They are the president's hatchet men. Without them, Robert Mugabe would not last a day longer in office.
Welcome to the world of Emmerson Mnangagwa, General Constantine Chiwenga, Augustine Chihuri, Paradzai Zimondi, Perence Shiri and Gideon Gono. This junta, the Joint Operations Command (JOC), controls Zimbabwe.
When Mugabe lost control of parliament and it became clear that he was also losing the presidency to Morgan Tsvangirai after the poll on March 29, these six men hurriedly assembled around their octogenarian leader.
They accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission officials of inflating Tsvangirai's share of the vote in exchange for "British-paid bribes". They ordered the arrest of electoral officials and recounts in 24 constituencies, hoping these would reverse the takeover of parliament by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The recounts only confirmed the opposition's victory. But, though they could afford to let go of parliament, there was no way they were going to let go of the presidency as well.
So they unleashed the infamous Operation Makavhoterapapi (For whom did you vote?) in preparation for the presidential run-off, which had become necessary because neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai had mustered an outright majority in the first presidential poll.
Through a well-organised campaign of violence involving uniformed police and soldiers and thousands of Zanu-PF youth militias, they assured Mugabe that they would keep Zanu-PF in power.
The first indication that the JOC meant business came soon after March 29, when Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe as its chairperson.
A source said: "These six are running a regime within a regime. They are trying to run the election campaign as a military exercise rather than as a civilian process."
Emmerson Mnangagwa
If there should be an indictment in an international criminal court for the genocidal massacre of at least 20 000 Ndebele in southern Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, it would have to be that of Mnangagwa, 61, who was minister of state security at the time.
He has also been named in a United Nations report as being among those responsible for the widespread looting of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo during Zimbabwe's deployment there to prop up the regime of Laurent Kabila in the late 1990s.
Mnangagwa is all but assured of succeeding Mugabe when the latter eventually decides to go.
Perence Shiri
Shiri is the 53-year-old head of the Zimbabwe airforce and a veteran of Zimbabwe's independence struggle.
While Mnangagwa co-ordinated the work of the security forces in Matabele-land in the early 1980s, Shiri was in charge of the crack North Korean-trained unit, the Fifth Brigade, which did the killings.
The findings of the Chihambakwe Commission of Inquiry, instituted in 1982 to investigate the atrocities of the brigade, were never made public.
Constantine Chiwnga
Chiwenga is the commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Force, which has spearheaded the campaign of violence that has led to the deaths of 86 people, the displacement of more than 200 000 and serious injuries to 10 000. It was Chiwenga who selected the senior officials, who took charge of the terror campaign.
Augustine Chihuri
The only person to match Mugabe's rabid anti-opposition rhetoric is this 55-year-old commissioner-general of the Zimbabwe police. A longtime commissioner of the Zimbabwe police, Chihuri was promoted to "commissioner-general" recently as a thank-you for converting Zimbabwe's once promising police force into a military wing of Zanu-PF.
Chihuri was the brains behind Operation Murambatsvina (Drive out trash), which was condemned by the UN as a violation of international law after it left nearly a million people homeless.
Paradzai Zimondi
Zimondi, the director of the Zimbabwe Prisons Service, is also a retired senior airforce officer.
Together with Chihuri, Shiri and Chiwenga, he has made it clear that he will never salute a "sell-out", referring to Tsvangirai.
Zimondi personally leads the campaigns for Mugabe in barracks and police camps, and is credited with creating a campaign to force army and police officials to support Mugabe in early postal ballots. The ballots were filled out in front of designated army and police superiors.
Gideon Gono
The MDC has declared that, on assuming power, the first person it will arrest is this man, the chief of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
A close family friend of Mugabe, Gono is also Mugabe's personal banker and the man believed to know most about where the millions stolen by Mugabe and the military chiefs are stashed in Asia. Gono has kept Zimbabwe's money-printing machines running at top speed and is blamed for the country's hyper-inflation, calculated by banks at more than 14 million percent.
Though he has expressed mildly dissenting views occasionally, Gono's loyalty to Mugabe and the First Family remains unquestionable.