Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany — Security experts from around the world capped off a five-week academic course in counterterrorism with a first-hand look at the efforts of their Israeli and Jordanian counterparts, during a week-long field study conducted by the Marshall Center June 22-29.
Jordan’s 71st Counter Terrorism Battalion, Special Operations Command, demonstrates the rescue of hostages from a moving bus in Amman June 26. The demonstration took place during a week-long field study in Israel and Jordan conducted by the Marshall Center’s Program in Terrorism and Security Studies. Sixty-seven security experts from 51 countries completed the five-week counter terrorism course with a first-hand look at the efforts of their Israeli and Jordanian counterparts.
Photo by Jaroslav Pata
The field study was the first to such a volatile region for the Center’s Program in Terrorism and Security Studies. The PTSS focuses on developing a common understanding of terrorism to improve international cooperation against the threat. Sixty-seven officials from 51 countries graduated from the course June 30.
“The purpose of the field study was to allow participants to see the great pains that these two countries, Israel and Jordan, go through to protect their citizens,” said PTSS Director Nick Pratt. “Both countries are frontline states in the struggle against terrorism and both have enormous experience, successes and failures. They highlighted both success and failure.”
The field study began with an examination of the strategic importance of Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, which included visits to sites along the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Green Line. Speakers including the Israeli Vice Prime Minster and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Deputy Minster of Defense, Dr. Ephraim Sneh, and the commander of the Royal Jordanian Special Operations Command, Brig. Gen. Jamal Al-Shawabkeh, discussed their views of the regional terrorism threat.
“One of the highlights of the visit was the meeting with the Israeli foreign minister, in which she spoke with us uninterrupted for an hour in a manner more candid than any of us had experienced. She was very frank and open,” Pratt said.
“The other was the briefing by Brig. Gen. Jamal Al-Shawabkeh, the commander of the Jordanian Special Operations Command. We also witnessed a demonstration by the 71st Counter Terrorism Battalion, which is the premier counter terrorism unit in the region.”
Pratt had been planning this trip since he conceived of the PTSS course in 2003, along with Dr. Boaz Ganor, the Executive Director of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism and the Deputy Dean of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy in Herzliya, Israel. Pratt credits Ganor and the commander of the 71st Counter Terrorism Battalion with organizing a field study that gave course participants a first-hand look at the conditions, incidents and countermeasures that many know only through news reports.
“Every course concludes with a visit to a country,” Pratt said. “When participants come [to the Marshall Center], they hear about German and American counterterrorism policies and about the policies of a number of other countries as the participants talk about their countries’ policies formally and informally. Then [the participants] visit a country and see its policy in action. It’s not theoretical at that point.”
Pratt noted that the participants, who came from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and North and South America, were overwhelmingly positive about trip. They credited it with breaking down barriers to understanding even more than past trips, Pratt said.
“It was significant, the Israelis inviting a group that includes Arab participants, and Jordan inviting a group that includes Israelis. The whole concept of the PTSS focuses on the creation of an international global network of counterterrorism specialists with common grounds of knowledge and understanding.”
Text: By Anne Fugate - George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies
