WIT/SICA Experiment

WIT/SICAWIT/ SICA Experiment in conjunction with Exercise Toxic Valley 2018

The C-IED COE, acting as the Executing Agent, coordinated and led the Sampling and Identification of Chemical Agent (SICA) and Weapons Intelligence Team (WIT) Interoperability Experiment at the Zemianske Kostol’any training area in Slovakia from 16-21 Sep 2018. The Experiment was designed to exercise current SICA and WIT capabilities in order to test existing doctrine, procedures for interoperability, and to identify gaps that could inform further capability developments. The Experiment consisted of three SICA teams from Slovakia, Slovenia, and Austria, along with three WIT from Romania, Austria, and Spain. Additionally, there were 11 evaluators from the C-IED COE, JCBRN Defense COE, Romania, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy. The SICA and WIT teams completed three scenarios that exercised their capabilities in a chemical environment with evidence that required Level 1 exploitation. The first scenario was a chemical cache with three 122mm chemical projectiles alongside a number of IED components. The second scenario was a low order post blast in a market place with extensive nerve agent contamination throughout the scene along with multiple IED components near the blast seat. The third scenario was a chemical laboratory with a large quantity of toxic industrial chemicals and an extensive amount of exploitable materials such as media, DNA, documents, HME, IED components, and numerous tools. All the teams and evaluators performed extremely well, and the group concluded the Experiment with a First Impression Review (FIR) which included 16 observations and recommendations form the evaluators, and three observations and recommendations from the SICA and WIT team leaders. A final report will be sent to the Emerging Security Challenges Division (ESCD) Counter Terrorism (CT) Section for further distribution.

 

 

WIT 18.3

WIT 18.3WIT 18.3

The Third iteration of WIT VNCF 2018 took place between 11th September and 28th September in Szentendre, Hungary. The course was hosted by Hungarian Defence Forces NCO Academy (HDF NCOA), as part of the VNCF WIT Training 2017-2018 Executing Agent Agreement. This three week course starts with the theoretical foundations of the exploitation and proceeds with two weeks practical, allowing students to perform all the roles within a WIT team (Team leader, scribe, Photographer and collector). Students perform thoroughly several incidents, starting with receiving of the task, being deployed to incident site and conducting the scene investigation, producing WIT reports and finalizing next day with a debriefing. VNCF instrument has proven again being a very powerful tool to fulfill the NATO Operational requirements. The program allows nations to join in an international pool all the needed trainers (and related knowledge) filling the existing gaps in most nations without too much burden to each one.

 

 

Northern Challenge 18

Northern challenge 18Northern Challenge 18

The exercise NORTHERN CHALLENGE is a Multi-National Bomb Disposal Exercise which was conducted between 16th of September to the 27th of September. 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 and of those to be expected in future missions. IEDs in a maritime environment have proven to be a serious threat in various mission areas. The exercise area offers the opportunity to exercise maritime IEDD as a supplement to land based IEDD. 14 nations, the C-IED COE and EOD COE attended the exercise, with a total of 250 participants, 24 EOD teams, 2 search teams and 4 WIT operators. The teams had to deal with 590 devices, from which 315 land and 100 maritime. The aim of the exercise is to provide a unique possibility of pre-training mainly for IED teams serving, or being deployed, for international missions. C-IED COE has supported this exercise with subject matter expertise in various areas of the Counter IED domain.

 

 

Ardent Defender 18

Ardent defenderSupporting Training Activities

C-IED CoE participated with personnel from 1 – 19 October 2018 on the multinational exercise “ARDENT DEFENDER 2018” (AD 18). This exercise was organized by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Joint Counter Threat Task Force (JCET TF). All the activities were executed according to the scenario on Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden and 4th Canadian Division Training Center (4 CDTC) Meaford, Ontario. 400 participants from 24 nations had the opportunity to train and practice under a realistic and holistic scenario of Peace Support Operation. The objective of the AD 18 was to practice the cycle of exploitation from the lowest tactical up to higher operational level in an Area of Operation according to the scenario.

 

 

CSOC Course

CSOCCSOC

From 4-8 June 2018 the C-IED Staff Officers Course (CSOC) 18.2 was conducted in the C-IED COE in Madrid. The course teaches the students the basics to work in a tactical/operational level HQ and become the commanders C-IED subject matter expert. This was the second of three iterations in 2018. In total seven colleagues from the C-IED COE attended the course and accomplished the requirement for a C-IED COE member to have completed the CSOC. 24 students completed the course successfully. Compared to the usual training audience of the CSOC, the training audience this iteration had more NCOs and younger attendees than normal with lower rank. Also two representatives from the Guardia Civil attended the course with less military experience. This made the learning curve for the ‘average’ student very high. Also it showed the necessity to implement a general briefing with the introduction of an operational HQ. This is planned for future courses. .