The Joint Special Operations Command is a component command of the United States Special
Operations Command and is charged to study special operations requirements and techniques
to ensure interoperability and equipment standardization, plan and conduct special operations exercises
and training, develop joint special operations tactics and execute special operations missions
worldwide. It was established in 1980 on recommendation of Col. Charlie Beckwith, in the aftermath
of the failure of Operation Eagle Claw. It is located at Pope Field in North Carolina,
USA.
Overview The JSOC is the "joint headquarters designed
to study special operations requirements and techniques; ensure interoperability and equipment
standardization; plan and conduct joint special operations exercises and training; and develop
joint special operations tactics." For this task, the Joint Communications Unit is tasked
to ensure compatibility of communications systems and standard operating procedures
of the different special operations units. Special Mission Units
The Joint Special Operations Command also commands and controls the Special Mission
Units of U.S. Special Operations Command. These units perform highly classified activities.
So far, only three SMUs have been publicly disclosed: The Army's 1st Special Forces Operational
Detachment—Delta, the Navy's Naval Special Warfare Development Group - SEAL Team Six,
and the Air Force's 24th Special Tactics Squadron. Units from the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment
and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment are controlled by JSOC when deployed as part
of JSOC Task Forces such as Task Force 121 and Task Force 145.
The Intelligence Support Activity is also under JSOC. The ISA collects specific target
intelligence working closely with the NSA, and prior to SMU missions provides signals
support, etc. during missions. The army once maintained the ISA, but after the September
11 attacks, the Pentagon shifted direct control to Joint Special Operations Command at Fort
Bragg, NC. JSOC’s primary mission is to identify and eliminate terror cells worldwide.
JSOC has an operational relationship with the CIA's Special Activities Division(SAD).
SAD's Special Operations Group often recruits from JSOC.
Advanced Force Operations Advanced Force Operations is a term used by
the U.S. Department of Defense to describe a task force that encompasses personnel from
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, DEVGRU and U.S. Army Intelligence Support
Activity. According to Gen. Michael Repass, who conducted it in the Iraq War and was very
familiar with its use in Afghanistan, "AFO consists of U.S. Secretary of Defense-approved
military operations such as clandestine operations, source operations, and deployment of enabling
forces and capabilities to conduct target-specific preparations prior to the conduct of an actual
operation. It is logically part of Operational Preparation of the Battlespace, which follows
the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace, a concept well-known in U.S. and NATO doctrine,
OPB is seldom used outside of Special Operations Forces channels. OPB is defined by the U.S.
Special Operations Command as “Non-intelligence activities conducted prior to D-Day, H-Hour,
in likely or potential areas of employment, to train and prepare for follow-on military
operations". An AFO unit reported to JSOC in the Afghanistan
War. In the Iraq War, Respass, who first commanded the 10th Special Forces Group, took control
of a Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force, which used the 5th and 10th Groups to conduct
AFO. AFO units were heavily involved in Operation Anaconda and Operation Viking Hammer.
JSO Package / Rotational Group The Joint Special Operations Package / Rotational
Group of the United States Special Operations Command consist of Tier 1 and Tier 2 U.S.
Joint Special Operations Command units that train and deploy together. All Tier 1 and
Tier 2 units maintain three separate operational groups within their respective units as an
example). These groups are essentially identical and deploy within their respective JSOC package.
The rotational cycle is generally three months. This allows one group to be deployed overseas,
another to be on an 18-hour worldwide emergency deployment notice, and the last group to be
training, attending military schools, or on "block leave." Tier 1 and Tier 2 units take
leave together within their respective JSOC package. This term is called block leave.
Given the wartime tasking of JSOC, an additional deployment package is currently being created.
This will allow less operational strain on these units.
Security support JSOC has provided support to domestic law
enforcement agencies during high profile or high risk events such as the Olympics, the
World Cup, political party conventions and Presidential inaugurations. Although use of
the military for law enforcement purposes in the U.S. is generally prohibited by the
Posse Comitatus Act, Title 10 of the U.S. Code expressly allows the Secretary of Defense
to make military personnel available to train Federal, State, and local civilian law enforcement
officials in the operation and maintenance of equipment; and to provide such law enforcement
officials with expert advice. Additionally, civilian and uniformed military lawyers said
provisions in several federal statutes, including the Fiscal Year 2000 Defense Department Authorization
Act, Public Law 106-65, permits the secretary of defense to authorize military forces to
support civilian agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the event of a
national emergency, especially any involving nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
In January 2005, a small group of commandos were deployed to support security at the Presidential
inauguration. They were allegedly deployed under a secret counter-terrorism program named
Power Geyser. The New York Times quoted a senior military official as saying, "They
bring unique military and technical capabilities that often are centered around potential WMD
events," A civil liberties advocate who was told about the program by a reporter said
that he had no objections to the program as described to him because its scope appeared
to be limited to supporting the counterterrorism efforts of civilian authorities.
Operations in Pakistan According to The Washington Post, JSOC's commander
Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal operated in 2006 on the understanding with Pakistan
that US units will not enter Pakistan except under extreme circumstances, and that Pakistan
will deny giving them permission if exposed. That scenario happened according to the Islamic
Republic News Agency, in January 2006, JSOC troops clandestinely entered the village of
Saidgai, Pakistan, to hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Pakistan refused entry.
