Relentless Strike : The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (9781466876224) (86 page)

Brown Cell
– A SEAL Team 6 advance force operations unit that grew out of “the Brown Boys,” a small group of operators that did undercover work in advance of the 1989 Panama invasion. SEAL Team 6 shut Brown Cell down after a few years.

Bullet Package
– The helicopters and personnel kept on alert by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The composition of the Bullet Package evolved slightly over the years, but was always based around the regiment's 1st Battalion, plus a couple of 2nd Battalion's Chinooks. Also known as the
Silver Bullet
.

CCO
– Commercial cover operative: an intelligence officer operating under commercial cover—i.e., pretending to be a businessman or woman, rather than a U.S. government employee.

CENTCOM
– U.S. Central Command, the four-star geographic combatant command responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, southwest Asia, and Central Asia. Headquartered, like U.S. Special Operations Command, at MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida.

Chinook
– The Army's name for its CH-47 twin-rotor cargo helicopter. The MH-47 was the special operations version used exclusively by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

CIF
– Combatant commander's in-extremis force, a company in each active-duty
Special Forces
group whose mission was to respond quickly to emergencies when
JSOC
forces were not immediately available. (The Army's five active-duty
Special Forces
groups were oriented on geographic regions that roughly aligned with the combatant commanders' geographic areas of responsibility.) Previously called the
CinC
's in-extremis force before 2002, when then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld banned the use of the phrase “commander-in-chief” to refer to the military's four-star combatant commanders. The CIFs trained closely with Delta and other
JSOC
forces, and sometimes augmented
JSOC
task forces on operations.

CinC
– Commander-in-chief, a phrase used to denote the four-star head of one of the military's combatant commands, before Rumsfeld banned its use in 2002.

CNOS
– Computer Network Operations Squadron, a Delta offshoot that focused on cyber warfare.

Covered air
– A covered air unit is one whose personnel and aircraft operate undercover.

CT
– Counterterrorism.

CTCSG
– The Counterterrorism Campaign Support Group, a short-lived organization Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Richard Myers established in October 2001 to support
JSOC
.

DAP
– Direct Action Penetrator, a version of the MH-60
Black Hawk
equipped with weapons mounted on stubby wings, allowing the aircraft to function as an attack helicopter. (In an apparent fit of political correctness, the Army renamed the DAP the Defensive Armed Penetrator, but few in the 160th community refer to it as such.)

Dash-2
– The trail aircraft or “wingman” in any two-aircraft formation.

DevGroup, DevGru
– Abbreviations of Naval Special Warfare Development Group, the cover name for SEAL Team 6 since 1989.

DoD
– A common abbreviation for the Department of Defense. Pronounced “D-oh-D.”

Echo Squadron
– Delta's aviation squadron. Headquartered at Fort Eustis, Virginia. For many years its cover name was Flight Concepts Division.

EFP
– Explosively formed projectile: a sort of roadside bomb that produced a jet of molten copper that sliced through armored vehicles. EFPs were used in Iraq primarily by Iranian surrogates, who received them from Iran's
Quds Force
.

EOD
– Explosive ordnance disposal.

Exfil
– Abbreviation of “exfiltrate,” the word used in
JSOC
to refer to the act of pulling out of a situation.

The Farm
– The CIA's espionage tradecraft training facility at Camp Peary, Virginia.

Fort Bragg
– The large Army post in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Home to Delta Force since 1977 and, since 2011, when Bragg absorbed the adjacent
Pope Air Force Base
, to
JSOC
as well.

GAF
– Ground assault force, a
JSOC
term that refers to an assault force that uses ground vehicles (as opposed to helicopters) to approach a target. (See also
HAF
.)

GMV
– Ground mobility vehicle, a special operations version of the Humvee.

GPS
– Global Positioning System, a navigation system that relies on satellites to provide accurate location and time data.

Gray Fox
– The name during the immediate post–September 11 period for the special access program for information related to the Army intelligence unit later known as
Task Force Orange
.

GWOT
– The Global War on Terror, the collective name the George W. Bush administration gave to the counterterrorism campaigns it launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

HAF
– Helicopter assault force, a
JSOC
term that refers to an assault force that uses helicopters to approach a target. As with the companion term
GAF
, it became a verb: units either HAF'd (pronounced “haffed”) or GAF'd to a target.

HAHO
– High-altitude, high-opening: a military freefall parachuting technique that involves jumpers leaping from a plane at altitudes of up to 34,900 feet, opening their parachutes quickly, and then floating on the wind for up to twenty miles before landing.

HALO
– High-altitude, low-opening: a military freefall parachuting technique in which jumpers leap from a plane at high altitude, then freefall for many thousands of feet before opening their parachutes as low as 2,500 feet above the ground.

Humint
– Human intelligence: i.e., intelligence derived from classic espionage, as well as from interrogations and other nontechnical means.

Imagery
– Photographs taken for intelligence purposes by aircraft and satellites.

Infil
– Abbreviation of “infiltrate,” the word used in
JSOC
to describe the process of moving personnel—often clandestinely—into an area of operations. Sometimes used as an abbreviation of the noun “infiltration” as well.

