Strategic Support Branch (SSB)

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Strategic Support Branch (SSB)

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Ese es el nombre actual con que se conoce a los Secret Squirrels, herederos del Project Icon que Donald Rumsfeld creó en Abril de 2002 dentro de la DIA - Defense Human Intelligence Service para no depender de la CIA en cuanto a información e inteligencia en el campo de batalla.

Es muy posible que fueran los catastróficos fallos de inteligencia durante el cerco de Tora Bora los que llevaron a tomar esta decisión, puesto que a pesar de que las operaciones de unidades convencionales son de sobra conocidas y están publicadas, las acciones de la Task Force Dagger y demás unidades mixtas de OEs+Intel (en este caso OGAs) parece que no tuvieron muy buen resultado, lo que propició la huida del enemigo público número para los EEUU; Osama Ben Laden.

El SSB está bajo el mando del Coronel George Waldroup, oficial de la reserva del US Army, un personaje egocéntrico que se refiere a sí mismo en 3ª persona como "GW", sin experiencia previa en tareas de Inteligencia, Información u Operaciones Especiales, habiéndose dedicado anteriormente a tareas para el Servicio de Naturalización e Inmigración. Él mismo asegura haber realizado tareas secretas que no constan en archivo debido a su caracter clandestino :roll: y ha sido fuertemente criticado por los comandantes del SOCOM y de otras unidades de inteligencia debido a la composición de los "Human Augmentation Team". Veamos porqué...

El SSB nace de un servicio ya existente, el Defense Human Intelligence Service, que acumula once años de existencia. Su tarea nunca fue el HUMINT, el análisis, ni estaban integrados con equipos de OEs, eran personal asignados a las Embajadas, que hacían contactos y charlaban... su ámbito de operaciones eran los cócteles y los bares de hoteles, no las callejuelas de Debë.

En publicaciones oficiales del DoD se leen argumentaciones en contra de estos equipos, incluyendo comentarios de miembros de la Task Force 121 y Task Force 626, en los que se acusaba a los integrantes del SSB de ser "cincuentones en baja forma" o "universitarios recién licenciados", que carecían de experiencia en combate o en un teatro de operaciones caliente y que simplemente trataban de imitar el aspecto de los operadores con los que trabajaban, provocándoles más problemas de los que ya tenían y poniendo en riesgo sus vidas.

Esto lo justificó el director de la DIA de la siguiente manera...
Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby escribió:"Frankly, what we're trying to do is put the absolute best intelligence capabilities forward to operate with, but not to operate as, special operations forces," he said. "I can point to successes where the intel folk are 50 years old, and I can point to successes where the intel folk are in their first tour, married up with operators who could act on the information that was generated."
Se les acusa también de que no salían de las bases, limitándose a esperar a que llegaran los operadores con prisioneros sobre los que trabajar. Los comandantes del SOCOM directamente pasaban de ellos, por considerarlos un lastre más que una ayuda. Esto fue 2002-2003.

Tras varias auditorías internas al SSB parece que la integración con equipos de OEs se cambió radicalmente. El personal "jubilado" de OEs que solía acabar en el Special Activities Detachment de la CIA comenzó a pasar a los Human Augmentation Teams, por lo que las unidades de OEs en activo en el teatro de operaciones contaron con personal con experiencia en combate y que operaban por y para sus necesidades tácticas y operacionales (de lo que hablamos en el debate anterior sobre CNI y Fuerzas Especiales). Los equipos originales que tan mal resultado dieron volvieron para casa, probablemente a la sede de la DIA o a algún departamento de Fort Meade, pero dejaron de operar "en directo" en las operaciones actuales y comenzaron a trabajar en dos vertientes principales:

> Lingüistas, interrogadores, analistas y asesores técnicos especializados a disposición de los Human Augmentation Team via satélite desde la zona de operaciones o en las bases avanzadas.
> Estudio y preparación de futuros escenarios, conocido como "future target scouting" en paises como Georgia, Azerbaiyán, Filipinas o Yemen.

