Special Services Group - Notable Members

Notable Members

• Major General Aboobaker Osman Mitha is known as the Father of Special Service Group of Pakistan Army.

• Brigadier Tariq Mehmood (Brigadier TM) was a legendary soldier and commander of SSG. Brigadier TM was one of the most decorated soldiers in Pakistan with 2 Sitara-e-Jurat (Bar), Sitar-e-Basalat and Hilal-e-Shujaat (posthumous). TM died on 29 May 1989, when his parachute did not open. One of the training exercises in Pakistan Military Academy is named after him (TM Raiders) and two crossroads (chowks) are named after him; one in Gujranwala, where he died and one in Rawalpindi outside the General Headquarters of Pakistan Army.
• Colonel Abu Taher from Bangladesh Army(was an officer of former Pakistan Army) joined the elite Special Service Group (Commando Force) in 1965. He was one of the first Bengali Commandos who joined in SSG. Following his training, he participated in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 in the Kashmir sector and the Sialkot sector. For his part, he received a gallantry award from the Government of Pakistan. After the war, Taher took advanced training on Guerrilla Warfare at Fort Bragg and Fort Benning in the United States in 1969. He was posted to the Quetta Staff College, Pakistan in 1970.He is considered as one of the best and most dangerous commandos in the history of SSG.

• Lieutenant Colonel Haroon Islam, the Commanding Officer of Operation Silence, was a legendary military officer of the SSG. Islam was killed during the fighting which took place inside the Red Mosque Complex while commanding a team of SSG commandos.
• General Mirza Aslam Beg the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army from 1987 to 1991. As a major, Beg commanded an SSG company in 1960 during the Dir-Bajaur Operation in the North-West Frontier Province.
• General Shamim Alam Khan, former Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. As a major, he commanded an SSG company in Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, for which he was awarded Sitara-e-Jurat.

• Major General Ameer Faisal Alavi (28 March 1954 – 19 November 2008) was a Pakistan Army 2 star general and special operations expert who was the first General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Service Group of Pakistan Army. A former member of Special Service Group, he was credited with masterminding the Angoor Ada operation in 2004, where many Arabs and Chechans based in the tribal areas were killed or arrested and turned over to the Americans. On 19 November 2008, while driving to work in his car in Islamabad, he was shot dead by three unknown gunmen. It was alleged that Ilyas Kashmiri, the chief of Jammu & Kashmir chapter of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, was behind the murder of Maj-Gen Alavi at the behest of the Taliban in North Waziristan.