![]() ![]() officials revealed that was the unit that conducted the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the ISA has managed to keep a relatively low profile. "The missions are wide-ranging, that's one of the hardest parts about the job," the ex-special operations service member said.īut unlike Delta Force, which was the subject of several action movies in the late 1980s and early 1990s as well as a more recent television series, and SEAL Team Six, the interest in which skyrocketed after U.S. The New York Times first revealed the ISA's existence back in 1983 and the unit has since found its way into the public light in brief spurts ever since for their reported role in everything from joint American-Colombian anti-drug operations in the 1990s to secret counter-terrorist campaigns in the Horn of Africa in the 2000s. government total deniability, according to the former special operations service member. Many of their missions are designed to give the U.S. Often, the ISA's job resembles the work of the CIA: They enter foreign countries under cover identities, track persons of interest both on foot and using sophisticated signals interception technology and, depending on the mission, potentially pave the way for the "door kickers" – meaning the "shooters" of SEAL Team Six or Delta Force – to come in for more hands-on action. So rather than rely on the Agency, the military went about setting up its own intelligence-gathering network around the globe and created the ISA to be its specialists in human and signals intelligence. One of the many lessons the military took from that deadly incident was that the CIA's intelligence gathering efforts often did not extend to some very specific, tactically-oriented information that would be necessary to launch clandestine military operations. ![]() More than once Edmondson said he made up a storyline or piece of technology only to be quietly asked by his military acquaintances not to include it in the comic - he had accidentally stumbled too close to the truth. He said the SEALs were happy to help him make the story as accurate as possible without giving away any operational secrets. "The mission may not be real, but it's not outside the realm of possibility."įor example, to write one sequence, Edmondson said he reached out to a group of Navy SEALs and asked them how they would conduct a certain operation. "Half is based on or lifted from real stories," Edmondson told ABC News. That's likely because Edmondson said the comic is written with input from current and former members of the broader community of America's military elite. They actually do know the unit to which they're referring." " the mission profiles, the types of missions are accurate. "There's a lot more gunplay and a lot less of the mundane day-to-day intelligence collection," he said. One former member of the special operations community, who requested anonymity to speak about the ISA, told ABC News that while the comic clearly condenses intelligence-gathering timelines and significantly expands the ISA's duties for the sake of dramatic story telling, he was surprised at its overall accuracy. ![]() In the panels of the comic " The Activity," writer Nathan Edmondson and artist Mitch Gerads create a cell-shaded version of the ISA's world in which the plot is fictional, but much of the rest rings true, even to those few familiar with the comic's real-life counterpart. ![]() Ma— - In a dark corner of American special operations there exists, alongside the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's Osama bin Laden-killing SEAL Team Six, a small unit of Army spies known as the Intelligence Support Activity.Ĭreated more than 30 years ago, the ISA has had its hand in almost every high-profile American special operation around the world in recent history, and countless others, according to published reports and special operations veterans with firsthand knowledge of the group.Īnd though relatively little is known about the secret unit - the military still refuses to acknowledge its existence - a new, colorful picture of the group has emerged through, of all things, a comic book. ![]()
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