 2009, several newspapers reported that DCIA Leon Panetta was briefed on a
CIA program that had not been briefed to the oversight committees in Congress. Panetta
cancelled the initiative and reported its existence to Congress and the President. The
program consisted of teams of SAC paramilitary officers organized to execute targeted
killing operations against al Qaeda operatives around the world in any country. According to
the Los Angeles Times, DCIA Panetta "has not ruled out reviving the program".[13] There is
some question as to whether former Vice President Dick Cheney instructed the CIA not to
inform Congress.[252] Per senior intelligence officers, this program was an attempt to avoid
the civilian casualties that can occur during Predator drone strikes using Hellfire
missiles.[253][254]

According to many experts, the Obama administration has relied on the CIA and their
paramilitary capabilities, even more than they have on U.S. military forces, to maintain the
fight against terrorists in the Afghanistan and Pakistan region, as well as places like Yemen,
Somalia and North Africa.[255][256] Ronald Kessler states in his book The CIA at War: Inside
the Secret War Against Terror, that although paramilitary operations are a strain on
resources, they are winning the war against terrorism.[255][257]

SAC/SOG paramilitary officers executed the clandestine evacuation of U.S. citizens and
diplomatic personnel in Somalia, Iraq (during the Persian Gulf War) and Liberia during
periods of hostility, as well as the insertion of Paramilitary Operations Officers prior to the
entry of U.S. military forces in every conflict since World War II.[258] SAC officers have
operated covertly since 1947 in places such as North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia,
Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, El Salvador, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Honduras, Chile, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and
Pakistan.[259]

In the Trump administration, SAC has begun deploying small units of paramilitary officers
worldwide to track down terrorists and they have been given the primary lead for CT
operations in Afghanistan.[260]
In 2019, Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen's book, "Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret
History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins" was released. The author
refers to CIA's Special Activities Division as "a highly-classified branch of the CIA and the
most effective, black operations force in the world." [261] She further states that every
American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion
and assassination.[262]

Innovations in special operations

The Fulton system in use

The Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (STARS) is a system developed in the early
1950s by CIA paramilitary officers for retrieving persons from the ground with a MC-130E
Combat Talon I aircraft. It uses a harness and a self-inflating balloon that carries an
attached lift line. An MC-130E engages the line with its V-shaped yoke and the individual is
reeled on board.[263] Project COLDFEET was a very successful mission in 1962 in which two
military officers parachuted into a remote abandoned Soviet site in the Arctic. The two were
subsequently extracted by the Fulton sky hook. The team gathered evidence of advanced
research on acoustical systems to detect under-ice U.S. submarines and efforts to develop

Arctic anti-submarine warfare techniques.[263]

Sergeant Major (SgtMaj) Billy Waugh was a Special Forces soldier attached to the CIA in the
1960s. During his time at MACV-SOG in Vietnam, he developed and conducted the first
combat High Altitude-Low Opening (HALO) jump. A practice combat infiltration was
conducted in October 1970 into the North Vietnamese held "War Zone D", in South Vietnam,
the first such drop into a combat zone.[264] HALO is a method of delivering personnel,
equipment, and supplies from a transport aircraft at a high altitude via free-fall parachute
insertion. HALO and HAHO (High Altitude-High Opening) are also known as Military Free Fall
(MFF). In the HALO technique, the parachutist opens his parachute at a low altitude after
free-falling for a period of time to avoid detection by the enemy. Waugh also led the last
combat special reconnaissance parachute insertion into enemy territory occupied by
communist North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops on June 22, 1971.[264]

Notable paramilitary officers

George Bacon
Morris "Moe" Berg

William Francis Buckley

William Colby

Jerry Daniels

John Downey

Richard Fecteau

James (Jim) Glerum

Wilbur "Will" Green

Thomas "Tom" Fosmire

Howard Freeman

Richard (Dick) Holm

Bill Lair

Lloyd C. "Pat" Landry

Grayston Lynch

Michael Patrick Mulroy

Anthony Poshepny (a.k.a. Tony Poe)

