Flechas units were created and employed in Angola, during the Portuguese Colonial War, under the command of the PIDE (renamed DGS in 1969). Despite being a paramilitary police force, they were thus a police unit, not being under military command as the remaining special force.
Composed of locally recruited men, often former guerrilla fighters but mostly bushman Khoisan, the units specialised in reconnaissance, tracking, unconventional tactics, and pseudo-terrorist operations. The Flechas were created and organized by Sub-Inspector Oscar Cardoso, when he was the head of the PIDE branch at Serpa Pinto, Angola (present day Menongue). Initially, the unit was intended to support the activities of the branch, whose area of responsibility covered the remote eastern areas of Angola that the Portuguese called Terras do Fim do Mundo (Lands of the End of the World) and which corresponded to the Frente Leste theater. In this theater, they achieved a great success in the early 1970s, contributing for the virtual Portuguese victory in the campaign.
The success of the initial Flechas unit created by Oscar Cardoso, made PIDE/DGS to expand the concept and to created new groups attached to other of its local branches. General Costa Gomes – Portuguese Commander-in-Chief in Angola – argued that African soldiers were cheaper, knew the terrain better, and were better able to create a relationship with the local populace, a tactic that predates the ‘hearts and minds’ strategy later used by United States forces in Vietnam at the time.
Flechas units were also created and operated in Mozambique at the very end stages of the conflict, following the dismissal of Kaúlza de Arriaga on the eve of the Portuguese coup in 1974. The units were to continue to cause problems for the FRELIMO even after independence and Portuguese withdrawal, when the country splintered into civil war.
The Flechas served as model for the latter created Rhodesian Selous Scouts and the South African Koevoet.