El reajuste de los equipos del SSB y el auge de la inteligencia privada está sacando a la CIA del marco de inteligencia mientras que el Pentágono está acabando con el problema del ciclo de inteligencia que le interesa a sí mismo, el que empieza y acaba en sus unidades. A corto plazo funciona, la información que se obtiene en el área de batalla y en los campos afines (tráfico de armas, formación de terroristas...) se convierte en inteligencia útil para las unidades sobre el terreno; a la larga veremos las implicaciones que esto tiene para los EEUU.
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Dos anecdotillas sobre el SSB sacadas de la prensa y recogidas por Hillhouse en su blog-anuncio
Greg Miller-LA Times escribió:U.S. seeks to rein in its military spy teams
Special Forces units work in allied countries and clash with the CIA.
By Greg Miller
Times Staff Writer

December 18, 2006

WASHINGTON — U.S. Special Forces teams sent overseas on secret spying missions have clashed with the CIA and carried out operations in countries that are staunch U.S. allies, prompting a new effort by the agency and the Pentagon to tighten the rules for military units engaged in espionage, according to senior U.S. intelligence and military officials.

The spy missions are part of a highly classified program that officials say has better positioned the United States to track terrorist networks and capture or kill enemy operatives in regions such as the Horn of Africa, where weak governments are unable to respond to emerging threats.

But the initiative has also led to several embarrassing incidents for the United States, including a shootout in Paraguay and the exposure of a sensitive intelligence operation in East Africa, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter. And to date, the effort has not led to the capture of a significant terrorism suspect.

Some intelligence officials have complained that Special Forces teams have sometimes launched missions without informing the CIA, duplicating or even jeopardizing existing operations. And they questioned deploying military teams in friendly nations — including in Europe — at a time when combat units are in short supply in war zones.

The program was approved by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, and is expected to get close scrutiny by his successor, Robert M. Gates, who takes over today and has been critical of the expansion of the military's intelligence operations.

Senior officials at the CIA and the Pentagon defended the program and said they would urge Gates to support it. But they acknowledged risks for the United States in its growing reliance on Special Forces troops and other military units for espionage.

"We are at war out there and frankly we need all the help that we can get," said Marine Maj. Gen. Michael E. Ennis, who since February has served as a senior CIA official in charge of coordinating human intelligence operations with the military. "But at the same time we have to be very careful that we don't disrupt established relationships with other governments, with their liaison services, or [do] anything that would embarrass the United States."

Ennis acknowledged "really egregious mistakes" in the program, but said collaboration had improved between the CIA and the military.

"What we are seeing now, primarily, are coordination problems," Ennis said in an interview with The Times. "And really, they are fewer and fewer."

The issue underscores the sensitivity of using elite combat forces for espionage missions that have traditionally been the domain of the CIA.

After Sept. 11, the Bush administration gave expanded authority to the Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other elite units, in the fight against terrorism. At the same time, Rumsfeld, who lacked confidence in the CIA, directed a major expansion of the military's involvement in intelligence gathering to make the Pentagon less dependent on the agency.

Officials said this led to the secret deployment of small teams of Special Forces troops, known as military liaison elements, or MLEs, to American embassies to serve as intelligence operatives. Members of the teams undergo special training in espionage at Ft. Bragg and other facilities, according to officials familiar with the program.

The troops typically work in civilian clothes and function much like CIA case officers, cultivating sources in other governments or Islamic organizations. One objective, officials said, is to generate information that could be used to plan clandestine operations such as capturing or killing terrorism suspects.

Ennis said MLE missions were "low level" compared with those of the CIA. "The MLEs may come and go," he said, "but the CIA presence is there for the long term."

In a written response to questions from The Times, a spokesman for the Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., described MLEs as "individuals or small teams that deploy in support of (regional military commanders) in select countries, and always with the U.S. ambassador and country team's concurrence and support."

But critics point to a series of incidents in recent years that have caused diplomatic problems for the United States.

