The Objective is Prevention

The event was attended by different units of the HDF. The seminar was opened by Col. István Topor, the chief of the HDF JFC Peace Support Operation Branch. In his speech Col. Juan Enrique Gomez-Martin, the C-IED COE’s director drew attention to the IED threat that is still a danger to our solders in their missions. As he described, the IED threat no longer exclusively belongs in the area of deployed operations abroad; and not only the combatants and insurgents build and use these weapons. Unfortunately, nowadays, building an IED from different household items is also increasingly common in our homelands, and in contrast with experience gained in recent years these devices are used not only for ideological reasons against military but also against civilian targets.

Col. Gomez also emphasized that the homemade explosives are often used by terrorist groups, insurgents and ordinary criminals. For that reason, national law enforcement and military by themselves are not able to eliminate the IED threat. The only solution is the interagency approach within the alliance and also among our nations, because only a common intent and methodology can provide appropriate results against the attacks that happened in Spain or Budapest in the past.

One of the COE director’s solutions is prevention. It is very difficult to stop a planned and prepared IED attack because building an IED does not require special materials. For that reason, it is more important for nations and the alliance to use effective intelligence and counter the network activities to interdict the planning, building, emplacing of the device and the execution of an attack, instead of focusing on the IED itself.

The role of the C-IED COE is to collect and analyze the lessons learned, disseminate relevant information among NATO countries and bring the nations’ knowledge to the same level with common understanding to mitigate the effect of an IED event.

Maj Gusztáv Könyves, the C-IED Subject Matter Expert (SME) of the HDF JFC underlined that every time when an IED event occurs, lots of people think immediately that this is a task only for EOD personnel. However, the reality is that this task demands a much more complex and well-coordinated approach. That is the main reason for all HDF units to facilitate conferences like this Senior Leadership Seminar. Maj Könyves pointed out that there have been similar strategic C-IED conferences and meetings in Hungary in the past; however, this is the first time that the HDF JFC has organized this seminar. “This indicates that we are able to conduct C-IED seminars at the operational and tactical levels. The participants of this seminar came from those positions in units where they may deal with the C-IED tasks on a daily basis, with which they can support effectively the decision-making process and the commander’s job."

The Hungarian Defence Forces, including the HDF JFC, have a really good relationship with the C-IED COE, as there have been many training events in Hungary attended by the COE personnel, and the HDF are able to delegate students and instructors to the education and training events held at the COE in Madrid. In the COE there has been a Hungarian senior officer for years, in this period Lt.-Col Levente Tábi is assigned to the COE, in the Prepare the Force Branch. During the presentations, besides the current C-IED status, the activities planned for the near future were also discussed. The last presentation of the seminar was delivered by Maj. Krisztián Végh (HDF General Staff Operations Directorate (GS J3)), in which he provided an overview of the HDF’s current C-IED capability and the future development plans and progress.
 

Photos by the author