there have long been Whispers of US Special Forces top secret missions inside Latin America some of it I think is Real History some of it's rumor and recently Declassified documents the idea has made its way all the way into pop culture with games like Ghost Recon wildlands and the movie sarios this is going to be sort of like a Iceberg video where I'll go through some of the most known and increasingly more obscure American Special Forces missions inside Latin America the first story is the joint combined Exchange training program the Washington office in Latin America which is a human rights focused Think Tank used the Freedom of Information Act request to uncover just how many personnel and resources are going to Latin American countries each year what they found was shocking there was a dramatic rise in jck training missions in the region over the past two decades between 2007 and 2014 the number of jtech missions inside Latin America triple joint combined exchange training or jtech missions was a program first found founded in 1991 it allowed the defense department to deploy Special Forces Personnel to train and coordinate with foreign Nations outside direct wartime goals it was kind of a loophole because it's long been suspected that these are more than just innocent training missions they are likely a way to provide a legal framework for counterterrorism and counter drug operations alongside partner forces most of these missions were to Honduras a country where there's been tremendous levels of gang violence political instability and as we'll see a long history of covert missions of US Special Forces now 21 jtech missions deployed here Colombia and El Salvador were tied for second place with 19 missions each it's no coincidence that these closely track with the worst hotspots of cartel and gang activity all across Latin America the released documents actually showed that 4,000 us operators were invited to train about 13,000 Latin American Personnel during this time frame at a cost of roughly $73 million while the exact details of these missions are still classified even to the foyo request we know that they were teaching Urban combat for foreign internal defense as well as gaining Regional access with a minimum footprint and enhancing US influence in host countries and we'll see these training missions are tamame compared to some of the ones we're about to get into but first I want to tell you about this video's beautiful sponsor ODU the online business management platform that provides entrepreneurs an all-in-one application to simplify the day-to-day operations of their business everything from website building to inventory and accounting ODU provides all the tools necessary to launch and run your business and the best part is the first ODU application is free for life including unlimited hosting and support letting you create a vivid site for your business easily and efficiently and yep you guessed it completely free they even offer a free personalized domain name for one year with the ODU website configuration you can build your site in four quick and easy steps Define goals pick color palets and insert your logo add your pages and features and choose your theme and just like that your online business is up and running the platform couldn't be any simpler to use just a few clicks and your site is ready to go ODU even integrates chat GPT to help write reword or even change the tone of your copy no more writers block click the link below to jump start your online presence today combine the population of 32 different countries R across Latin America is over 660 million people roughly 8% of the world's population by 2021 there were about 62 million people from various Latin American countries living in the United States and calling it home or roughly 19% of the total population these two regions are closely tied together politically economically and culturally and that's where the United States seventh group comes into play so the way it works is there are seven different US Special Forces groups and each one focuses on a different region 10th group for example specializes in Europe including Russia seventh group is focused on Latin America and Southern command this means that they learn languages cultures customs and the history from the countries in this region before they deploy there seventh group is now headquartered in egund Air Force Base in Florida and they learn either Portuguese or Spanish as part of their job this unit's role in Latin America was expanded starting in the 1980s when President Reagan took a more Hardline stance against communist activities in the Western Hemisphere the mission in Honduras are some of the most sensitive and classified and downright wild to this day but we know about one of the most insane operations because former Delta Force operator Eric L Hanley revealed exactly what he did there according to him he was deployed to Honduras in 1991 to train and advise their special forces indirect combat the US Delta operators were sent on a mission to intercept and Destroy roughly 100 Honduran Marxist Cuban trained gorillas that had infiltrated from Nicaragua working alongside local Honduran troops they tracked the Marxist fighters to a Mountain Base his team opened fire on them and during the battle Hanley claims that he spotted