Highly skilled teams of DS special agents assigned to the Office of Mobile Security are deployed worldwide to respond to security emergencies, augment DS protective details under particular threat, and provide specialized counterterrorism and personal security training at U.S. missions.
Mobile tactical support teams are dispatched for emergency security support to posts abroad during periods of high threat, crisis, or natural disaster. With less than 24-hours notice, teams can be dispatched to protect official Americans and provide additional security in high threat areas. Teams have been on site in Kabul and Jerusalem continuously since 2002. Teams have also accompanied special White House envoys to Afghanistan and negotiators to the Middle East.
In the United States, tactical teams are trained in skills necessary for countering hostile actions directed against individuals under the protection of the U.S. Government. Mobile tactical teams routinely enhance the protective detail of the Secretary of State and have supplemented the protection of such high-risk protective details as those for Yassir Arafat, Salman Rushdie, and Nelson Mandela.
Teams also offer training at Foreign Service posts on a variety of security topics, both on a scheduled and an emergency basis. Training at U.S. embassies benefit all of a mission's personnel, including: American employees and their families, Foreign Service national employees, local guards, the U.S. business community, and schools. Subjects taught include: personnel security, counterterrorism techniques, defensive driving, firearms usage, surveillance detection, rape awareness, and carjacking avoidance. Training in emergency medical (safehaven) care is also offered. Marine Security Guards and local guards are given specialized training to suit the demands of their often dangerous responsibilities.
