Special Activities Center: Difference between revisions

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 (Special Operations Group) for tactical paramilitary operations and SAC/PAG (Political Action Group) 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

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

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 "

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

SAC/SOG has several hundred officers, mostly former members of

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

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

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

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 (

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. ^[citation needed] 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. ^{[citation needed]} Washington also hoped that Soviet officials would remain, for a time at least, unaware of their loss. ^{[citation needed]}

The operation had started in the late 1970s with a relatively small purchase from

The United States made its first purchases from Poland in the early 1980s, paying $20 million to $30 million (roughly $84 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

Nicaragua

In 1979, the U.S.-backed

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,

a

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

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.^{[citation needed]} 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,

During the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

On May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama announced that

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

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

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

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.[259]^[260] 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.^[259][261]

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.^[262] 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.^[263]

In the

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." ^[265] She further states that every American president since World War II has asked the CIA to conduct sabotage, subversion and assassination.^[266]

Innovations in special operations

The

• 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.^[273]
• JFK assassination, and was one of the operatives in the Watergate scandal.^[276] 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.^[277]
• 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.
• 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
  .

The CIA Memorial Wall is located at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It honors CIA employees who died in the line of duty.^[278] There are 129 stars carved into the marble wall,^[279][280] each one representing an officer. A majority of these were paramilitary officers.^[278] A black book, called the "Book of Honor", lies beneath the stars and is encased in an inch-thick plate of glass.^[280] Inside this book are stars, arranged by year of death, and the names of 91 employees who died in CIA service alongside them.^{[278][280][279]} The other names remain secret, even in death.^[278]

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".^[281]

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

Notes