one of the fighters with a radio he shot and killed the man after the fight it turned out that the man he killed was none other than David Bez the identity of this man blew me away bees was actually a Nicaraguan born American citizen who was a former US Army Special Forces operator Hanley had even met the man years prior back in the States during Delta Force selection courses bees left the US Army defected from Seventh group Special Forces and joined the other side because the side the US was fighting with had executed his father Bas saw himself as a chuara type gorilla leader it was like a real life Apocalypse Now Heart of Darkness story however former Green Beret Greg Walker's research shows something much darker might have happened David beaz was captured alive along with 35 other prisoners the Honduran General gave an execution command and an unnamed Us official agreed to the execution order Beez was then executed by Honduran soldiers evidence for this comes from a Declassified CIA internal investigation even though it's heavily redacted it reveals several gorillas were executed by Pistol now the entire mission is controversial even to this day but I think that it shows at the very least that the US government was far more involved in the fighting in Honduras than they publicly claimed at the time most people have no idea that American soldiers were engaged in limited combat in the region throughout the Cold War against other foreign supported forces so Greg Walker a retired Green Beret revealed how special forces were rely shot at in El Salvador while on top secret missions in 1981 President Reagan sent the seventh group to train El Salvador and help grow El Salvador's security forces from 12,000 to 55,000 later Declassified CIA documents would reveal that these organizations developed into paramilitary groups that were known as the Salvadoran death squads some sources claim they killed as many as 75,000 people the mission back back then was centered around countering communist back forces they were So Undercover that in 1986 the US military denied giving them combat infantry badges which is something that proves that you are in combat according to Special Forces 78. com which is run by retired SF guys the Green Berets who served in Al Salvador self-described themselves as the Double Nickel by 1982 a mission of 55 Special Forces advisers had a budget that was increased to $80 million annually they were fighting against leftist Guerilla forces who were from the fmln they turned out to be better organized and better trained than the US anticipated they were backed by Cuban Nicaraguan North Vietnamese and even East German advisers from the Soviet Union that were provided to them basically the way it worked was that the Reagan Administration avoided anything that would trigger a congressional review of the operations by Special Forces there so they were informally promised none of the advisers would be in combat but they Ed loopholes to get around this in additional 75 CIA operators were deployed alongside them medical SF soldiers were also not included in the count and the total number of operatives may have been closer to 300 in Al Salvador according to Greg Walker himself a veteran of the conflict in El Salvador he says that there were purple hearts issued in El Salvador but that those killed in action were often misrepresented by the US government for example on March 31st 1987 a gorilla unit attacked the Salvage Ador Brigade headquarters at El pario the relatives of Green Beret staff sergeant Gregory a fris was told that he was killed in action while he was asleep in his bunk by a mortar round in reality fanis had left the barracks and helped rally a Counterattack he returned fire and helped secure the command bunker before he was shot multiple times during the battle these missions in Al Salvador are controversial to this day we did a deeper dive on it in another video but these kind of kill teams kill squads trained by the CIA were accused of mass killings and so too were the fmln opposing forces that were backed by the Soviets ultimately 39 Americans were killed during operations supporting El Salvador during the Civil War now the next story comes to us about a Delta Force mission to help kill Pablo Escobar a lot of people probably know about this one in the early 1990s Pablo Escobar was the leader of the most notorious drug cartel in Colombia operation search block aimed to dismantle Escobar Empire a US Navy SEAL helicopter raid was executed in 1991 inside Bolivia but they just barely missed him this put pressure on him to leave Bolivia and go back to Colombia in order to find him the US Army intelligence support activity used modified civilian planes to surveil local phone Communications meanwhile Delta Force handpicked and trained a unit called search block this is because some of the Colombian forces were compromised by Escobar's Deep Pockets the US government didn't want to appear like they were undercutting Colombian sovereignty so they had the search block team conduct the actual arrest themselves the ISA surveillance equipment from the US Army could pinpoint Escobar to within about 200 M but the operation would still need visual confirmation in December 1993 is when they thought they found him the electronic surveillance kit got a fix on Pablo's