Somalia: ICITAP-Mentored Police Trainers Provide Weapons Handling Training to Fellow Officers

During the week of March 7, officers from the ICITAP Somalia-mentored Joint Investigation Team (JIT) and Surveillance Support Team (SST) provided much-needed firearms handling training to fellow officers at the JIT building in CID Headquarters and the SST base at the Police Information Unit (PIU) Villa in Mogadishu. The training officers had all recently qualified on the ICITAP Somalia-Train the Trainer (T3) course and were delivering supervised training as part of their development on the T3 pathway. JIT trainers utilized space on the roof of their building to carry out dry drills in how to safely prove their weapons and will develop these core competencies over several weeks, under mentor supervision. The training includes the handling of weapon malfunctions as well as other safe handling drills. SST T3 pathway officers held several sessions under mentor supervision in the yard of the PIU Villa to develop weapons handling skills of fellow officers and progressed to holding lessons unsupervised when operational commitments dictated. The trainers took videos of these sessions which were forwarded to the ICITAP mentor for him to critique and provide feedback on their training delivery. This is a great step forward for the tactical units mentored by ICITAP Somalia as they develop the skills to provide their own training and improve the ability of individual officers within their respective units. In Somalia, ICITAP works with the support of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism and the FBI.