FERIZAJ, Kosovo – Outside a government building in Kosovo, a crowd of angry protesters gathered making demands to the local police. As the crowd intensified in size and hostility, the police called the riot control responders to help assist in securing the building.
As rocks, tear gas and Molotov cocktails were thrown back and forth; the intense responders took quiet comfort in knowing that this was only an exercise intended to train them for the real thing.
Kosovo Force Soldiers, along with local regional police and European Union Rule of Law Mission, or EULEX, forces, conducted five-day riot control event, named Operation Stonewall, in Ferizaj, Kosovo Aug. 25-29.
The event was supported and conducted by Multinational Battle Group-East and the MNBG-E commander said the event’s purpose was to develop a better understanding of how each agency operates.
“Operation Stonewall was held between the Kosovo Police, EULEX and KFOR to make sure we understand how each unit responds for crowd and riot control events,” said U.S. Army Col. Charles T. Hensley, 504th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade commander.
Hensley added this exercise, while similar to KFOR’s Silver Saber event, is unique due to its focus on Gjilan and Ferizaj. These are two of the closest major cities to Camp Bondsteel and, historically, have had less civil disturbances than cities in the northern region.
“What’s different is we’re focusing on two of seven regional police partners to conduct this training. The Gjilan and Ferizaj police are out here with the idea that anything can happen anywhere in Kosovo and we have to be flexible to reinforce our partners as required,” Hensley said.
Four days of the training dealt with classroom instruction and lane event training. The last day was a full-scale event designed to give those involved the realistic feel of an actual riot. MNBG-E forces got in on the action as the Polish contingent provided the third responders, U.S. forces operated as evaluators and safeties, and German soldiers served as very capable rioters.
Austrian Army Brig. Gen. Anton Wessely, Kosovo Forces Deputy Commander, said that this idea had been in development for some time and KFOR coordinated with the Battle Group commanders to come up with the training.
“We started a few months ago. The idea was to come together and develop training to keep up the responders’ high capabilities and to improve them,” he said.
Hensley added that working in cooperation with police and EULEX is vital to providing Kosovo a safe environment to move from one place to the other without hindrance.
“As the Kosovo police have become more mature over time, it was important for us to get out and conduct some training with them to make sure that we understood how they viewed their problems and how we could help them if we needed to,” Hensley said. “When you think about first, second and third responders, if you don’t know how the other units are responding, you’re not going to be very good at reinforcing them.”
With events like Operation Stonewall, Wessely hopes a channel of communication will develop between the regional police forces and they can begin training for riot control events without the help of KFOR.
“A positive development in this exercise is that this is not only a KFOR-specific event. Any time local training is needed, the institutions can invite each other and execute the training,” Wessely said.
Date Taken: | 09.02.2014 |
Date Posted: | 09.02.2014 10:40 |
Story ID: | 140947 |
Location: | ZZ |
Web Views: | 141 |
Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Operation Stonewall helps train regional police in Kosovo, by SFC Carlos Burger, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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