Office of Strategic Services 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 Roosevelt at
Columbia Law School. Like its successor the CIA, the OSS included both
human intelligence functions and special operations paramilitary functions. Its Secret Intelligence Division was responsible for espionage, while the
Jedburgh teams, a U.S.-U.K.-French collaboration, were forerunners of groups that create guerrilla units, such as the U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA. The OSS's 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. The OSS operated primarily in the
European Theater of Operations and to some extent in the
China-Burma-India Theater, although
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 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's 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. 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. The OSS was disbanded shortly after World War II, with its intelligence analysis functions moving temporarily into the
United States 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 CIA's original creation by the
National Security Act of 1947 and various mergers and reorganizations through 1952, the wartime OSS functions generally ended up in the 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 CIA's paramilitary operations centralized in the Special Operations Division (SOD), the predecessor of the 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; training occurred at
Camp Hale. The PM teams then advised and led these
commandos against the Chinese, both from Nepal and India and in some cases worked with
Research and Analysis Wing. In addition, CIA Paramilitary Officers were responsible for the
Dalai Lama's clandestine escape to India along with Indian intelligence, narrowly escaping capture by the People's Liberation Army. 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.
Korea 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. Well-trained Korean guerrillas carried out these operations. 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. 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. Four American aircrew instructors from
Alabama Air National Guard were killed while flying attack sorties. This invasion followed the successful overthrow by the CIA of the
Mosaddeq government in Iran in 1953 and
Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, but was a failure both militarily and politically. 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. 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. 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.
Vietnam and Laos 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. 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. The ethnic minority forces numbered in the tens of thousands. They conducted direct actions missions, led by Paramilitary Operations Officers, against the communist
Pathet Lao forces and their North Vietnamese allies. Between 1968 and 1972, the Phoenix Program captured 81,740 VC members, of whom 26,369 were killed. 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 VC 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. 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. 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. 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.'" Her mission was to recover a sunken Soviet submarine, , which had been lost in April 1968. A mechanical failure caused two-thirds of the submarine to break off during recovery, An alternative theory claims that all of K-129 was recovered and that the official account was an "elaborate cover-up". Also, in the 1970s, the
U.S. Navy, the
National Security Agency (NSA) and SAD 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''. 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.
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. CIA paramilitary teams from Special Activities Division were deployed to train and lead these rebel 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. 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.
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. Some allege that the techniques used to interrogate prisoners in El Salvador foreshadowed those later used in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, when a similar counter-insurgency program was proposed in Iraq, it was referred to as "the Salvador Option". Agency officers had strict instructions not to participate in interrogations of prisoners, and to avoid the area where prisoners were held.
Somalia CIA 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. 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." SAD/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. In one specific operation, a CIA case officer, Michael Shanklin 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 , 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. 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. 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, from the capital. The countryside and the capital were run by warlords and militia groups who could be paid to protect terrorist groups. 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. 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. Nabhan was wanted for his involvement in the
1998 United States embassy bombings, as well as leading the cell behind the
2002 Mombasa attacks. Nabhan's remains were given a
burial at sea following the operation. On September 11, 2020, Admiral
William McRaven revealed in an interview with the
Michael Hayden Center that the decision to use burial at sea for the disposition of Osama Bin Laden's body following
Operation Neptune Spear was a direct result of his experiences in the killing of Nabhan, citing a belief that the chances of operational success were greater if decisions and procedures were made "as routine as possible." 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 have spent millions of dollars on 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. This force responded to the complex al-Shabaab attack on the Banadir Regional Courthouse in Mogadishu that killed 25 civilians. NISA's response, however, saved hundreds of people and resulted in the death of all the al-Shabaab guerrillas involved. Significant events during this time frame included the targeted drone strikes against British al-Qaida operative
Bilal el-Berjawi and Moroccan al-Qaida operative Abu Ibrahim. It also included the rescue of U.S. citizen Jessica Buchanan by U.S. Navy SEALs. All likely aided by intelligence collection efforts in Somalia. In November 2020, Michael Goodboe, a senior CIA paramilitary officer, was killed in a terrorist attack in
Mogadishu, Somalia. Goodboe was a member of
SEAL Team 6 prior to serving with the Special Activities Center. He is the most recent star added to the memorial wall at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. At the time of the attack, the U.S. had around 700 troops in Somalia, assisting local forces to defeat
al-Shabaab, the burgeoning al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group with an estimated 9,000 fighters throughout the region. The terrorist organization has vowed to overthrow the Somali government, which is supported by some 20,000 troops from the African Union.
