Special Activities Center (SAC)

SAC/SOG has several missions. One of these missions is the recruiting, training, and leading of indigenous forces in combat operations.^[24] SAC/SOG and its successors have been used when it was considered desirable to have plausible deniability about U.S. support (this is called a covert operation or "covert action").^[15] Unlike other special missions units, SAC/SOG operatives combine special operations and clandestine intelligence capabilities in one individual.^[11] These individuals can operate in any environment (sea, air or ground) with limited to no support.<sup>[9]

The CIA's formal position for these individuals is "Paramilitary Operations Officers" and "Specialized Skills Officers." Paramilitary Operations Officers most likely attend the Clandestine Service Trainee (CST) program, which trains them as clandestine intelligence operatives and an internal paramilitary training course. The primary strengths of SAC/SOG Paramilitary Officers are operational agility, adaptability, and deniability.  


They often operate in small teams, typically made up of two to eight operatives (with some operations being carried out by a single officer), all usually with extensive military tactical experience and a set of specialized skills that does not exist in any other unit.[11] As fully trained intelligence case officers, Paramilitary Operations Officers possess all the clandestine skills to collect human intelligence – and most importantly – to recruit assets from among the indigenous troops receiving their training. These officers often operate in remote locations behind enemy lines to carry out direct action (including raids and sabotage), counter-intelligence, guerrilla/unconventional warfare, counter-terrorism, and hostage rescue missions, in addition to being able to conduct espionage via HUMINT assets. 

Paramilitary Operations Officers are trained to operate in a multitude of environments. Because these officers are taken from the most highly trained units in the U.S. military and then provided with extensive additional training to become CIA clandestine intelligence officers, many U.S. security experts assess them as the most elite of the U.S. special missions units.[32]

Required to become a clandestine intelligence officer, Paramilitary Operations Officers are trained to a high level of proficiency in the use and tactical employment of an unusually wide degree of modern weaponry, 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), improvised explosive devices, cyber warfare, covert channels, HAHO/HALO parachuting, combat and commercial SCUBA and closed circuit diving, proficiency in foreign languages, surreptitious entry operations (picking or otherwise bypassing locks), vehicle hot-wiring, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), extreme survival and wilderness training, combat EMS medical training, tactical communications, and tracking.  

An agent provocateur is a person who commits or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation or entice legal action against the target or a group they belong to.   

The expression "discrediting tactics" in politics refers to personal attacks against a public figure intended to discourage people from believing in the figure or supporting their cause</sup>