Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) trained U.S. and Moroccan forces in urban operations in Tifnit, Morocco, from April 22 to April 24, 2017.
The training was conducted as part of Exercise African Lion, the largest operation of its kind conducted on the African continent.
“It’s great to see everyone’s different perspectives on the same approach,” said U.S. Army Spc. Nathan Brown, a military policeman with the 805th Military Police (MP) company from Cary, North Carolina. “It also provides an opportunity for us to see what we have in common.”
In addition to the U.S. Army MP unit, U.S. Marine MP Company B, 4th Law Enforcement Battalion, and the Royal Morocco Armed Forces took part in the training.
The urban operations training was led by Marine Sgt. Jaimen Granados from the A 3rd FAST in Norfolk, Virginia.
The training took on a crawl, walk, run approach.
The FAST started by demonstrating the proper techniques for entering and clearing different types of rooms and hallways, explaining why they took each approach.
Next, the instructors allowed the troops to proceed through rooms created by connected tape on posts, allowing everyone to witness how each group conducted its clearing operations. The instructors also made on-the-spot corrections.
After a few hours, the military units moved inside a concrete building full of cut-outs representing hostile and non-hostile persons. Every other room had instructors in them to ensure correct clearing of the rooms.
To increase interoperability, the four-person teams rotated members between the U.S. and Moroccan troops.
“All of the forces are greatly motivated, which makes training like this more efficient and makes it easier to overcome the language barrier,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Jarrel, an instructor with FAST.
“It’s good to see the different forces integrating together,” said Jarrel.