According to a November 2009 report in The Nation, JSOC, in tandem with Blackwater/Xe,
has an ongoing drone program, along with snatchassassination operations, based in Karachi and conducted
both in and outside of Pakistan. In a October 2009 leak published on the Wikileaks
website, U.S. embassy communication cables from the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne
W. Patterson states the Pakistani Army approved the embedding of U.S. Special Operations Forces,
including elements from the Joint Special Operations Command, with the Pakistani military
to provide support for operations in the country. This goes beyond the original claims of the
U.S. that the only role of the Special Forces was in training the Pakistani miliary. The
leak further revealed that JSOC elements involved in intelligence gathering and surveillance
and use of drone UAV technology. JSOC is credited with coordination of Operation
Neptune Spear that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on 1 May 2011
Operations in Afghanistan According to the movie Dirty Wars by Jeremy
Scahill, JSOC was responsible for a number of raids in Afghanistan. One among them took
place in Gardez, initially reported by Jerome Starkey but later in other media as well.
The then current commander William Mcraven visited the affected family, offered them
a sheep in restitution and apologized for the incident. In the incident 1 US trained
Police commander and another man were killed, as were 3 women, 2 of whom were pregnant,
while going to the men's aid. How many other raids there were during this
time, and before and since, is difficult to count as JSOC only answers to the White House
and not the rest of the military. The secrecy around the number of raids could reasonably
be counted in the hundreds since they started but only a mere few have been documented as
well as the Gardez incident according to Scahill. Operations in Iraq
On 11 January 2007, President Bush pledged in a major speech to "seek out and destroy
the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." The next
day, in a meeting of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Chairman Senator Joseph
Biden, informed U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Bush Administration did not
have the authority to send U.S. troops on cross-border raids. Biden said, "I believe
the present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not cover that,
and he does need congressional authority to do that. I just want to set that marker."
Sometime in 2007, JSOC started conducting cross-border operations into Iran from southern
Iraq with the CIA. These operations included seizing members of Al-Quds, the commando arm
of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, as well as
the pursuit, capture or killing of high-value targets in the war on terror. The Bush administration
allegedly combined the CIA's intelligence operations and covert action with JSOC clandestine
military operations so that Congress would only partially see how the money was spent.
Operations in Somalia On 28 October 2013 a drone strike by JSOC
on a vehicle near the town of Jilib in Lower Shabelle killed two senior Somali members
of Al-Shabaab. Preliminary evidence suggested that one of them was Ibrahim Ali, an explosives
specialist known for his skill in building and using homemade bombs and suicide vests.
The US administration has been reluctant to use drone strikes in Somalia. The reluctance
partly centered around questions of whether Al-Shabaab — which has not tried to carry
out an attack on American soil — could legally be the target of lethal operations by the
military or the CIA. In May 2013, the White House announced that it would carry out targeted
killing operations only against those who posed a “continuing and imminent threat
to the American people.” The strike on 28 Oct. was the first known American operation
resulting in a death since that policy was announced and is considered evidence by some
observers that views have changed in Washington and that the Obama administration has decided
to escalate operations against Al-Shabaab in the aftermath of the group's Westgate shopping
mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that took place from 21–24 September 2013 and which left
some 70 people dead. Operations in Yemen
Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American U.S. citizen, was killed on September 30, 2011, by an air
attack carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command. After several days of surveillance
of Awlaki by the Central Intelligence Agency, armed drones took off from a new, secret American
base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of
Hellfire missiles at al-Awlaki's vehicle. Samir Khan, a Pakistani-American al-Qaeda
member and editor of the jihadist Inspire magazine, also reportedly died in the attack.
The combined CIA/JSOC drone strike was the first in Yemen since 2002 — there have been
others by the military’s Special Operations forces — and was part of an effort by the
spy agency to duplicate in Yemen the covert war which has been running in Afghanistan
and Pakistan. According to the New York Times the Yemen
government banned military drone operations after a series of botched drone strikes by
JSOC, the last of which was a December 2013 drone strike that killed numerous civilians
at a wedding ceremony. Despite a ban on military drone operations the Yemen government allowed
CIA drone operations to continue. List of JSOC commanders
See also Naval Special Warfare Development Group
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta
U.S. Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron Intelligence Support Activity
Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division Special Operations Group
Strategic Support Branch Targeted killing
References
Further Reading Berntsen, Gary; Pezzullo, Ralph. Jawbreaker:
The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander.
Crown. ISBN 0-307-35106-8. Daugherty, William J.. Executive Secrets:
Covert Action and the Presidency. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-9161-0.
Emerson, Steven. Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-13360-7. Smith, Michael. Killer Elite: The Inside Story
of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team. London: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-36727-3. }
Steven, Graeme C. S. and Gunaratna, Rohan. Counterterrorism: A Reference Handbook. Contemporary
World Issues. ISBN 978-1-85109-666-4. External links
Special Ops say lives were on line in Lynch's rescue, by The Washington Times
US special operations come of age, by Global Defence Review