personnel that can meet with the regional U.S. planners. If the UW operation is planned to support conventional operations (e.g., the French Resistance started a preplanned series of attacks on German transportation about 48 hours before the Normandy Invasion), UW control may be passed to SF officers attached to the supported conventional force. Army Special Operations Task Force (ARSOTF) describes an Army command, with a SF or Ranger core plus attachments, that deals with specific operations in a UCC. It is typically based on a SF Group or Ranger Regiment. Since countries are assigned to UCCs, the government in exile will work with both American diplomats and an appropriate level of SF organization. A SF Battalion, subordinate to a Group, may command all SF operations in a medium-sized country, or a region of a larger one, from a Forward Operating Base (FOB). Company-level headquarters called Advanced Operating Bases (AOB) supplement FOB capabilities. The Seven-Step Operational Model A SF UW campaign is now defined to have seven steps, ending in combat and demobilization. Changing concepts in UW, however, may change the model so that the UW force avoids entering the main combat phase, but carries out critical support operations with the steps before it. Preparation Much of the early steps may take place in a safe area outside the AO, where SF, as well as psychological operations personnel from USSOCOM, the United States Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other organizations establish contacts with sympathizers in the target country. A wide range of psychological operations techniques are used to increase the likelihood that citizens of the target country will be sympathetic. Such operations can range from overt (i.e., "white propaganda") radio and television broadcasts, to clandestine material purporting to be issued by the opposition (i.e., "black propaganda"). Initial contact Small units or individuals, typically from SF or CIA, make clandestine contact with leaders in the AO, and gain agreement that SF teams will be welcomed. For example, in Afghanistan in 2001, CIA paramilitary personnel made the initial contact with leaders of the Northern Alliance, who agreed to accept SF teams that would train and fight with the Afghan resistance. CIA personnel had been in Afghanistan, in noncombat roles, certainly as early as 1999, and had created relationships that could not have been established under the military roles and missions of the time. Infiltration SF operational detachments enter the AO,