MITIREL
Project Background
Implementation of the EU CBRN Action Plan, the EU Action Plan on enhancing the security of explosives and the European programme for critical infrastructure protection. The project aimed to increase EU preparedness in the management of attempts to release Chemical, Biological or Radiolgical materials using improvised explosive devices.
What was MITIREL about?
To improve coordination of specialized service, individual and team skills, in response to CBR-E incidents. The output also includes list of gaps and needs from the European member states perspective. The summary of the developments given during the final conference will produce proposals to narrow the gaps and build standardisation across the EU member states.
Why it was needed?
The need to address CBRN in a comprehensive way is emphasised the observed and growing interest by terrorists and criminals to acquire and use toxic chemicals, biological materials and the long tome concerns about using IEDs to disperse radioactive substances. CBR containing weapons would result in the need to manage widespread public fear, mass casualties and disruption of societal functions through contamination in addition to all ’typical’ crisis management problems.
Project Objectives
The project had four objectives:
1. to define curriculum and prepare training materials including lab, table top and field exercises
2. improve the individual skills and team cooperation when neutralizing IED loaded with C, B or R material through the conducted training
3. verification of cross-EU-Member States cooperation in response and cross-sector cooperation of all services involved in neutralising, risk mitigation (CBR and physical), investigating, cleanup, and managing consequences,
4. proposing standards for training curriculum and training facility setup tailored to average EU capacity
Outcomes
1. Creation of a training curriculum and content using experience gained during planning and participation in the NATO Advanced Training Course - Ref. ISEG.NUKR.ATC.984656. ATC NATO Course took place in Poland on May 26-30, 2014, which addressed the issues of explosives with chemical devices, following the concept created by International Centre for Chemical Safety and Security (ICCSS), one of the consortium members. The current program led the consortium under the guidance of those institutions brings in a relevant chemical, biological and radiological expertise, and concentrates CBR explosive devices.
2. Conduct of a pilot training for EOD specialists from Poland and Germany with the participation of the observers for the other EU member states. The training objectives are to build individual skills, team cooperation in multi EU national and team environment, in response to attempted CBR releases using explosive devices.
3. Analysis of the training’s conduct, improvement of the content of curriculum and plan a model training facility.
4. Conduct a training for EOD specialists from all EU member states based on the improved curriculum and equipment list of options.
MITREL developed and promoted ICCSS potential and experience of Table Top Exercise - TTX. The TTX, prepared and conducted, with the Government Center for Security of Poland, involved a a scenario where relevant agencies cooperated to eliminate an illegal site producing improvised explosive devices combined with a CBRN materials, for terrorist purposes.
Project Partners
