On June 3, the “European Guardian 24” exercise took place at the Austrian Post logistics center in Vienna-Inzersdorf. As part of the exercise, seven international military expert teams (including from Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and Ireland) trained in defusing explosive devices by hand. Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner visited the site to see for herself. Militär Aktuell was there.
Whether it was the right-wing extremist letter bomb attacker Franz Fuchs (several bombs from 1993 to 1997), the Islamist terrorist attacks in Istanbul (2003), London (2005), Mumbai (2008) or at Brussels Airport in 2016 – the threat of homemade bombs by terrorists is constantly increasing. In recent years, European security authorities have often only been able to locate and defuse bombs from attackers at the last second. This is not always possible using remote-controlled robots. In some cases, human experts, known as manual defusers, have to enter the immediate danger zone.
Austria has particular expertise in this area and trains specialists in this field throughout Europe. In cooperation with Österreichische Post AG, the detection, identification and defusing of various explosive devices has now been demonstrated at the logistics center in Inzersdorf. 30 to 40 manual disarmers from seven nations put their skills to the test. The name of the exercise: “European Guardian 24”.
“The Austrian Armed Forces has a capability for defusing explosive and incendiary devices with the manual defusing center ECMAN (European Centre for Manual Neutralization Capabilities). The aim is to strengthen the operational readiness of manual disarmers in Europe through regular exercises,” according to the Ministry of Defence.
Austria leads ECMAN, and Belgium, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and the Czech Republic are also part of the program, which in turn is part of the European Defence Agency.
Defence Minister Klaudia Tanner took the opportunity to attend the exercise and have the details explained to her in detail: “The ECMAN program is of crucial importance for the Austrian Armed Forces: cooperation at European level makes it possible to pool and deploy expertise from different nations, including in the context of assistance missions. I am therefore all the more pleased that the program is under Austrian leadership and that the Austrian Armed Forces can pass on its expertise to international hand defusers.”
As part of the exercise on Monday, realistic scenarios were played out in various urban environments – from industrial complexes or subways to critical infrastructure, including the postal logistics center. Austrian Post CEO Peter Umundum also emphasized the need for professional defusing teams and stressed the many years of good cooperation with the Austrian Armed Forces on many levels.
As the highlight of the exercise, a team from the Czech armed forces demonstrated the defusing of a parcel bomb which (fictitiously) contained chemical warfare agents as well as “classic” explosives. ECMAN commander, Colonel Jürgen Pirolt (-> Interview with Militär Aktuell), commented on the demonstration and pointed out, among other things, how important a steady hand and stress resistance are for the work of a manual defuser.
Realistic exercise scenario
The Czech defusing team consisted of two expert soldiers. The two men first fixed the suspicious parcel to a metal crate so that they could work in the most “comfortable” posture possible. They then carefully examined the mail item in detail using the latest technology, including an endoscope camera. Only then did the defusers decide how to proceed. Once they knew what the inside of the package looked like, they cut it open with a scalpel. Unlike in Hollywood action films, they didn’t have beads of sweat on their foreheads, because calm and level-headedness are the foundation on which the expertise of the manual defusers is based.
As the final step of the primary defusing operation, the Czech experts removed the explosives and the container with the chemical warfare agent and stored both components of the (fictitious) explosive device in different locations. In the real case, the substances would then have been disposed of professionally.
In many cases, the expert defusing of bombs by manual defusers also serves the further legal prosecution of the attackers. This is because valuable information such as the design features of the bomb and possibly also fingerprints and DNA traces are preserved for the investigators of the executive and judiciary.
Incidentally, the Czech defusers, who had traveled to Vienna especially for the exercise, were also trained by their Austrian comrades from the Austrian Armed Forces.