Afghanistan 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 SAD/SOG. The CIA's efforts have been given credit for assisting in ending the
Soviet involvement in
Afghanistan. SAD 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 SAD/SOG teams that would execute the mission. and linked up with the
Northern Alliance in its safe haven of the Panjshir Valley as part of Task Force Dagger. On October 17, 2001, the eight members of the CIA's Team Alpha were inserted into the Darya Suf Valley in two Black Hawk helicopters. Four members of Team Alpha were paramilitary officers from SAD: Alex Hernandez, Scott Spellmeyer,
Johnny Micheal Spann, and Andy Hartsog. A fifth,
Mark Rausenberger, later became a paramilitary officer; he died on CIA duty in the Philippines in 2016. The CIA teams provided the Northern Alliance with resources including millions of dollars in cash to buy weapons and pay local fighters 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. SAD, 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.
The Washington Post stated in an editorial by
John Lehman in 2006: In a 2008
New York Times book review of
Horse Soldiers, a book by
Doug Stanton about the invasion of Afghanistan,
Bruce Barcott wrote: 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.
Tora Bora In December 2001, Special Activities Division and the Army's
Delta Force tracked down
Osama bin Laden in the rugged mountains near the
Khyber Pass in Afghanistan. Former CIA station chief
Gary Berntsen, as well as a subsequent Senate investigation, said 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. The task force also requested munitions to block the avenues of egress of bin Laden, but that request was also denied. The SAC team was unsuccessful, and "Bin Laden and bodyguards walked uncontested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area." 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. The station was located at the U.S. Embassy in
Kabul and was led "by a veteran with an extensive background in paramilitary operations". 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 was largely credited with the success of that surge. There were basically three options described in the media: McChrystal's increased counterinsurgency 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 was the linking up of SAD and military special forces to fight alongside highly trained indigenous units. One thing all of these options had in common was a requirement for greater CIA participation. 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 was 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 was 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". 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 and the success of the "Surge" in Iraq in 2007. 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. In 2001, the CIA's SAD/SOG began creating what would come to be called Counter-terrorism Pursuit Teams (CTPT). These units grew to include over 3,000 operatives by 2010 and were involved in sustained heavy fighting against the enemy. It was considered the "best Afghan fighting force." Located at above sea level, Firebase Lilley in
Shkin served as a "nerve center for the covert war." This covert war also included a large SOG/CTPT expansion into Pakistan to target senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). CTPT units are the main effort in both the "Counter-terrorism plus" and the full "Counterinsurgency" options being discussed by the Obama administration in the December 2010 review. 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 safe haven both in Afghanistan and in the FATA of Pakistan. 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. The U.S. decided to lean heavily on CIA in general, and SAC specifically in their efforts to withdraw from Afghanistan as it did in Iraq. 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. The Trump administration doubled down on the covert war in Afghanistan by increasing the number of paramilitary officers from SAD fighting alongside and leading the Afghan ''CTPT's
, supported by Omega Teams
from JSOC. Combined they are considered the most effective units in Afghanistan and the linchpin of the counter insurgency and counter-terrorism effort. The war has been largely turned over to SAC. 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.
The New York Times reported in March 2020 that during the Trump administration's negotiations with the Taliban on the peace agreement, several advocated for an increase in CIA paramilitary capability as the U.S. Military reduced its capability to compensate for that reduction. The shift to a bigger role by the CIA was adamantly opposed by the
Taliban, who threatened to withdraw from the talks. As a result, the idea was shelved. Many existing and former officials believed finding a way for the CIA and its paramilitary forces to continue to work with a new Afghan government was critical to the long-term survival of the deal and the counter-terrorism efforts in the region.
