Polis Özel Harekât Dairesi
Active	1983–present
Country	Turkey
Branch	General Directorate of Security
Type	Police tactical unit
Role	Counter-terrorism Law enforcement
Size	22,000
Part of	Respective municipality-level police departments
Garrison/HQ	Ankara, Turkey
Nickname(s)	PÖH, Üç Harfliler
Mascot(s)	Eagle
Commanders
Current commander	Selami Türker
Notable commanders	Behçet Oktay

Turkish special forces police in Afghanistan (2008)

The Police Special Operations Department (Turkish: Polis Özel Harekât Dairesi) or Police Special Action^[1] (Turkish: Polis Özel Harekât), abbreviated as PÖH, is the police tactical unit of the General Directorate of Security in Turkey. The force consists of 22,000 personnel, more than a thousand of whom are women.^[2] It is also deployed as part of the Turkish occupation of northern Syria.^[3]

History

The PÖH was founded in 1983^[4] as "Special Operations Office" (Turkish: Özel Harekat Şube Müdürlüğü), under the command of Department of Public Security, to prevent armed acts of terrorist organizations residential area or in rural areas, to rescue hostages in places like aircraft, land vehicles, ships, subways, trains, and in enclosed spaces like buildings, to ensure the safety in cities and in civil aviation airports with special skills, modern weapons, ammunition, vehicles, equipment, tactics and techniques. In larger cities like Ankara, Istanbul, and İzmir, "Special Operations Group Authorities "(Turkish: Özel Harekat Grup Amirlikleri) were organized in the same year. As a result of changing conditions, in 1987, the office was transferred to the Anti-Terrorism and Operations Department under the name "Special Operations Branch" (Turkish: Özel Harekat Şubesi). In 1993, the Special Operations Branch was promoted to a department and gained its current structuring.^[5]

İbrahim Şahin was head of the Department until being forced to resign in 1996 over the Susurluk scandal. Ayhan Çarkın was a notable member of the department in the 1990s.

Training

To qualify for PÖH, an applicant must:

• Run the 2500m designated area with a backpack weighing 10 kg, under 15 minutes
• Have 50% minimum accuracy in pistol and rifle shooting
• Swim 150 m without stopping
• Be between ages 18 and 32
• Have graduated from police high school or university

In addition, a training simulation called TAKSİS is conducted by TÜBİTAK.^[6]

Expert marksmanship, shooting techniques, fast and effective use of weapons, residential warfare, airplane-train-bus operation, rescue operation with or without hostages, negotiation, psychological, survival, commando, mountaineering, basic diving, surface boat operations, sniping, superior physical conditioning training.

After 6 months of training, the applicant will receive a certificate officially identifying himself as an operator of PÖH.^[7]

Tactics

PÖH uses automatic and special weapons and rapid deployment tactics for exceptional circumstances such as bank robberies, kidnappings, and hostage rescues, among others. The nature of the unit is quite like US SWAT units or the German GSG 9. PÖH mostly specializes in counter-terrorism (CT) operations against forces and is able to undertake operations in many environments, including buses and planes.

Police Special Operation Department is one of a handful of security forces in the world which employs active front line female squad members in combat operations.^[8]

Police Special Operations Department Operators during Sur curfew

Equipment

References