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In a recent interview with West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, Mark E. Mitchell, the current Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, offered some great insight on the past and future of America’s SOF. Mitchell had commanded the 5th Special Forces Group and a Joint Special Operations Task Force in Iraq. He has […]
A U.S. Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) came under attack today in the Bar-Sanguni area near Kismayo in Somalia. The U.S. Special Forces team was in the process of constructing a new Forward Operating Base (FOB) with a large local partner force when they came under sustained mortar fire and machine gun fire from […]
The Special Forces rite of passage is about to begin for the next class of SF candidates. The final training in Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) for prospective SF soldiers is the Unconventional Warfare (UW) exercise “Robin Sage”, which we went over in detail in an earlier post, that you can read here: The prospective […]
The 6,000 page Pentagon report on the ambush in which ODA 3212 was caught near Tongo Tongo, Niger, in October of 2017 is now complete; according to the Wall Street Journal, family members have been briefed and now Congressional leaders will be briefed prior to a sanitized version of the report being released to the […]
It was early afternoon on October 11th, 2016 when TigerSwan’s program manager, retired Delta Force Sergeant Major John Porter, met with Silverton’s owner, Carl Clifton, inside a hangar at the Mandan Municipal Airport. The hangar was initially used by Silverton security as a clandestine office for their intelligence cell that collected information on the protesters, […]
Over the years, many have lamented the end of Special Forces, foreseeing the destruction of the Green Berets, a slipping of training and selection standards, and plenty of general navel-gazing about how it “use to be.” Hell, I remember buying a copy of Soldier of Fortune magazine in the PX at Fort Bragg over a […]
In one of the first stops on a major visit with European allies, Secretary of Defense James Mattis praised U.S.-Finnish ties and Finland’s president for spearheading a response to Russian “hybrid warfare.” “With this center, Finland has created an institution fit for our time, and I thank you, Mr. President, for your foresight.” Mattis said […]
Reports about two Russian fighters captured in Syria suggest that the same proxy forces that fight the Kremlin’s wars abroad in places such as Syria and Ukraine may also harass members of the Russian political opposition at home. According to interviews by Russian media with relatives of the men and photographs taken from social media, one of the captured Russians belongs to […]
Here at SpecialOperations.com, we frequently get questions from our readers, many of whom are or will shortly be aspiring members of our Special Operations Forces (SOF). Since most of our articles deal with the training aspect of SOF, we always welcome them. We had a question and answer session this past weekend in one of […]
When mentioning Special Operations missions, the talk generally centers around those direct action missions, the raids on suspected terrorists’ locations, and the like. Everyone likes those linear, tangible missions and the results are much easier to gauge the success or failure from. But in the Unconventional Warfare or Counterinsurgency environment, the results are harder to […]
Some time ago, back in 2013, China sent troops traveled en route to Mali. A Chinese presence has remained ever since. Russia continues to exasperate Ukraine’s military forces. Mali’s extremist problem has grown in recent years. French interests in Africa are no way in retreat, and the U.S. is at a time when European reassurance is of the essence. […]
Special Forces soldiers are grouped into 12-man Operational Detachment Alpha teams or ODA. In this manner, they are organized for unconventional warfare, the only unit in the military specifically designed to fight the type of counter-insurgency operations that America finds itself in today. Because of their task organization and inherent decentralization, each ODA has its […]
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