NATO in major anti-terror drill

Be prepared. NATO holds its next major field test, “Trial Imperial Hammer” (TIH08) in Sardinia from 29 September to 15 October to demonstrate how the Alliance’s ability to share time-critical intelligence can better protect NATO forces and populations from terrorist attacks through better identification and tracking of enemy combatants.

Fifteen nations and ten NATO agencies are working together, under the auspices of NATO’s SIGINT Electronic Warfare Working Group, to use their collective expertise and assets to improve NATO’s counterterrorism capabilities. Units from the Navy, Special Operations Forces, Air Force (forty-six aircraft), and Army (twenty-five ground systems), consisting of more than 1,000 personnel in all, will take the next step in what the organizations hopes will be to ability to deliver important Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to NATO’s forces.

The drill commanders say that terrorists today use a myriad of means, including improvized explosive devices, to intimidate and destabilize civilian populations, as well as to attack military forces and non-military supporting organizations involved in reconstruction work. Sharing of intelligence on the modern battlefield is of paramount importance to NATO. It requires the fusing of information from a variety of technical and human sources. NATO demonstrations using realistic scenarios help facilitate Alliance forces interoperate in the field.

TIH08 will seek to forge together a joint all-source intelligence architecture combining land, maritime, airborne, space, and special operations assets to share signals and imagery intelligence to better exploit this information in the fight against terrorism. It will have specific implications for the NATO Response Force by developing methods for fusing and sharing time-critical information leading to improved Alliance’s situational awareness and combat readiness.