William "Rip" Robertson

Felix Rodriguez

Johnny Micheal Spann

Gar Thorsrud

Ernest "Chick" Tsikerdanos

Michael G. Vickers

Billy Waugh, Sergeant Major, U.S. Army Retired

William (Bill) Young

Leo Camilleri

Douglas A. Zembiec
Chris Mueller and William Carlson: On October 25, 2003, paramilitary officers
Christopher Mueller and William "Chief" Carlson were killed while conducting an operation
to kill/capture high level al-Qa'ida leaders near Shkin, Afghanistan. Both these officers
were honored with Stars on the CIA Memorial Wall at their Headquarters in Langley,
Virginia.[265] "The bravery of these two men cannot be overstated," Director of Central
Intelligence George J. Tenet told a gathering of several hundred Agency employees and
 family members. "Chris and Chief put the lives of others ahead of their own. That is
heroism defined." Mueller, a former Navy SEAL and Carlson, a former Army Special Forces
soldier, Delta Force operator, and member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, died while
on this covert operation. Both officers saved the lives of others, including Afghan soldiers,
during the engagement with al-Qa'ida forces.[265][266][267] In Oliver North's book
American Heroes in Special Operations, a chapter is devoted to their story.[268]

Notable political action officers

Virginia Hall (1906–1982) Goillot started as the only female paramilitary officer in the OSS.
She shot herself in the leg while hunting in Turkey in 1932, which was then amputated
below the knee. She parachuted into France to organize the resistance with her
prosthesis strapped to her body. She was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. She

married an OSS officer named Paul Goillot and the two joined the CIA as paramilitary
operations officers in SAC. Once aboard, Mrs. Goillot made her mark as a political action
officer playing significant roles in the Guatemala and Guyana operations. These
operations involved the covert removal of the governments of these two countries, as
directed by the President of the United States.[269]

E. Howard Hunt (1918–2007) was an Ivy league educated Naval officer who joined the CIA
in 1949 after serving with the OSS in World War II. Hunt was a political action officer in
what came to be called their Special Activities Division.[270] He became station chief in
Mexico City in 1950, and supervised William F. Buckley, Jr., (Not to be confused with a
famous SAC Paramilitary Officer of the same name) who worked for the CIA in Mexico
during the period 1951–1952. Buckley, another SAC political action specialist, only served
briefly in the CIA and went on to be considered the father of the modern American
conservative movement. Buckley and Hunt remained lifelong friends.[271] Hunt ran
Operation PBSUCCESS, which overthrew the government in Guatemala in 1954, was
heavily involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion operation, frequently mentioned in the JFK
assassination, and was one of the operatives in the Watergate scandal.[272] Hunt was also
a well-known author with over 50 books to his credit. These books were published under
several alias names and several were made into motion pictures.[273]

David Atlee Phillips (1922–1988) Perhaps the most famous propaganda officer ever to
serve in CIA, Phillips began his career as a journalist and amateur actor in Buenos Aires,
Argentina. He joined the Agency in the 1950s and was one of the chief architects of the
operation to overthrow Communist president Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. He was later
heavily engaged as a principal member of the Bay of Pigs Task Force at Langley, and in
subsequent anti-Castro operations throughout the 1960s. He founded the Association of
Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) after successfully contesting a libel suit against him.

Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. (1916–2000), was a political action officer in SAC who coordinated
 the CIA's Operation Ajax, which orchestrated the coup d'état of Iran's democratically
elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and returned monarchical rule to
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, and Iran's Sun Throne in August 1953. He was
also the grandson of American president Theodore Roosevelt.

CIA Memorial Wall

The CIA Memorial Wall is located at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It honors CIA
employees who died in the line of duty.[274] There are 129 stars carved into the marble

wall,[275][276] each one representing an officer. A majority of these were paramilitary

officers.[274] A black book, called the "Book of Honor", lies beneath the stars and is encased
in an inch-thick plate of glass.[276] Inside this book are stars, arranged by year of death, and
the names of 91 employees who died in CIA service alongside them.[274][276][275] The other
names remain secret, even in death.[274]

Third Option Foundation (TOF) is a national non-profit organization set up to support the
families of fallen paramilitary officers. The name refers to the motto of CIA's Special
Activities Center: Tertia Optio, the President's third option when military force is
inappropriate and diplomacy is inadequate. TOF provides comprehensive family resiliency
programs, financial support for the families of paramilitary officers killed in action and it
works behind the scenes to "quietly help those who quietly serve".[277]
In fiction

In Madam Secretary, Henry McCord (husband of the titular Secretary of State) serves as
Director of the CIA's Special Activities Division in Seasons 3 and 4.

See also

Action Division - part of French DGSE

Army Ranger Wing

Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action

Counter-terrorism

Defense Clandestine Service

Defense Intelligence Agency

Delta Force

Direct action (military)

Espionage

Extraordinary rendition by the United States

Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia)

Foreign internal defense

Forward Operating Base Chapman attack

Guerrilla warfare

Joint Special Operations Command

Marine Special Operations Command

Military Intelligence, Section 6 (MI6)

Plausible deniability

Special Air Service

Special Frontier Force

Special reconnaissance

Targeted killing

United States Army Special Forces

United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group

United States Special Operations Command

 United States special operations forces

Vympel – a combined GRU/FSB counter-terrorism unit

Wagner Group

486th Flight Test Squadron

Notes

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2003. All Necessary Means: Employing CIA operatives in a Warfighting Role Alongside
Special Operations Forces, United States Army War College (USAWC).

