Pentagon Has 60,000 Troops in Secret, Undercover Army

The world’s largest undercover army has been built by the Pentagon, a new report reveals.

Around 60,000 troops now belong to this secret army, many of whom are working under masked identities.

According to a Newsweek exclusive report, the undercover army is part of a program called “signature reduction.” The force works on assignments both domestically and abroad.

There has never been a hearing held by Congress on the secret army, and some have expressed concern over the military’s accountability under the program.

Here’s more from American Military News:

The program works with 130 private companies to facilitate the secret army, including making false documentation and paying the bills and taxes of troops working in disguise, as well as creating invisible devices that are undetectable and used to photograph and monitor activity in remote areas of the Middle East and Africa.

The so-called “shadow warriors” are almost entirely special operations forces, working behind enemy lines in places like North Korea and Iran. Another large portion of the force is made up of military intelligence specialists, including collectors, counter-intelligence agents and linguists.

The fastest-growing group in the secret army is comprised of cyber fighters and intelligence collectors who operate undercover online, using “nonattribution” and “misattribution” techniques to conceal their identities and locations.

Nobody fully knows the extent of the program, according to a former officer who helped manage the program.

“Everything from the status of the Geneva Conventions—were a soldier operating under false identity to be captured by an enemy—to Congressional oversight is problematic,” the officer stated, who had to speak anonymously.

The secret force reportedly goes to extreme lengths to conceal the identities of some of its members. They will use silicone to change an individual’s appearance, and they even have methods for altering people’s gender, body mass, fingerprints, and age.