Elite special forces are some of the best trained and most formidable units a country can boast.
Whether emerging from the water to silently take out guards
or storming a plane to rescue the hostages and eliminate the hostage takers,
special forces take on some of the hardest missions and live some of the most secret lives in the military world.
These troops are the ones that states look to in order to get the job done.
Let's get started.
Black Storks, Pakistan.
The Special Service Group (SSG) is better known in the country as the Black Storks because of the commandos unique headgear.
Their training reportedly includes a 36-mile march in 12 hours and a 5-mile run in 50 minutes in full gear.
Only about 5% of recruits make it through to the Pakistan SSG due to the tough nature of this nine-month training course
which also includes extensive hand-to-hand combat and an Airborne School.
The Black Storks are trained for a variety of environments including mountain, desert, jungle and underwater.
During the early Cold War, they trained and served alongside US Special Forces
and more recently, the Storks have focused on local anti-terrorist operations, counterinsurgency and intelligence collection.
In October 2009, the commandos stormed an office building and rescued 39 people
taken hostage by suspected Taliban militants after an attack on the Army's headquarters.
JTF2, Canada.
JTF2 stands for Joint Task Force 2 and it's the jewel in the crown of Canada's special forces.
They deployed to Vancouver in 2010, ready to intervene if terrorists took aim at the Winter Olympics.
This group is trained to handle chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats
against the worst case scenario, when a terrorist strike proves more than local police forces can handle.
It's a unit that can be deployed against a wide spectrum of issues or crisises and it can be very low signature.
Created in 1993, JTF2 expanded to several hundred members following the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and has the most confirmed kills of terrorists in the world, having killed over a hundred top ranked Al-Qaeda members.
Almost all of its operations are shrouded in secrecy and in some cases were even unknown to the Canadian government.
Alpha Group, Russia.
Now what about spetsnaz?
Well, to keep it simple, spetsnaz is a general term for all Russian special forces.
Within the Russian special forces, Alpha Group is as bad as they come.
The KGB created this elite group in 1974
and it is believed that it operates under the directive of the top leadership in Russia
which is why most of its operations are classified.
This force came to fame during the invasion of Afghanistan,
during which members of alpha stormed the presidential palace in Kabul killing everybody in the building in the blink of an eye.
In 1985, a group from this unit was dispatched to Peru to try and rescue four Soviet diplomats.
When the diplomats were killed, alpha group allegedly hunted down relatives of the hostage takers and returned them to their families in much smaller pieces,
to send a message to would-be terrorists.
It apparently worked, for over 20 years.
Sayeret Matkal, Israel.
This Israeli special forces is focused in intelligence gathering and it often operates deep behind enemy lines.
In 2003, Israeli taxi driver Eliyahu Gurel was kidnapped after transporting four Palestinians to Jerusalem in his cab.
But the Sayeret Matkal unit located and rescued him from a three-foot pit in an abandoned Factory in a suburb of Ramallah.
The most famous of their large-scale operations is operation Thunderbolt,
which came to be after several terrorists had taken hostages on board of an airline which was flown to Uganda.
Many hostages were released, but over a hundred hostages were kept in the airport terminal building.
An assault force of Sayeret Matkal assaulted the position killing the terrorists and freeing all of the hostages.
GIGN, France.
France's elite counterterrorism teams are some of the finest in the world
and have proven their abilities and bravery over decades of dangerous operations.
But unlike many anti-terrorist units, GIGN is also used in arrests of dangerous criminals, countering barricade suspects, wailing prison riots, VIP protection
and other high-risk police operations within France or former colonies.
Since its founding the GIGN has seen consistent action.
Its members are considered absolute masters of hostage rescue and intervention
especially in high-density environments like buses, ships, trains and airlines.
Their faces are not allowed to be photographed fully exposed
therefore they're often seen wearing tactical ski masks when operating in public.
GIGN is known for innovation and technology applications and tactical methods.
Their most famous operation is their assault on flight 8969
which was an Air France flight that was hijacked on December 24th 1994 by the armed Islamic group in Algeria
where the terrorists murdered three passengers with the intention to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
When the aircraft reached Marseille, the GIGN stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers.
The bravery of its members comes from their extreme training course.
In fact the training is so extreme that the GIGN has lost more men during training than during their 1000+ operations.
GSG9, Germany.
The GSG9 was formed after the failure of the German police to rescue eleven athletes kidnapped by a group of terrorists during the Munich Olympics.
Five of the athletes, five of the terrorists and one police officer were killed during the rescue attempt.
In their first major mission, they took a group of four terrorists who had hijacked a Lufthansa flight in Somalia,
three of the terrorists were killed and the fourth captured during the rescue, but none of the 86 hostages were killed.
