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A significant part of the effectives of the square units, at least a quarter, was employed in security functions of the basis. Another part was in charge of supporting tasks to ensure survival, supplies, transports and maintenance. Therefore, only a small number of effectives were available to keep the contact near populations or for combat actions. In general, a company of snipers could not have more than a combat group (30 men) for operations and didn’t have the sufficient means to conduct effectively the fight against guerrilla, namely when it was necessary to attack guerrilla basis at great distances from the quarters. Therefore, and immediately since the beginning of war, it was considered necessary to use another set of units destined to carry out offensive actions, free from the charge of ensuring safety of a certain sector and capable of reaching success. The intervention forces were therefore created.
The intervention forces constituted a reserve at the order of the commander to which they were attributed or that decided about their creation. In theory, it would have been convenient that each square unit could dispose of a unit of this kind, a company per each battalion, a platoon per each company. However, this solution was rarely possible and the solution found by the Portuguese forces was the attribution of this function almost exclusively to the special forces – commandos, parachutists and marines. These forces were the reserve of commanders / chiefs who directly assigned them a certain mission, as it currently happened in Guinea, or created specific commandments to do it, or even gave the missions to a certain square commandment during a certain period of time. The COFI (Operational Commandment of Intervention Forces) , created in Mozambique in 1970, which was in charge of the operation control of forces for operation “Nó Górdio” and, later on, for the Zone of Tete in the defence of Cabora Bassa, is a typical case of um commandment of intervention forces.
The intervention forces began by being used unit by unit, company by company but with the evolution of war they started to be used in units of higher echelon – Parachutists Battalions and Commandos. Units with two or even more battalions were created in order to achieve a certain goal – Operation “Trident”, Operation “Nó Górdio”, Operation “Ametista Real”, receiving the support of artillery, aviation and navy.
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