In 2004, members of an MLE team operating in Paraguay shot and killed an armed assailant who tried to rob them outside a bar, said former intelligence officials familiar with the incident. U.S. officials removed the members of the team from the country, the officials said.

In another incident, members of a team in East Africa were arrested by the local government after their espionage activity was discovered.

"It was a compromised surveillance activity," said a former senior CIA official familiar with the incident. The official said members of the unit "got rolled up by locals and we got them out." The former official declined to name the country or provide other details.

He said it was an isolated example of an operation that was exposed, but that coordination problems were frequent.

"They're pretty freewheeling," the former CIA official said of the military teams. He said that it was not uncommon for CIA station chiefs to learn of military intelligence operations only after they were underway, and that many conflicted with existing operations being carried out by the CIA or the foreign country's intelligence service.

Such problems "really are quite costly," said John Brennan, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "It can cost peoples' lives, can cost sensitive programs and can set back foreign policy interests."

Brennan declined to comment on specific incidents.

There have also been questions about where teams have been sent. Although conceived to bolster the U.S. presence in global trouble spots, the units have carried out operations in friendly nations in Europe and Southeast Asia where it is more difficult to justify, officials said.

On at least one occasion, a team tracked an Islamic militant in Europe. "They were trying to acquire certain information about a certain individual," said a former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official declined to name the country, but said it was a NATO ally and that the host government was unaware of the mission.

Critics said such operations risked angering U.S. allies with a dubious prospect for payoff. In some countries where MLE teams are located, "There's not a chance … we're going to send somebody in there to snatch somebody unilaterally," said a government official who is familiar with the program.

At a time when the military is stretched thin, the official questioned the priority of using Special Forces for espionage, noting that the MLE program has not produced a significant success in terms of disrupting a plot or capturing a terrorist suspect.

"These are a highly trained, short-supply resource of the U.S. government," the official said. "What … are they doing there instead of Pakistan or Afghanistan?"

Gates, the former director of the CIA who is to run the Pentagon, has voiced concern over the military's encroachment on CIA missions. In an opinion piece published this year, Gates said that "more than a few CIA veterans, including me, are unhappy about the dominance of the Defense Dept. in the intelligence arena and the decline in the CIA's central role."

In response to such conflicts, the Bush administration previously designated the CIA director as the head of all U.S. human spying operations overseas, with CIA station chiefs serving as coordinators in specific countries.

Ennis, whose position at the CIA was created last year, said the agency and the Pentagon were developing a more rigorous system for screening proposed military intelligence operations.

"Like a pilot with a checklist," CIA station chiefs will be required to sign off on all aspects of a proposed military intelligence operation before it is allowed to proceed, Ennis said. The CIA station chief, he added, "would look at the risk in terms of embarrassment to the government. Do they have the right level of training to do what they claim that they want to do, and is this already being done somewhere else?"

Col. Samuel Taylor, director of public affairs for the Special Operations Command, dismissed the suggestion of coordination problems with other agencies, saying, "We have an excellent, effective and productive working relationship with the CIA."
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¿Patada en los morros al SSB?

Shane Harris, National Journal escribió:Rolling Back Pentagon Spies


Friday, March 9, 2007

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is considering a plan to curtail the Pentagon's clandestine spying activities, which were expanded by his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, after the 9/11 attacks. The undercover work allowed military personnel to collect intelligence about terrorists and to recruit spies in foreign countries independently of the CIA and without much congressional oversight.

