Saudi Emergency Force

The Special Emergency Force (Arabic: قُوّات الطَّوارئ الخاصَّة, romanized: Qūwāt aṭ-Ṭawāriʾ as-Suʿūdīyah) or the S.E.F (Saudi Emergency Force) is a special operations counter-terrorism unit of the Presidency of State Security.

Saudi Special Emergency Force
Active	1972-now
Country	Saudi Arabia
Patron	Presidency of State Security

Saudi Special Emergency Force UR-416 near Riyadh

History

The SEF was established in 1972; its main job was to control riots and demonstration alongside assisting other police forces in combating drug trafficking and criminals. After the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979 and the ineffectiveness of the Saudi Arabian National Guard in the Saudi decision of hostages, its role was strengthened. Since 1995, with the first terrorist attacks on Saudi soil in Olaya, Riyadh, and then in 1996 in Al Khobar, the center shifted to combating terrorism, and accordingly it retrained and reprogrammed its forces. In 2017, the General Directorate of Investigations, Special Security Forces, Special Emergency Forces, Security Aviation, General Directorate of Technical Affairs, National Information Center were moved from the Ministry of the Interior to Presidency of State Security.^[1]

Now there are 13 centers, controlling 35,000 men, around the Kingdom to combat terrorism.^[2]
In September of 2014, around 70,000 members of the Special Emergency Forces participated in providing security during the Hajj season.^[3]

Similar units from other countries

• United States' FBI's Hostage Rescue Team
• France's GIGN
• Switzerland's Federal Office of Police's Task Force TIGRIS
• Egypt's National Security Agency's Hostage Rescue Force
• Israel Border Police's Yamam
• Unité Spéciale – Garde Nationale (Tunisian National Guard Special Unit)
• Special Intervention Detachment of the Algerian Gendarmerie Nationale
• Mauritius Police Force's Special Mobile Force's Groupe Intervention de la Police Mauricien (GIPM)
• Iran's Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran's 1st Amir al-Momenin Brigade