phone at his mother's house two Delta Force snipers set up an observation post in the Hills surrounding the area the search block unit was sent to confirm they spotted Escobar in the Second Story window and that was all they needed the Colombian unit stormed the house they fought their way through Escobar's bodyguards Pablo fled the gun battle attempting to escape across the rooftops but agents caught up and open fire Pablo Escobar's Reign had come to an end there had been rumors for years that the final head shot that ended Escobar's life came from one of the Delta 4 snipers but there isn't really any hard evidence that I could find for that Jerry boyin commander of the Delta Force team in Colombia stated flatly in his Memoir published years later quote I can answer that no despite boykin's denial Legends and rumors persist decades later about exactly how Escobar died and how big of a role Delta Force played in the final raid however not all operations have had this level of disclosure and some are still unconfirmed in one of the most secretive operations to date Delta Force was allegedly sent to Mexico in early 2016 I'll tell you right off the bat this mission is still a rumor it has not been been confirmed yet it was reported in sofrep and several other sources allegedly their mission was to assist Mexican authorities in their recapture of the notorious cinella cartel leader hen Guzman also known as El Chapo The elusive drug kingpin had been arrested and jailed twice before but had managed to escape each time the reason this was possibly a joint operation is because it concerned both countries under El Chapo's leadership the cinella cartel had expanded its Network out of Mexico and deep into the United States Phoenix Tucson Atlanta Chicago had all become major distribution centers for illegal narcotics the cinella cartel and its ruthless tactics and its Black Market trade fueled poverty and crime wherever it reached in 2023 the Chicago crime commission named Guzman Public Enemy Number One and numerous International manh hunts tried to recapture El Chapo but he slip through law enforcements net every time in early 2016 authorities finally caught a lucky break the Mexican Government launched operation Black Swan which was an intensive surveillance and tracking operation that gradually narrowed down Guzman and the cartel's hiding places so allegedly at the invitation of Mexican authorities the US government supplied Mexico with some of its most closely guarded intelligence and counterterrorism assets including Delta Force the the American operators helped track down the cartel's leadership to the town of Los mes now on January 8th they pinpointed the location of a prominent sario or Hitman in one of the cartel safe houses these were professional Hitmen who eliminated the cartel's opposition whether they be rival gangs government officials or innocent Witnesses who've seen too much Mexican Marines seized the opportunity and stormed the safe house but as an intense firefight broke out between the Mexican Marines and the cartel Hitman a familiar figure escaped through the tunnel now a few blocks away out popped El Chapo in a stolen car but it wasn't a clean getaway this time Mexican federal police saw the car and arrested El Chapo in front of a nearby Hotel this time throwing him in jail for good the authorities hadn't even known El Chapo was at the safe house but they hit the jackpot in this raid exactly how much of a role Delta Force played during oper Black Swan remains undisclosed and the Mexican Government insists that it was only their forces that prosecuted the arrest but defense news Outlet sofrep reports that it's very confident that they have an Insider source that Delta Force played a role on the ground all the same according to US Government insiders Delta Force played a supporting role on this one training and Advising Mexican Marines and intelligence Personnel on the best ways to raid the sakario safe house or how to NAB such an elusive Target they provided guidance and intelligence assets however Mexican soldiers have reported that the US did send law enforcement Personnel to Mexico the DEA and doj regularly get embedded with Mexican special forces units where they assist with intelligence while the Mexican troops are the trigger pullers so it might be that people were confused and it was just a special division from the DEA Mexican sof cross train with American teams throughout the early 2000s in an attempt to get an edge on the increasingly well-armed cartels and the rapid intelligence process processing systems from Delta Force in the CIA are used in the fight against Isis around the same time which would be a big help in operation blackan for quickly hunting cartel leadership if they send so much as a text message for instance but the next story does have some more information that has become Declassified since then on December 20th 1989 Four mh6 Little Bird helicopters tore through the darkness over Panama City their mission was to rescue US citizen Kurt muse from the prison and the whole US invasion of Panama was set to kick off only an hour later at 1:00 a. m.
if they encountered any delays the Brader Invasion could blow the element of surprise and they'd be flying essentially into a death trap this is the story of operation acid Gambit at 045 a. m.
