6th African Union - NATO Military to Military Staff Talks

The C-IED COE participated in the 6th African Union (AU) – NATO Military to Military Staff Talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 14-15 May 2019. The AU delegation was led by Major General Trust Mugoba, Chief of Staff for the African Standby Force and the NATO delegation was headed by Major General Jan Toft the Director of the IMS Cooperative Security Division.

The delegation discussed a number of topics that included the AU Conflict and Early Warning Division, Individual Courses and Mobile Training Teams (MTTs) for 2020, Regional Exercises in 2020, Trident Jackal 2019 and 2020 NATO Exercises, African Standby Force leadership training, NATO Centers of Excellence, Counter Terrorism, C-IED, Security Sector Reform (SSR), Building Integrity, Lessons Learned, and a multitude of other topics.

The NATO delegation identified 19 actions to be carried back to NATO Headquarters for action with one specifically related to C-IED. The AU will invite NATO to provide input to the development of the AU C-IED strategy, as part of consultations with international partners, before a validation meeting tentatively scheduled in September 2019.

At the conclusion of the event, Major General Toft conducted a back brief with the NATO Working Group along with Defense Attachés and Military Advisors that support military efforts within the AU. Additionally, the NATO Counter Terrorism Section discussed Countering Improvised Explosive Devices, Security Sector Reform and Building Integrity as promising areas of collaboration between NATO and the AU.

A future meeting is being planned for AU representatives to meet in Brussels at the NATO Headquarters to continue enchancing the NATO-AU relationship.

Northern Challenge 19 Main Planning Conference

The exercise Northern Challenge is a multi-national bomb disposal exercise at the top of Europe, which will take place at the coast guard facility in Keflavik, Iceland. This year is the exercise is scheduled from 8th of September to the 20th September 2019. The purpose of Northern Challenge is to train response to real- life terrorist incidents involving improvised and military explosives devices, similar to those that have in recent NATO missions.

The main planning conference (MPC) was conducted from 18 to 20 of June 2019. During the conference there have been finalized the last points for the preparation of the EX NC 19. At the same time, bomb building seminar was conducted. The different nations supported this seminar and manufactured more than 400 different IEDs which will be used during the EX NC 19.

16th Annual International Meeting of EOD and Bomb Technicians – INMEP 2019

The C-IED COE participated in the 16th Annual International Meeting of EOD and Bomb technicians – INMEP 2019 in the Czech Republic from 02 -07 June 2019. This event was organized and led by the 15th Engineer Regiment of the Czech Republic Armed Forces. The INMEP is a unique event which offers every participant the opportunity to share their experience directly with other specialists and subject matter experts (EOD and Bomb technicians in particular), along with researchers and industry representatives. During the meeting there was the opportunity to experience introduction and demonstrations of new developed field equipment, explosives and related procedures.

5th Meeting - SET-298: Identification and Neutralization Methods and Technologies for C-IED

The 5th meeting of the SCI-298 Research Task Group (RTG), “Identification and Neutralization Methods and Technologies for C-IED,” was held at the USA Consulate General in Frankfurt, Germany on 8-9 May 2019. The meeting included a total of 10 participants representing 6 nations, DEU, FRA, NLD, TUR, USA, and 3 NATO Centres of Excellence (COEs), Counter-IED (C-IED) COE, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) COE, and Military Engineering (MilEng) COE.

Most of this meeting was spent accomplishing the assessment of both identification and neutralization for one scenario/threat. After the assessment, it was decided to pare down the list which resulted in ten scenario/threat combinations. The RTG also discussed the final report and its classification. User input on technologies was debated but a path forward was not finalized, only that the RTG would not engage the user community at the C-IED COE TW. The group is progressing but will probably not be completed in the three year allotted timeframe so an extension will be requested by the chairperson.