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. SAD/SOG paramilitary teams had been on the ground tracking their movements for months and called in this air strike. 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 . Five other people, believed to be low-level al-Qaeda members, were also killed including an American named
Kamal Derwish. 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". 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. In 2009, the Obama administration authorized continued lethal operations in Yemen by the CIA. As a result, the SAD/SOG and JSOC joined together to aggressively target al-Qaeda operatives in that country, both through leading Yemenese special forces and intelligence-driven drone strikes. Imam al-Awlaki was killed on September 30, 2011, by an air attack carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command. On January 31, 2020,
The New York Times reported that three U.S. officials "expressed confidence" that
Qasim al-Raymi, the emir of
AQAP was killed by the CIA on January 25, in
Al Abdiyah District,
Ma'rib Governorate, Yemen. For more than five years, al-Raymi eluded U.S. forces as he led what experts referred to as al-Qaida's "most dangerous franchise." Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
Mick Mulroy said, if confirmed, his death would be "very significant." Al-Raymi was the target of the January 29, 2017, special operations raid in which
Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was killed. "The U.S. never forgets," Mulroy said.
The Wall Street Journal also reported al-Raymi attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009. U.S. President
Donald Trump appeared to confirm reports that the U.S. had killed al-Raymi, by retweeting reports claiming that the CIA had conducted the strike. Experts considered him a possible successor to
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda overall. 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 SAD/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 and several paramilitary officers were awarded the
Intelligence Star for valor in combat. 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. 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. 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. SAD 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. 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." 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. 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". In May 2007, Marine Major
Douglas A. Zembiec was serving in SAD/SOG Ground Branch in Iraq when he was killed by small arms fire while leading a raid with Iraq Special Forces. Reports from fellow paramilitary officers stated that the flash radio report sent was "five wounded and one martyred". Major Zembiec was killed while trying to protect his soldiers, who were members of the Iraqi Army. He was honored with an Intelligence Star for his valor in combat. 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 the al-Qaeda officer was killed.
Fox News later reported that Abu Ghadiya, "al-Qa'ida's senior coordinator operating in Syria", was killed in the attack.
The New York Times reported that, during the raid, U.S. forces killed several armed males who "posed a threat". 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. SAD Ground Branch was placed in charge of the ground war. This is a testament to SAD being the preeminent force for unconventional warfare and their long-standing relationship with the most effective fighting force in the region, the Kurdish
Peshmerga.
Pakistan SAD/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. Before leaving office, President
George W. Bush authorized SAD's successful killing of eight senior al-Qaeda operatives via targeted air strikes. 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. The CIA Director authorized the continuation of these operations and on January 23, SAD/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. 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. 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. 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. In a
National Public Radio (NPR) report dated February 3, 2008, a senior official stated that al-Qaeda has been "decimated" by SAD/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." President Obama's CIA Director
Leon Panetta stated that SAD/SOG's efforts in Pakistan have been "the most effective weapon" against senior al-Qaeda leadership. 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. In June 2009, sixty Taliban fighters were killed while at a funeral to bury fighters that had been killed in previous CIA attacks. 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. On August 6, 2009, the CIA announced that
Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a SAD/SOG drone strike in Pakistan.
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." 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 is believed to have caused senior Taliban leaders to significantly alter their operations and cancel key planning meetings. The CIA also increased 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. 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." 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. 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. 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. On February 5, 2010, the Pakistani
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and CIA's SAD/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. This capture sent the message that the Taliban leadership is not safe in Afghanistan or Pakistan. "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. Per Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, several raids in
Karachi in early February netted dozens of suspected Afghan militants. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Operation Neptune Spear 's address (
text) On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that
Osama bin Laden had been killed earlier that day in
Abbottabad by "a small team of Americans" acting under his direct orders during a CIA operation under Director
Leon Panetta. 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. The operation in the
Bilal military cantonment area in Abbottabad resulted in the acquisition of extensive intelligence on the future attack plans of al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's body was flown to Afghanistan to be identified and then forwarded to the aircraft carrier for a burial at sea. Results from the DNA samples taken in 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 Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), 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. The material discovered in the raid indicated that bin Laden was still in charge of
Al-Qaeda 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.
