Maritime Interdiction Operation Course

The Maritime Interdiction Operation course took place in Souda Bay, Crete, Greece from 4th to 14th March 2014. This course was designed for instructors/trainers for operational maritime law enforcement skills of operational maritime police/coastguard/naval forces with a focus on maritime interdiction operations against piracy.

The team was trained to apply doctrine and Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs) in maritime interdiction operation in an effective and efficient way.

Participants had the opportunity to put into practice a full set of skills for dealing with compliant or non-compliant crew members and also arresting and searching techniques aboard merchant vessel and small boats.

More specifically, the trainees acquired knowledge and skills in the following areas:
a. Historical facts referring to the current situation of piracy.
b. Relevant information and updates concerning NATO, EU, third countries ongoing counter piracy operations.
c. Relevant legal issues concerning piracy.
d. Relevant information and updates about the Somalia piracy’s modus operandi and their effort to improve new TTPs IOT achieve their goal by defeating coalition used methods.
e. An up to date list of lessons learned derived from the experiences gained during the previous and ongoing deployments.
f. The latest proposal from the international community (as deriving form Best Management Piracy booklet) concerning all the possible passive measures to be taken in order to prevent pirates attack and in the case of an attack to have the best chances to repel it.
g. Practical training concerning all the necessary SOPs for safe approach and investigation of a small skiff incorporating extreme-CQB(Close Quarter Battle Techniques ) .
h. Practical training to execute a safe vessel embarkation using a RHIB, execute tactical sweep and room clearance procedures.

Funded by IMO through the Djibouti Code of Conducting (DCoC) project, the course attracted more than 15 participants from 15 different countries including EASF Member States’ navies and coast guard officers as well as EASF staff from the Maritime planning Cell.