Former military and intelligence officials, including those involved in an ongoing and largely informal debate about the military's forays into espionage, said that Gates, a former CIA director, is likely to "roll back" several of Rumsfeld's controversial initiatives. This could include changing the mission of the Pentagon's Strategic Support Branch, an intelligence-gathering unit comprising Special Forces, military linguists, and interrogators that Rumsfeld set up to report directly to him. The unit's teams work in many of the same countries where CIA case officers are trying to recruit spies, and the military and civilian sides have clashed as a result. CIA officers serving abroad have been roiled by what they see as the Pentagon's encroachment on their dominance in the world of human intelligence-gathering.
Fricciones entre CIA y SSB, además de que describe al SSB como un compendio de OEs, interrogadores y lingüistas.
A former senior intelligence official who knows Gates said that the secretary wants to "dismantle" many of the intelligence programs launched by Rumsfeld and his top lieutenants, Stephen Cambone, the former undersecretary for intelligence, and Douglas Feith, who was Rumsfeld's policy chief. The former official added that the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has also expanded its human spying efforts, could be returned to a more analytical role.
Desmantelar muchos de los programas de Intel no implica desmanterlarlos todos, pero volver a la DIA a su papel de análisis puro y duro sería un buen golpe para ella.
The official noted that Gates doesn't intend to eliminate the Strategic Support Branch but said that its mandate will change. The unit arose from a written order by Rumsfeld to end the "near total dependence on CIA" for intelligence-gathering, and agency officials viewed it as a competitor.


Much of what Donald Rumsfeld set up at the Pentagon after 9/11 could be dismantled or altered.


Gates headed the CIA under President George H.W. Bush and was the only director in the agency's history to rise through the ranks from entry-level employee. He has criticized the Defense Department's ascendant role in espionage. In a May 2006 op-ed in The Washington Post, he wrote, "More than a few CIA veterans -- including me -- are unhappy about the dominance of the Defense Department in the intelligence arena and the decline in the CIA's central role." In written responses to senators' questions before his confirmation hearing, Gates said, "Clearly, if confirmed, this will be an area that I would look into."

The precise details of how Gates could move the military out of the CIA's espionage territory, while satisfying combat commanders' desire for on-the-ground intelligence, are still being worked out, former officials said. But the contours now taking shape strike the balance that Gates has indicated he wants: giving primary authority for human intelligence-gathering to the CIA, which falls under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Asked about Gates's plans, a spokesman for the Defense secretary's office said he was "not aware of any planned changes at this time."

A senior defense consultant who works on human intelligence issues for the Pentagon cautioned that the plan's details are changing rapidly and that nothing has been formally put in place. Congressional staff members said that the House and Senate Intelligence committees had not received any formal proposal, but they added they expected that Gates would not follow Rumsfeld's approach.

Those tracking the debate said they don't foresee any formal action by Gates until retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper is confirmed as Defense undersecretary for intelligence. Gates selected Clapper, who was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the early 1990s, in January, but a date for his conformation hearing hasn't been set.

A former intelligence official who knows Clapper well said he's also concerned that the Pentagon has overstepped its bounds. "I think Jim is as uncomfortable with it as anyone is in the intelligence community," the former official said. "The feeling on this one is that this was a Rumsfeld-created exercise... by people who really didn't understand intelligence."

The high level of interest in and speculation about Gates's plans show how eager intelligence officials are, particularly in the CIA, to settle the turf war that Rumsfeld helped to spawn.

The Defense Department has had its own human intelligence service since 1993. But it was never as expansive as the CIA's operations directorate, which has since been renamed the National Clandestine Service and is legally designated as the lead human intelligence agency.

When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the CIA had marshaled rebel forces to help overthrow the Taliban. Rumsfeld recognized that the military's long-standing reliance on the CIA for on-the-ground intelligence could keep his department in a subordinate role in the war on terrorism. It was well known that the CIA's spying capabilities, particularly in the Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries that were then of top concern, had degraded in the wake of major intelligence cutbacks after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Neither the CIA nor the military had enough spies to wage a new war on terrorism.

Rumsfeld wanted the military to take a leading role in the global hunt for terrorists, so he expanded the Defense Department's own capabilities to gather intelligence and to recruit spies abroad. This led to creation of the Strategic Support Branch and the clandestine deployment of small Special Forces teams to U.S. embassies. There, in civilian clothes, they worked as intelligence operatives, recruiting sources within governments or Islamic groups.