Bin Laden's death has been labeled a "game changer" and a fatal blow to
Al-Qaeda, by senior U.S. officials.
Iran In the early 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's
Secret Intelligence Service were ordered to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran, Prime Minister
Mohammed Mosaddeq, and re-install deposed
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. This event was called
Operation Ajax. 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. Although a significant tactical/operational success, Operation Ajax is considered very controversial with many critics. In November 1979, a group of
Islamist students and militants took over the American embassy in support of the
Iranian Revolution.
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. On March 9, 2007, the 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." Any significant effort against Iran by the Obama administration would likely come directly from SAC. and in July 2010, Director Panetta chose a former chief of SAC as the new NCS Director. Levinson reportedly died in 2020 (or before), while in Iranian custody.
Libya After the
Arab Spring movements overthrew the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, its neighbors to the west and east respectively, Libya had a major revolt beginning in February 2011. In response, the Obama administration sent in SAC paramilitary operatives to assess the situation and gather information on the opposition forces. 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. 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. There was speculation that President Obama issued a covert action finding in March 2011 that authorized the CIA to carry out a clandestine effort to provide arms and support to the Libyan opposition.
Syria The
2008 Abu Kamal raid was a helicopter-borne raid conducted by paramilitary officers from Special Activities Division and
United States Special Operations Command,
Joint Special Operations Command inside
Syrian territory on October 26, 2008. The Syrian government called the event a "criminal and terrorist" attack on its sovereignty, alleging all of the reported eight fatalities were civilians. An unnamed U.S. military source, however, alleges that the target was a network of foreign fighters who planned to travel through Syria to join the
Iraqi insurgency against the
United States-led
Coalition in
Iraq and the Iraqi government. 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. 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. 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. With the rise of the
Islamic State, however, SAC was given the overall command and control of the ground fight against them. This fight crossed borders between Iraq and Syria. 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. SAC stood up and ran a robust covert action program to overthrow 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 Russians came to Assad's 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. According to the
Middle East Institute, the program was never given the level of political support that was necessary for it to succeed – "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." Many believed 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 harm's way. And while the CIA lacks the numbers to replace all 2,000 U.S. military personnel currently in Syria" and work alongside the
Syrian Democratic Forces (these CIA personnel are spread across the world), their model is based on fewer enablers and support.
Operation Kayla Mueller On October 26, 2019, U.S.
Joint Special Operations Command's (JSOC)
Delta Force conducted a raid into the Idlib province of Syria on the border with Turkey that resulted in the death of Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai also known as
Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi. The raid was launched based on a
CIA Special Activities Division's intelligence collection and close target reconnaissance effort that located the leader of ISIS. Launched after midnight local time, the eight helicopters carrying the teams along with support aircraft crossed hundreds of miles of airspace controlled by Iraq, Turkey and Russia. Upon arrival, efforts were made for Baghdadi to surrender, with those efforts unsuccessful. U.S. forces responded by blowing a large hole into the side of the compound. After entering, the compound was cleared, with people either surrendering or being shot and killed. The two-hour raid culminated with Baghdadi fleeing from U.S. forces into a dead-end tunnel and detonating a suicide vest, killing himself and two of his children. The complex operation was conducted during the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northeast Syria, adding to the complexity.
United States In 1967, the SAD was involved with the CIA's domestic espionage operation
Project MERRIMAC in conjunction with the Office of Security. SAD reported approval of the project to the office and reported that the CIA had assets in the area that could be used to monitor and infiltrate Washington-based anti-war groups that might pose potential threats to the CIA. In addition, the SAD Chief provided reports of findings to the SRS. Many documents related to MERRIMAC were destroyed by the CIA in compliance with a recommendation from the
Rockefeller Commission to destroy files, not in compliance with new rules. ==Worldwide mission==