Founded in 1952, it was formed out of the Army's Tactical Mobilisation Group (Turkish: Seferberlik Taktik Kurulu, STK).

[3] The SWD encouraged and protected the Turkish Grey Wolves when they unleashed waves of bomb attacks and shootings that killed thousands of people, including students, lawyers, journalists, public officials, labor organizers, Kurds, and others, during the 1970s political violence.

The SWD established the TMT in Cyprus in 1958 to counter the EOKA and to force partition of the island, and supported it logistically and militarily.

[4] The SWD was also involved in the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, under the command of Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu.

In 2010 Yirmibeşoğlu told television news channel Habertürk TV that Turkey burned a mosque during the Cypriot intercommunal violence in order to foster civil resistance against Greeks on the island, and that their tactics included false flag acts, engaging in acts of sabotage made to look as if they were carried out by the enemy.