NATO-accredited C-IED Centre of Excellence hosts ‘Northern Solution’ exercise

• It is an exercise in preparation for international deployments and defence against terrorism.

The Improvised Explosive Device Centre of Excellence organised the Northern Solution exercise in Iceland. The exercise was conducted in parallel with the Northern Challenge, which is conducted annually by the Icelandic Coast Guard to prepare NATO Allies for international deployments and defence against terrorism.

During the two-week 'Northern Solution' participants improved their ability to respond to the threat of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in increasingly complex scenarios.

These scenarios have taken place at Iceland's Keflavik air base facilities and simulated hostile enemy environments where IED attacks could occur, linking force protection measures and activities targeting insurgent and terrorist networks to the intelligence cycle.

An observer from the Allied Joint Force Command (JFC) Brunssum was also present, with the aim of establishing the possibility of developing the exercise jointly in the future.

Iceland was the perfect scenario for conducting these exercises, both tactically and operationally, and for ensuring the readiness of the personnel of the various participating armies to respond to the threats posed by IEDs in real operations. Here, the ability of the Allies to act together to ensure the security of the Euro-Atlantic area was once again demonstrated.

Military interoperability is one of NATO's strengths and a pillar of its deterrence principle. The C-IED CoE continues to support such exercises with its expertise in line with Alliance objectives and in response to identified shortfalls in the C-IED discipline, for which the Centre is responsible in NATO's Global Education, Training, Instruction and Evaluation Programming System.

More information on the C-IED CoE is available at Home - C-IED COE (ciedcoe.org)