A SPEAR team member assigned to Embassy Niamey does pull-ups during the 2022 SPEAR Summit Challenge in Thiès, Senegal, in December 2022. Photo by Vince Crawley
By Vince Crawley
The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Office of Antiterrorism Assistance (ATA), in coordination with Embassy Dakar’s Regional Security Office (RSO), co-hosted the third Summit Challenge, an international training and competition event with 55 tactical police officers from nine nations across Africa. Most participants were from quick response forces that protect U.S. diplomats under ATA’s Special Program for Embassy Augmentation and Response (SPEAR).
The SPEAR Summit Challenge took place at the Bureau of Counterterrorism-funded Regional Tactical Training Center in Thiès, co-located with a Senegalese military compound about 35 miles west of the capital, Dakar, Nov. 28 to Dec. 4, 2022.
The SPEAR program trains and mentors host nation police and security officers to U.S. standards when they are assigned to protect U.S. embassies and consulates in high-risk nations. SPEAR team sizes range from 18 officers to more than 60.
Summit Challenge participants included nine SPEAR teams from Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria (Embassy Abuja and Consulate Lagos), and South Sudan. Senegal—an active ATA partner nation—does not currently participate in the SPEAR program but sent two tactical security units to join the training: the National Police Intervention Brigade and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group. Each team sent five officers, a team commander, and an American tactical mentor.
Supervisory Special Agent Frank Bowen, chief of the ATA Specialized Programs Division, described the American mentor—typically a military combat veteran or former tactical police officer—as the backbone of the SPEAR program. This individual shares tactical knowledge and ongoing training and serves as an essential link in the relationship between the SPEAR team and the embassy or consulate RSO.
“Seeing firsthand how proficiently and professionally these police officers operate was truly amazing,” said Bowen. “What was even more impressive was how SPEAR teams from different countries engaged and interacted with each other. The bonds and relationships they built will continue to grow and flourish long after the dust settles on the fields of the Summit Challenge.”
The 2022 Summit Challenge included tactical challenges that mirrored real-life missions, such as emergency rescue of hostages and injured persons, marksmanship events that required officers to avoid hitting nearby civilians, and using critical thinking skills during high-stress emergencies. The event kicked off with an in-depth discussion on human rights and professional conduct and concluded with a strenuous endurance test that incorporated weightlifting, carrying and pulling heavy loads, and rushing a simulated casualty to safety. The weeklong activities also allowed teams from across Africa to socialize and trade knowledge and experiences.
The training is derived from real-world events. For example, two members of the Kenya SPEAR team were wounded while on a Kenyan police task force that routed al-Shabaab terrorists during the 2019 DusitD2 hotel attack in Nairobi. The Mali SPEAR team underwent baptism by fire in 2015 when, shortly after the team was created, the SPEAR officers, DSS special agents, and Department of Defense personnel responded to a terrorist attack at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, helping to evacuate more than a dozen Americans, including embassy staff.
In recognition of the dangerous duties performed by SPEAR teams, several of the 10 events are named in honor of fallen officers. 1st Lt. Jean Marie dit Kara Kara Diembele and Staff Sgt. Mamourou Doumbia were called away from their SPEAR duties in Bamako, Mali, for frontline service in the Malian national guard when they were killed in a firefight in early 2022. Both were key members of their team, and both participated in previous Summit Challenges. Senegalese officer Oumar Ndour died of natural causes shortly after competing in the 2019 Summit Challenge, and his preschool-age daughter presented the awards for the 2022 Oumar Ndour Endurance Challenge, a grueling team fitness test.
This was the third Summit Challenge. The first took place in Kenya in December 2018. The second took place in Senegal in 2019. Planned challenges for 2020 and 2021 were postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions.
Participating teams were presented with hard-earned event trophies in the 2022 competition. Kenya took home the Summit Challenge Cup for top team.
“The Summit Challenge is more than just this week,” DSS Supervisory Special Agent Lee Gitschier, ATA SPEAR branch chief, said during the final day of the event. “Many of these teams had a selection process to make the cut to attend the Summit Challenge, because only five officers per team could come. The selection processes in many cases took months. These teams trained hard to get here and gave it their all while they were here. And I told them earlier, the Summit Challenge doesn’t end here. They need to take the lessons learned and motivation back to their teams in their respective countries.”
Key aspects of the event were knowledge-sharing and international cooperation, both of which were necessary to complete the exhausting, mentally demanding training and competitions.
“These teams came well-prepared and gave it their all,” Gitschier said. “I heard someone say earlier, they left their hearts out here.”
View a video of the 2022 SPEAR Summit Challenge here.
Vince Crawley is the strategic planning coordinator in the Office of Antiterrorism Assistance.