Tenet, George. 2007. At the Center of the Storm: My Life at the CIA. Harper Collins

Triay, Victor Andres. 2001. Bay of Pigs: An Oral History of Brigade 2506. University Press
of Florida, Gainesville ISBN 0-8130-2090-5, 978-0813020907

Tucker, Mike and Faddis, Charles. 2008. Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War
inside Iraq. The Lyons Press. ISBN 978-1-59921-366-8

P, Matt. 2010, Review of Hotel California: The Clandestine War inside Iraq . Studies in
Intelligence. Volume 54 No. 2

Warner, Roger (1996). Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in
 Laos . Steerforth Press. ISBN 978-1-883642-36-5. – The history of CIA/IAD'S 15-year
involvement in conducting the secret war in Laos, 1960–1975, and the career of CIA
PMCO (paramilitary case officer) Bill Lair.

Woodward, Bob (2004). Plan of Attack. Simon & Schuster, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7432-5547-9.

Wyden, Peter. 1979. Bay of Pigs – The Untold Story. Simon and Schuster. New York.

ISBN 0-671-24006-4, 0224017543, 978-0-671-24006-6

Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and
Assassins. Annie Jacobsen ISBN 978-0316441438

Further reading

Air America and The Ravens. by Chris Robbins – Both are the history of CIA/IAD's war in
Laos, providing biographies and details on such legendary CIA PMCOs as Wil Green, Tony
Poe, Jerry Daniels, Howie Freeman, Bill Lair, and the pilots, ground crew and support
personnel managed by IAD/SOG/AIR BRANCH under the proprietaries Bird Air, Southern
Air Transport, China Air Transport and Air America – and the U.S. Air Force forward air
controllers (RAVENS) who were brought in under CIA/IAD command and control as
"civilians" to support secret combat ops in Laos.

Raiders of the China Coast by Frank Holober – History of CIA/IAD paramilitary operations
in the Taiwan Straits, 1947–1955, with details on such PMCOs as Ernie Tskikerdanos.

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, Bowden, Mark (1999), Atlantic Monthly Press.
Berkeley, California. ISBN 0-87113-738-0 about operation Gothic Serpent

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, Bowden, Mark (2001), ISBN 0-
87113-783-6 about the hunt for Pablo Escobar

Bush at War by Bob Woodward, 2001, detailing the initial invasion of Afghanistan and the
role of SAD.

First In: An Insiders Account of how the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in
Afghanistan by Gary Schroen, 2005.

Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and AL Qaeda: A personal account by the CIA's field
Commander by Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzulla, 2005.

Kill bin Laden, by Dalton Fury, St. Martin's Press, 2008.

Wild Bill Donovan: The Last Hero, by Anthony Cave Brown, New York: Times Books, 1982.

Safe For Democracy: The Secret Wars Of The CIA, John Prados, Ivan R. Dee, Chicago,
2006.

Inside Delta Force, Haney, Eric L. (2002), New York: Delacorte Press, 325 pages.
ISBN 978-0-385-33603-1.
Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Naylor, Sean (2005),

Penguin Group, New York about Operation Anaconda; details, among other things, the
actions of SAD Paramilitary officers during this chaotic 2002 battle in Afghanistan.

Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran,
Seymour M. Hersh, July 7, 2008.
<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh >

Orphans Of The Cold War: America And The Tibetan Struggle For Survival, John Kenneth
Knaus, 1999 ISBN 1891620851.

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in
Afghanistan, Doug Stanton, 2009.

Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces, Linda Robinson, 2004.

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11, Ron
Suskind, Simon and Schuster, 2006.

Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and
Assassins. Annie Jacobsen ISBN 978-0316441438

''National Geographic: CIA Confidential, Afghanistan and Pakistan, <[4] >.

American spy: my secret history in the CIA, Watergate, and beyond, E. Howard Hunt; with
Greg Aunapu; foreword by William F. Buckley, Jr. (2007)
 Wilson, Jeremy (2004). "Seven Pillars of Wisdom – Triumph and Tragedy" . T. E.
Lawrence Studies. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved July 17, 2008.

External links

Official Website of the CIA

CIA Factbook

Israel's most lethal unit, Caesarea

SAD for kids

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