Location: Washington D.C.
Website: http://www.state.gov/m/ds/terrorism/c8583.htm
The Office of Antiterrorism Assistance is a part of the US Department of State. It provides training and assistance to civilian security and law enforcement personnel from states friendly to the USA, largely developing nations lacking the necessarily resources to launch their own programs. This is accomplished through the Antiterrorism Assistance Program (ATAP), which works with the host country’s government and a team from the country’s US mission to develop the most effective training for bomb detection, crime scene investigation, airport and building security, maritime protections, and VIP protections. Since its inception in 1983, the ATAP has trained and assisted over 84,000 foreign security and law enforcement officials from 154 counties.
ATA training seeks to address deficiencies noted in the ability to perform the following areas:
- Protecting national borders
- Protecting critical infrastructure
- Protecting national leadership
- Responding to and resolving terrorist incidents
- Managing critical terrorists incidents having national-level implications
All ATA assistance is designed to support US counterterrorism objectives whilst also meeting specific in-country needs. ATA assesses and then quantifies the partner nation’s counterterrorism capabilities and then develops a country assistance plan, which identifies US national security interests in relation to the participating nation, provides an overview of the terrorist threat to those interests, and lays out a multi-year plan of training, consultations, equipment grants, and assessment to address those concerns.
This profile is part of AOAV’s investigation into counter-IED (C-IED) actors around the globe. To see the list of all C-IED actors recorded by AOAV, see here. To see those engaged in the Middle East, the Sahel, North Africa or other highly impacted countries please see here, here, here, and here respectively. This research was made possible by funding from the NATO Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Centre of Excellence (C-IED COE). To read the full report, ‘Addressing the threat posed by IEDs: National, Regional and Global Initiatives’, see here.
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