ISAF
– The International Security Assistance Force: the overall military Coalition headquarters in Afghanistan.

ISI
– Inter-Services Intelligence: Pakistan's most influential intelligence agency.

ISR
– Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

Jackpot
– The
JSOC
word for a successful direct action mission, i.e., one in which the target of the mission is captured or killed, or, if a hostage rescue mission, one in which the
precious cargo
is rescued.

J-alert birds
– The Air Force planes kept on alert to transport a
JSOC
task force from the United States on four hours' notice.

JIATF
– Joint interagency task force.

JIB
– The
JSOC
Intelligence Brigade: a roughly 600-person unit established in 2008.

JOC
– Joint operations center: a field headquarters from which most
JSOC
operations are run.

JSOC
– Joint Special Operations Command.

Legend
– An undercover intelligence operative's false biography, which provides the basis for a cover story to explain his or her presence in a location from which to conduct espionage.

Little Bird
– A small, two-pilot helicopter used exclusively by the 1st Battalion of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. There are two versions: the
AH-6
gunship and the
MH-6
lift helicopter.

Low-vis
– Low-visibility: a term usually used in
JSOC
to refer to operators moving through a town or city in clothes and (sometimes) vehicles that do not draw attention.

LZ
– Landing zone: the place where a helicopter lands, as used by the aviators.

MacDill Air Force Base
– The installation in Tampa, Florida, that is home to both U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command.

MH-6
– The lift variant of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment's
Little Bird
helicopter.

MH-47
– The special operations variant of the CH-47
Chinook
twin-rotor cargo helicopter. At the time of writing it was flown exclusively by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

MH-60
– The special operations variant of the UH-60
Black Hawk
lift helicopter. At the time of writing it was flown exclusively by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

Mission set
– The collective term for the range of missions a unit is expected to be able to accomplish.

Mogadishu Mile
– The movement made on foot by some Rangers and Delta operators to a rally point toward the end of the October 1993 battle of Mogadishu.

Mohawks
– The name given to the Iraqis that Delta recruited and trained in espionage tradecraft.

National Command Authority
– The collective term for the president and the defense secretary.

National mission force
– a phrase sometimes used in the government to refer to
JSOC
without naming the command.

Night Stalkers
– The nickname for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

NOC
– A nonofficial cover operative, i.e., an intelligence operative whose cover identity is that of someone other than a U.S. government employee. Pronounced “knock.”

OCF-I
– Other Coalition Forces-Iraq: a phrase used by officials to refer to
JSOC
's presence in Iraq without naming the command.

Omega teams
– The combined CIA-
JSOC
teams that trained and commanded the Agency's Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, which were Afghan units that reported to the CIA, not to the Afghan government.

Optempo
– Operational tempo (also operations tempo, operating tempo): the rate at which a unit conducts operations.

Orange
– The one word many
JSOC
personnel use to refer to
Task Force
Orange,
the color code name for an intelligence unit known in the 1980s as the Intelligence Support Activity and by a variety of other cover names since then.

OSD
– The Office of the Secretary of Defense: the main staff element that supports not just the secretary of defense, him- or herself, but also the deputy defense secretary, the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries of defense, as well as a number of other staff offices.

OST
– Operational Support Troop: the Delta unit that specialized in undercover and other
low-vis
work, and pioneered the advance force operations concept. In 2005 OST expanded into D Squadron, which was later renamed G Squadron.

Pandur
– A six-wheel-drive armored vehicle used by Delta and SEAL Team 6.

Pathway defeat
– A
JSOC
strategy to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by intercepting components of such weapons before they reached their intended destination.

Peshmerga
– Kurdish armed forces. The word means “those who confront death.”

Pinzgauer
– Rugged six-wheel-drive combat vehicles used by Delta.

Pope Air Force Base
– The North Carolina installation that was home to the
JSOC
headquarters since 1981. Adjacent to
Fort Bragg
, the Air Force base was taken over by the much larger Army post in 2011, and was renamed Pope Field.

Precious cargo
– The name for the individuals to be safeguarded and rescued in any
JSOC
rescue mission.

PZ
– Pickup zone: an alternative name for a helicopter landing zone when the helicopters are landing to pick up troops. Typically used by those on the ground.

Quds Force
– Iran's powerful covert operations organization. Officially part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force combined the mission sets that in the United States were the provinces of the CIA's Directorate of Operations (later renamed the National Clandestine Service) and U.S. Special Operations Command.

Range 19
– The part of
Fort Bragg
where Delta's new headquarters was built in 1987. The phrase often used by Delta operators to refer to their home base.

RHIB
– Rigid hull inflatable boat, a type of boat used by SEALs. Pronounced “rib.”

RPG
– Rocket-propelled grenade: an antitank weapon ubiquitous among the forces that
JSOC
has often found itself fighting. The RPG can also be used as an anti-helicopter weapon.

Sabre squadron
– The generic name both Delta and the British
SAS
gave to their assault squadrons.

SAS
– Special Air Service: the British special operations unit on which Charlie Beckwith modeled Delta. (Australia and New Zealand also have special operations units called the SAS.)

Sigint
– Signals intelligence: any intelligence derived from intercepting radio, telephone, or other communications.