Location: US
Website: http://www.marines.mil/
Type: Military
The United States Marine Corps is said to have recently developed a streamlined counter-IED course. This is to provide deploying units with more hands-on training and up-to-date intelligence tailored to the geographic area to which they’re headed.
With a specific Defeat the Device Branch and their emphasis on field practicing for C-IED operations, the course provides invaluable experience to marines before deployment.
The course trains the marines to:
- recognize IEDs and components
- react to set or detonated IEDs
- use detection and jamming equipment
- search buildings, vehicles and people.
The curriculum builds upon lessons learnt in Iraq and Afghanistan. The knowledge is then put to use in areas such as Iraq, where marines’ skills are used against ISIS whose use of IEDs is well-known, and in Peru, where they are training local troops to take on insurgents and cartels using IEDs.
The EOD techs in the field are said to be reliant on commercial x-ray equipment you can buy (expensively) off the shelf, and a robot considered in high demand is the iRobot 310 SUGV.
In the past the US Marines have carried out training for the Ugandan People’s Defense Force in Camp Singo, Uganda, and for Burundi with the Burundi National Defense Force, focused on IED detection techniques and safety.
They sometimes carryout bilateral exchanges of information and experience as part of training, such as with Brazilian marines, and with security forces from Romania.
In addition, the Marines provided training and assistance to the Afghan National Army, in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi security forces in Iraq.
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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