Joint Task Force

A Joint Task Force is a "joint" (multi-service) ad hoc military formation. The task force concept originated with the United States Navy around the beginning of the Second World War in the Pacific.

"Combined" is the British-American military term for multi-national formations.

There are two ways in which a U.S. or U.S.-allied task force may be assigned a number. The first is the originally naval scheme promulgated and governed by the U.S. Military Communications-Electronic Board, chaired by the Joint Staff J6. Task force numbers allocated under this scheme form the majority of the listings below.

JTF (disambiguation)

JTF is an abbreviation of Joint Task Force.

JTF may also refer to:

See also

Joint Task Force North

Joint Task Force North (JTF North), formerly Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6), is a multi-service operation by the United States Department of Defense for counterdrug and anti-terrorist operations. JTF-North is headquartered at Biggs Army Airfield, Fort Bliss, Texas. United States Northern Command is the controlling Unified Combatant Command.

History

The JTF was originally activated as Joint Task Force Six (JTF-6) in November 1989 with a purely counter-drug mission. In 2004 it was renamed JTF North and added counter-terrorism to its mission, due in part to the efforts of Major M. W. Robinson, who, in his spare time, wrote the threat assessments for the Gulf Coast ports and access points available to terror elements worldwide. However, he was unable to get senior military officials to adopt changes to the JTF-6 mission. He reasoned the prime threat to port security is the continued storage of foreign containers at port facilities that U.S. Customs and Border Protection is unable to search and clear for numerous reasons, including manpower and Free Trade Zone restrictions. He reported to the U.S. Department of Defense that containers stored without controls were a continual threat from terrorist organizations who could store weapons of mass destruction for future use.