Special Assault Team

Special Assault Teams (特殊急襲部隊, Tokushu Kyūshū Butai?)
Special Assault Team Shoulder Patch
Active	1996 – present
Country	JPN
Branch	Japanese Prefectural Police Departments
Type	Law enforcement
Role	Domestic anti-Terrorism and Law Enforcement
Size	c. 300
Garrison/HQ	Tokyo (Most SAT operatives) at the Metropolitan Police HQ Osaka Hokkaidō Chiba Kanagawa Aichi Fukuoka Okinawa
Nickname(s)	SAT

The Special Assault Teams (特殊急襲部隊, Tokushu Kyūshū Butai^?) are counter terrorism units of the Japanese police. They are established in some Prefectural Polices supervised by the National Police Agency. The SAT is mandated, along with the Anti-Firearms Squad and the Counter-NBC Terrorism Squad, for counter terrorism missions and incidents involving firearms or criminals which require an armed response beyond the capabilities of local law enforcement in Japan. Most information on the unit has been confidential, its existence officially revealed only in 1996.

Currently, SAT is officially known in Japanese as Special Unit (特殊部隊, Tokushu Butai^?) and individual teams officially take the name of the Metropolitan or Prefectural police departments to which they are assigned; an example would be Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Special Unit (警視庁特殊部隊, Keishicho Tokushu Butai^?, Metropolitan Police Department Special Unit) for the SAT assigned to the Tokyo Metropolitan Area.