Experts from 16 EU Member States have completed the second Homemade Explosives Training for EU experts at the Curragh Camp at the Irish Department of Defence Ordnance School.
The course, run jointly by the European Defence Agency and Europol, was attended by 32 participants from across Europe. The course focused on identifying, processing, and disposing of homemade explosives that can be found in improvised laboratories used by criminals or terrorists. It built on the experiences of the first course, which was held in June this year.
The cooperation between EDA and Europol reflects the need for a combined civil-military approach to the threat not only of homemade explosives but the whole C-IED spectrum. This approach helps to ensure that there are clear lines of communication between the two and the need to share skills and experiences among military and civilian law enforcement agencies. As part of the course a distinguished visitors day was help on November 13.
Participants from a total of 21 Member States have taken part in Home Made Explosives courses in 2014. The course allows students to share expertise and knowledge amongst students, and highlight the added value that a Civil/Military approach can bring.
Working with the United States
The course also showed the increasingly close ties between EU and US actors in the field of explosives security and safety issues with participation and support from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), National Center For Explosives Training And Research (NCETR) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
EDA maintains a rounded approach to tackling Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). This includes work on Manual Neutralisation, disposing of devices manually when the situation is too dangerous or device too complicated to defuse with robots, with training courses being run in Austria. EDA is also working on exploitation of explosive devices, analysing the events and materials from an IED attack, to help reveal and target the makers of the explosives. In order to support this work a Joint Deployable Exploitation Analysis Laboratory, known as JDEAL, has been set up in the Netherlands.
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