the province. The main of these forces engaged in the war was the Public Security Police (PSP) and the PIDE (renamed DGS in 1969). By the middle of the 1960s, these forces included 10,000 PSP constables and 1,100 PIDE agents. The PSP was the uniformed preventive police of Angola. It was modeled after the European Portuguese PSP, but it covered the whole territory of the province, including its rural areas and not only the major urban areas as in the European Portugal. The PSP of Angola included a general-command in Luanda and district commands in each of the several district capitals, with a network of police stations and posts scattered along the territory. The Angolan PSP was reinforced with mobile police companies deployed by the European Portuguese PSP. The PSP also included the Rural Guard, which was responsible for the protection of farms and other agricultural companies. Besides this, the PSP was responsible to frame the district militias, which were employed mainly in the self-defense of villages and other settlements. The PIDE (International and State Defense Police) was the Portuguese secret and border police. The PIDE Delegation of Angola, included a number of sub-delegations, border posts and surveillance posts. In the war, it operated as an intelligence service. The PIDE raised and controlled the Flechas, a paramilitary unit of special forces made up of natives. The Flechas were initially intended to serve mostly as trackers, but due to their effectiveness they were increasingly employed in more offensive operations, including pseudo-terrorist operations. Para-military and irregular forces Besides the regular armed and security forces, there were a number of para-military and irregular forces, some of them under the control of the military and other controlled by the civil authorities. The OPVDCA (Provincial Organization of Volunteers and Civil Defense of Angola) was a militia-type corps responsible for internal security and civil defense roles, with similar characteristics to those of the Portuguese Legion existing in European Portugal. It was under the direct control of the Governor-General of the province. Its origin was the Corps of Volunteers organized in the beginning of the conflict, which became the Provincial Organization of Volunteers in 1962, also assuming the role of civil defense in 1964, when it became the OPVDCA. It was made up of volunteers that served in part-time, most of these being initially whites, but latter becoming increasingly multi-racial. In the conflict, the OPVDCA was mainly