NATO trains Iraqi medical officers in cooperation with Serbia
NATO continues to build Iraqi security forces capabilities. NATO partners are joining this important endeavour.
A three-week training course of medical experts from Iraq’s security forces started in early December in the Serbian Military Logistics Training Centre in Niš, Serbia. This effort is a follow-on to a previous initiative conducted in Germany in November. The course has been developed within the framework of the NATO Defence Capacity Building Initiative for Iraq. It is focused on developing a skills-set on trauma stabilization and ground-based casualty evacuation for a group of specialists from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interior, and the Counter-Terrorism Service. Serbian military medical officers are providing this training.
In addition to the military medical training, NATO is training instructors from Iraq’s security forces in the maintenance of Soviet-era armoured vehicles and in countering improvised explosive devices and the disposal of explosive ordnance. It is also providing support and advice in other areas, including civil-military cooperation, development of national security institutions, and civil emergency planning to deal with natural emergencies.