BKA and C-IED CoE representatives presented the Suicide Vests project based on a request from DEU Federal Police in Berlin at the Federal Police HQ on 28th February 2019. The Federal Police directorate 11 invited bomb technicians, superiors, GSG 9 and the protection directorate of BKA to this briefing.
Northern Challenge 19
The exercise NORTHERN CHALLENGE is a Multi-National Bomb Disposal Exercise at the top of Europe, which takes place at the Icelandic Coast Guard facility in Keflavik, Iceland. This year the exercise is scheduled in the period from the 8th of September to the 20th of September 2019. The purpose of Northern Challenge is to train response to real-life terrorist incidents involving improvised and military explosive devices, similar to those that have occurred in recent NATO missions. Harbor security and facility protection are factors that will be incorporated into this year´s edition of Northern Challenge. As the terrorist threat evolves and changes so, will the exercise try to foresee and challenge the participants in future IED problems around the globe. The initial planning conference (IPC) was conducted from 04 to 07 of March 2019. During the conference there have been discussed the organizational aspects needed for carrying out the exercise. The main planning conference will take place from 18 June to 21 June 2019
Annual Discipline Conference 2019
The 6th ADC was carried out on the 27th and 28th February 2019 in the C-IED COE facilities. There were 18 delegates participating from different NATO or national HQs and organizations that belong to the C-IED Community of Interest (CoI). The aim of this Conference was to inform the CoI about the status of existing NATO C-IED education and training (E&T) requirements (NETRs), discuss about the new propose NETRs and align C-IED E&T with the agreed training needs. The formal output of the ADC’19 is the (annual) Discipline Alignment Plan (DAP’19), which reflects the main developments and achievements of the C-IED discipline, and outlines the way ahead. ACT JFD (Joint Force Development Directorate; Education & Training Plans and Programmes) – dealing as an adapted branch to lead and manage NATO’s Global Programming Approach; develop future E&T policies, concepts, directives - will approve the DAP’19 and provide coordination if necessary.
Governing factors for the DAP’19 are NATO’s training needs based on:
The DAP’19 is going to serve as a request of the DH for assistance and as a coordination tool within the CoI.
In the current year, the (new) NATO Requirement Authority (RA) for C-IED, SHAPE STREN I&E (Infrastructure and Engineering) , presented two new potential NETR:
Finally, only the first was considered as a NETR and the DH of the C-IED Discipline will try to find a solution as soon as possible after a final update of the NETR through the RA.
WIT Refresher
The WIT refresher for instructors took place between 18-22 February 2019 in Soesterberg, Netherlands. The training was hosted by Dutch EODD, as part of the VNCF WIT Training 2019 Executing Agent Agreement. Besides the delivery of the new contents of the course, the training was designed so participants would spend some time discussing specific teaching strategies and creating a common understanding about the new teaching points. Several technical lectures were offered and discussed in the perspective of the implementation as Post-Blast collection and record (DMAT identification, crater analysis, collection in vehicles, infrastructures, dismounted personnel); Documents and Media Exploitation Techniques and procedures, including the awareness and manual extraction techniques in DOCEX, MEDEX and CELLEX; Unmanned Aircraft Systems exploitation; and finally Off-Scene DMAT processing techniques.
Cellular Exploitation Course
A member of the C-IED Centre of Excellence participated in a Course from 4th February to 15th February 2019 regarding “Cellular Exploitation”, as organized by NATO Special Forces Headquarters (NSHQ) in their training facilities sited in Chièvres Air Base in Chièvres, BELGIUM. The referred course provided with knowledge about:
In addition, this course has increased the level of experience of C-IED COE staff in an important and relevant area for C-IED when it comes to Technical Exploitation. As a result, the level of experience of our instructors has increased in the same positive way, in order to improve the quality of the training that the COE provide.