Between 1972 and 2003, the GSG9 had successfully completed over 1500 missions
and yet only discharged a weapon five times, two of which were to shoot the attacking dogs of people they were trying to arrest.
An estimated 300 to 400 people now work within the GSG9 but the exact figure is not known.
Its work today concentrates on counterterrorism, hostage situations and disarming bombs.
JW Grom, Poland.
The Grom is the leader in Poland's anti-terrorism efforts.
It was named after the Silent Unseen, which was Poland's elite World War II special operations unit.
The Grom began its operations in 1990 and it mostly deployed in unconventional warfare roles,
as they have special training in operational manoeuvring response.
Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Grom has been deployed alongside US special operation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
During this time they have developed a close working relationship with the US Navy SEALs
and have a well-earned reputation of being one of the fiercest and most competent special forces on the planet.
Their training includes a variety of disciplines.
All of the soldiers undergo the same specialized training in anti-terrorism and special operations
aswell as frogman, sniping and parachuting.
In four-men teams, each soldier must be prepared to assume the respective responsibilities of his colleagues, should it become necessary.
Approximately 75% of Grom personnel are trained as medics or paramedics and can speak multiple languages.
In addition, each group is supported by several professional physicians.
Navy SEAL Team 6, USA.
You knew these guys were gonna have to show up some time, didn't you?
The SEALs are an American special forces group created in 1962, which have achieved near-mythical status.
This is in part thanks to Operation Neptune Spear, the mission in which SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda in 2011.
One interesting fact about this mission is that the aircrafts used in the raid were from Area 51.
In fact specially modified helicopters carried Red Squadron of SEAL Team 6 to Pakistan for the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound.
The Black Hawks were fitted with top-secret radar spoofing technology, allowing US forces to slip across the border unnoticed.
These stealth aircrafts were developed and tested at the infamous Area 51 near Groom Lake, Nevada.
SEALs will usually penetrate behind enemy lines and finish their mission before the enemy realizes that they're there.
One quality that makes them so effective on land, air or even at sea.
In fact the word SEAL stands for SEa, Air and Land
meaning that these soldiers can fight any form of threat, anywhere.
The physical and mental strength required to make it in this force is ridiculously high.
Training takes over a year and most applicants can't even get past the physical qualification test,
which involves a lot of swimming, push-ups, sit-ups and running all accomplished in a very strict time limit.
Get past that and you enter general training, pass that and you move on to SEAL qualification training
which then opens the door to specialized training.
all of this ensures the SEAL members are physically and mentally as tough as nails
and capable of undertaking the most difficult operations in the world, wherever that may be.
SAS, UK.
No other elite special force in Europe can claim to be better than the SAS.
The British Special Air Service, known commonly as the SAS, was created in 1941
as a force which could operate behind German and Italian lines and support resistance movements against occupation forces.
The training that a recruit has to go through in order to become part of the SAS is extremely difficult,
since in addition to the 40-mile march, the two-mile swim and the push-ups, and pull-ups,
you have to survive in the jungle to learn survival and navigational skills, after which you endure survival practice.
The final test is a 36-hour interrogation session meant to break the candidates will.
Not convinced this is better than the SEALs?
It may help you to know that the SAS is also trained by MI5 and MI6 security and intelligence services, in order to undertake counter espionage operations.
It's like having a SEAL and James Bond all rolled into one.
Their insignia bears the phrase "who dares wins".
Number one: Delta Force, USA.
Delta Force is a unit unto itself, composed of members from all branches of the military.
The force is armed with cutting-edge weaponry and its operations remain highly guarded secrets
but you can bet they're in the vanguard of any American led operation.
Its members are not called soldiers, but operators and are said to shun the traditional philosophies of military life.
They wear civilian clothes and they work for whomever needs them: for the army, the FBI and the CIA.
It must be said however, that neither the United States government nor the military officially acknowledges the existence of Delta Force.
It's only in recent years that vague references by the government to the group's existence has been allowed to go uncensored.
Since its inception in 1977, stories of the Delta Force's exploits and missions have leaked out little by little, eventually forming a brief sketch of the unit.
However the group has been criticized for undertaking missions that are on the fringe of regular laws governing the military.
This causes some to worry that Delta Force has more power and less accountability than any military organization in a free democracy should.
Delta Force is funded out of secret government accounts, away from the public eye
and is believed to answer only to the president,
making it one of the most, if not the most, elite special unit in the world.
Why one of the most when we ranked it as number one you might ask,
well, after all, the most elite special forces are the ones that are so secretive that no one knows about their existence.
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