Covert Action Division (CAD) is generally considered the most secretive special operations force of Pakistan. It is responsible for special paramilitary and covert operations. It is tasked to collect intelligence in dense hostile environments and act as a special warfare unit of the

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...

(ISI). It is similar in function to the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Special Activities Center The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. The unit was named Special Activities Division (SAD) prior to 2015. Within SAC there are two ...

Special Operations Group.

History and formation

After the formation of ISI in 1948, Pakistan faced a challenge in the Tribal Agencies of Waziristan caused by

Faqir of Ipi Haji Mirzali Khan Wazir ( oru, حاجي میرزاعلي خان وزیر), commonly known as the Faqir of Ipi (), was a Ormur tribal chief and freedom fighter from North Waziristan in today's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. After performing his ' ...

. In response, a group of die-hard persons from the militia and

Gilgit scouts The Gilgit Scouts constituted a paramilitary force of the Gilgit Agency in northern Jammu and Kashmir (princely state), Jammu and Kashmir. They were raised by the government of British India in 1913, on behalf of the princely state of Jammu and Ka ...

were trained. They formed the new directorate of ISI. Their main task was to counter the influence of Faqir of Ipi and to delay any Afghan incursion until the main force of the Pakistan Army arrives. Until November 1954, the CAD was mostly aimed to counter insurgency in Waziristan but after that, its role was slowly expanded, and a new unit was raised in East Pakistan to assist insurgents in India's North-East. Its role was expanded in the late 1980s to assist the Khalistan Movement, headed by Jagjit Singh Chauhan. During the 1960s, the West only knew them by name but the unit then received training from CIA in the 1980s to assist the Afghan Mujahideen after the Soviet invasion. The unit also took part in many battles against Soviets. Little is known about unit as it is one of the most classified elements of the Pakistan Defense establishment, working with a limited number of senior officers. There were allegations that CAD teams were involved in training anti-Indian terrorists from the Pakistani side of Kashmir.

Training

CAD operatives are trained in home developed tactics. They are also trained to a high level of proficiency in the tactical employment of an unusually wide degree of modern weaponry,

improvised explosive device An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb constructed and deployed in ways other than in conventional military action. It may be constructed of conventional military explosives, such as an artillery shell, attached to a detonating mecha ...

irregular warfare Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the te ...

tactics, explosive devices and firearms (foreign and domestic), hand-to-hand combat, high performance/tactical driving (on and off-road), apprehension avoidance (including picking handcuffs and escaping from confinement), cyber warfare, covert channels, parachuting, SCUBA diving, proficiency in foreign languages, surreptitious entry operations (picking or otherwise bypassing locks), vehicle hot-wiring,

Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) is a training program, best known by its military acronym, that prepares U.S. military personnel, U.S. Department of Defense civilians, and private military contractors to survive and "return ...

, extreme survival and wilderness training, combat EMS medical training, tactical communications, and tracking.

References

{{Reflist Inter-Services Intelligence Pakistan federal departments and agencies