But those efforts upset CIA officials, particularly station chiefs, who are supposed to run the spy networks in their assigned countries. Many experts criticized the military's espionage efforts as bungled attempts by ill-trained personnel.
Como ya comentamos, los de OEs de las Fuerzas Armadas no hacen el mismo trabajo que los agentes de inteligencia, en el rol de intelligence-on-the-ground dan muy buenos resultados (e inmediatos) pero a largo plazo y en cuanto a creación de redes no sirven los mismos procedimientos.
In December, the Los Angeles Times reported that members of one Special Forces spying team, known as a military liaison element, or MLE, shot and killed an armed assailant trying to rob them outside a bar in Paraguay. In East Africa, MLE members were arrested by a local official after their spying was exposed.

Those incidents reinforced a long-held opinion among civilian intelligence professionals that military personnel aren't suited for clandestine spying. "Most people regarded Defense human intelligence services as a group of bozos," said one former CIA official. "They were incompetent. Their training tended to be substandard."

Military intelligence officials counter that the CIA hasn't always met their needs for tactical intelligence in war zones. "When I was in the Balkans, I was not confident that the CIA would provide what I needed on the ground," said retired Maj. Gen. James (Spider) Marks, who ran the Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., the service's training school, and was the senior intelligence officer for all U.S. ground forces during the Iraq invasion.

Marks said that coordination between the CIA and the military improved after the 9/11 attacks. "The agency was bending over backward to be cooperative" and to allow military commanders to "dip into their capabilities," meaning they could see what intelligence the CIA had collected on certain people and targets.

But the military still needs its own teams, Marks insisted. "The bottom line is, we don't have enough tactical human intelligence capabilities. We need guys in Humvees." Marks said he doesn't know any details about how Gates might change the military's role, but he was skeptical about any rollbacks. "If Gates wants to transfer those responsibilities back to CIA and say, 'You own the responsibility of being first in theater and providing the human intelligence backbone, source structuring, and vetting,' that's good. But I would never trust that."

Intelligence experts said they don't expect Gates to reduce the military's or the Defense Department's abilities to collect tactical intelligence in war zones.

"There are things that the Defense Department can do with targeting that are tactically going to be needed within DOD," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Hoekstra acknowledged that "the military wasn't satisfied" with the quality of intelligence it received from the CIA before 9/11. "But the answer to that is not going off and creating a parallel universe," he said. "The answer is working with CIA and telling them what they need and where they're coming up short.... The problem I have is that every time Rumsfeld didn't get the support he needed, he said, 'Screw it. I'll do it myself.' "

Hoekstra, like other experts, said that Gates could make intelligence changes under his own authority without approval from Congress. "I don't think he necessarily has to brief us on it. Not formally."

Others predicted that if Gates reins in the Pentagon's spymasters, it will trigger a storm of opposition. "In the six years since 9/11, the military intelligence community has developed a sense of bureaucratic ownership," said Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian. "They spent a lot of money developing their own sources and capabilities. There will be a great deal of opposition to giving the CIA these resources."

--Mark Ambinder, associate editor of The Hotline, contributed to this report

Un buen reparto, DIA inteligencia táctica, CIA inteligencia estratégica.
Cry havoc and unleash the hawgs of war - Otatsiihtaissiiststakio piksi makamo ta psswia
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¿SSB en Afganistán?

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Podrían ser de una PMC, miembros de la TF-141 o el SAD, pero viendo esta fotografía que venía en el mismo lote...

