Background

Following the assassination of a British diplomat, Brigadier Stephen Saunders by the Greek terrorist group, November 17, on 9 June 2000 the US State Department wanted to provide Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT) to US embassy diplomatic staff deploying to Athens.

Additionally it wanted the provision of hands-on defensive driver training to the professional local national driving staff of the US, UK, and Canadian embassies.

In late June 2000 ArmorGroup International Training was contracted to deploy an assesment and training team team to Athens

ArmorGroup actions

ArmorGroup International Training deployed, at two days notice, a two man training team to Athens where they conducted training for a three week period.

The aim of the training was to to train and prepare US diplomats and their families to recognise and avoid potential threats and equip them to respond to any type of incident. The objective was to allow them to be able to carry out their tasks more securely and confidently.

ArmorGroup’s courses, which combined theory with relevant practical experience, were taught by operationally experienced and professionally qualified instructors and covered the following areas:

• Surveillance awareness.
• Protective security operations.
• Driver & accident awareness.
• Defensive driver training.
• Incident reaction skills.

Results

Over the three weeks the ArmorGroup training team trained over 150 embassy employees. The client realised the benefits and the importance of training to their embassy staff and no further incidents of this type occurred.

Several of the employees reported what appeared to be pre-operational surveillance directed against them and reported this to security officials, who took corrective action, thereby mitigating any further threat to the individuals.