The survival of animals is determined by their ability to cope with danger. As such, mechanisms regulating emotions such as fear and anxiety are crucial. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) is a key structure involved in the regulation of those emotional processes. Within the BLA, excitatory principal neurons are responsible for the encoding and relay of emotionally relevant information to other brain structures while GABAergic interneurons, despite being a minority, tightly regulate their activity. Among the key interneuron classes, parvalbumin-expressing (PV) interneurons have been shown to be involved in the regulation of anxiety and fear-related behaviors. PV interneurons are comprised of two main cell types: basket cells (BCs) and axo-axonic cells (AACs). Their distinct post-synaptic targets and previous work in anesthetized rodents suggest that these cell types may play specialized roles in controlling fear-related behavior. Here, we leverage the development of a novel transgenic mouse line that allows the selective genetic targeting of BLA AACs and BCs, to record and optogenetically manipulate these interneurons during behavior. The results show that AACs and BCs are distinctly recruited during anxiety and fear-related behaviors, suggesting that distinct PV interneuron types of the BLA play different and complementary roles in network regulation. This work provides the first evidence for a contribution of specific GABAergic cell types (beyond classes) to the encoding of emotional states.