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El mismo helicóptero que aquí:

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http://nl.airliners.net/photos/photos/6/6/4/1196466.jpg

USA - Department of State / Bell UH-1H Huey II (205)
In Flight, Afghanistan, March 22, 2007


Departamento de Estado, dos Minigun (actuando de cañonero), sin insignias ni matrícula, camuflaje distinto al que emplean los aparatos del USASOC.
Cry havoc and unleash the hawgs of war - Otatsiihtaissiiststakio piksi makamo ta psswia
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Esteban
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Podría ser...es curioso, los SSB llamaban a los operativos de la CIA no solo por el clásico OGA, sino por el socarrón OTT (Over The Top...)
La necesidad permite lo prohibido.
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Un poco difícil de discernir, ¿contratistas?, ¿SSB/SAD?,... las he encontrado gracias a un cambio de cromos con aa, que me puso en la pista. Por las pintas 5.11 y la gorra de Blackwater lo primero que se piensa es en un equipo de PSD, pero viendo el equipo que se gastan, la terminal SATCOM, que se desplazen en Hercules, Blackhawk y Chinook, la ausencia de identificaciones de nacionalidad, el helicóptero del DoS (otra vez, menos mal que no lleva matrícula porque sino tendríamos hasta su historial mecánico), las fotos "en medio de la nada" sin un VIP o instalaciones que proteger,...

¿Entrenados en Moyock o Herndon?, ¿currando para el DoS como apuntan varias fuentes?, ¿tendrá razón el artículo que saldrá dentro de poco en el Washington Post acerca de la implicación directa de PMCs en tareas hasta ahora reservadas a la CIA y equipos SOF?
Cry havoc and unleash the hawgs of war - Otatsiihtaissiiststakio piksi makamo ta psswia
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Re: Strategic Support Branch (SSB)

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How The Pentagon’s Top Killers Became (Unaccountable) Spies
Wired's Danger Room escribió:This is what people think of when they imagine the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC — the secretive, über-elite military unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The leader of a JSOC unit in Iraq, known as K-Bar, gets shot in the chest by insurgents. K-Bar waves away his medic until he finishes killing his assailants. His reward? Leading JSOC’s operations in Afghanistan.

Ludicrous acts of superhuman bravado are part of JSOC’s myth and mystique. That mystique is hard to penetrate: JSOC is so secretive that it instructs its members not to write down important information, lest it be vulnerable to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. But a new book reveals that killing might not even be the most important thing JSOC does.

Marc Ambinder, a former reporter for The Atlantic and National Journal, goes deep inside JSOC to reveal that it has become perhaps the government’s most effective intelligence agency. Unassuming office buildings around the Washington area and beyond have become unlabeled spy centers that process untold volumes of information extracted from JSOC’s hunting missions, with such a rapid analytic turnaround time that the “shooters” of the unit can quickly begin planning their next kills. In fact, Ambinder reports in The Command, his just-published eBook, the integration of tactical spying within JSOC is so thorough that it’s hard to distinguish “shooters” from analysts.

Yet JSOC operates with practically no accountability. In Iraq, it ran a torture chamber at a place called Camp Nama — until its leader, Stanley McChrystal and his intelligence chief, Michael Flynn, cleaned it up. (There’s a debate in military circles about whether McChrystal or his friend and successor, Adm. William McRaven deserve credit for JSOC’s resurgence; but Ambinder’s reporting suggests Flynn is the real father of the modern JSOC.) The unit is supposed to answer to the chain of command, but it advised President Obama not to ask which Navy SEAL actually killed Osama bin Laden — and then wouldn’t tell Obama’s chief of staff, who ignored the advice. Even while the CIA works intimately with JSOC, it whispers to reporters, self-interestedly, that the unit is out of control.

But JSOC has the biggest trump card of all to play, institutionally: it works. Killing bin Laden was just the culmination of a furious, decade-long pace of lethal operations, involving hundreds of Afghanistan night raids in a single year; what Ambinder describes as a “free hand” in Somalia, including last month’s dramatic hostage rescue; and unseen counterterrorism mission from Pakistan to, of all places, Peru. JSOC is so busy its leadership thinks it’s exhausted, and prominent analysts claim it needs to step up its game to prevent nuclear terrorism.

Danger Room spoke with Ambinder about JSOC’s successes — and the implications for the secretive organization’s expanded reach into the spy world, especially as it becomes the lead force waging America’s Shadow Wars.

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